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  “I know.” He held up his hands palm first. “I fucked up.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Sylvie said.

  “You ever think of calling in help before you’re hip deep in shit?” Ryder asked.

  Defensiveness hunched up his shoulders. “Like you’re one to talk.”

  Ryder didn’t have a quick retort for that one. It hadn’t been that long ago that he’d had to call in all the favors he could to get his old hostage rescue team to fly to The Andol Republic without any notice and save her bacon—not to mention that of her fiancé, Devin. But he’d done it because she’d been a friend in need. And now it was his turn to ask for his friends to call in some markers. If he had to admit his culpability to do that, so be it.

  “You’re right, but I promise it was the best of two shitty options.” He lowered his voice so only Sylvie and Ryder would hear what came next. “I’ve outrun trouble my entire life, but this wasn’t about that. It was about saving Drea.”

  “So stop running.” Sylvie jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “Stand your ground.”

  “Ain’t nothing gonna stop me.” And it wouldn’t. He’d never let it again. “But I’m doing it alone. I just need you guys to help me get the details right. I can’t ask you to put your lives and freedom on the line for me.”

  “Screw that,” Ryder said. “This is you and Drea we’re talking about. You’re family.”

  The declaration hit Cam dead on. Besides the judge and Reggie, he’d never really had a family before—at least not one like this. He looked around the room at the Maltese Team and the stubborn determination to help he saw on all their faces nearly leveled him.

  “Whether you want to be or not,” Sylvie added. She turned to Alex and Roscoe. “Don’t you agree?”

  The guys both agreed.

  “Glad to hear it.” Sylvie nodded, still not smiling at him but not glaring daggers either.

  “Now that the touchy feely crap is out of the way, can we get down to business?” Lee poured himself a cup of coffee.

  Cam made short work of bringing the team up to speed on everything that had happened since Natasha Orton died.

  “Reggie’s watching over her while she’s in the holding cell tonight, but if we don’t get her out of police custody tomorrow, Diamond Tommy will get to her in county.” The idea set off Cam’s gag reflex. “He’ll pay off the guards to look the other way and she’ll be lucky if she makes it a week.” Cam’s stomach shriveled at the thought. “We’ve got to get to her before he does.”

  “So we post bail.” Roscoe’s solution was as straight to the point as the Southern transplant.

  If only it was that easy.

  Cam shook his head. “She’s accused of a high-profile murder and was already on the run. There’s no way any judge will grant her bail. We have to bust her out.”

  “Are you completely insane?” Lee pushed back from the table, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “I totally understand if you want to back out now.” Drea’s life hung in the balance and he’d do anything to save her, but he couldn’t ask anyone else to risk their future for them.

  “Fuck that,” Ryder snapped. “I’m in.”

  Sylvie and Roscoe nodded their agreement.

  Lee opened his mouth and then slammed it shut like he was sucking lemons. The silence hung in the room unanswered until the other man’s face relaxed. “So do you have a plan?”

  “Hell yes.” For once, he did. Cam brought up the maps app on the laptop. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  …

  Hours later, Drea’s jailhouse anxiety had mellowed, thanks in no small part to knowing Cam was alive. Her heart slowing to the steady beat of the other women’s snores as they slept with the back of their heads resting against the cement wall. The drunk girl, Caitlyn, had slowed her monologue as she’d sobered up. Now she just sat next to Drea with her eyes half shut.

  “I think everyone’s asleep,” she mumbled, her lips barely moving.

  “Looks like it,” Drea said, her own eyelids drooping lower.

  “By the way.” Caitlyn slid closer, hung an arm around Drea’s shoulders, and pressed something sharp into her rib. “Tommy says goodbye.”

  Shock froze her to the spot, but the sharp pain of the blade piercing her skin revived her. She squirmed in her seat, tried to get away—

  “Oh no, honey.” Caitlin clamped down on Drea’s shoulders, and her nails dug into her flesh. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “That’s what you think.” Drea jammed her elbow into the other girl’s side and sprang up from the bench.

  She spun around fast, tried to stay aware of the other women in the cell at the same time as she kept her focus on Caitlyn.

  “You’re going down anyway, honey.” The other woman got up slow from her spot on the bench. The same place where she’d sat for the past three hours with Drea. “It might as well be me who gets the twenty grand for doing ya.”

  Drea slid her gaze along the women waking up around them. Would any of them help? From their blank stares, she guessed not.

  She shuffle-stepped out of Caitlyn’s reach, wishing like hell she’d taken Ryder up on her offers to teach Drea some fighting moves. She snuck a quick glance up at the security camera.

  Come on. Someone look at the camera and get in here!

  “Don’t go looking for help.” Caitlyn’s too-sweet tone mocked Drea’s fear. “No one will get here in time.”

  “But there are witnesses.” Drea kept moving as she watched the small blade sticking out from Caitlyn’s cocktail ring.

  “Do you really think they give a fuck?” The other woman laughed. “If I don’t get you, one of them will for the cash and the get out of jail free card Diamond Tommy is offering.”

  Shouts echoed in the cell. Not for them to stop, but encouraging Caitlyn to “gut the bitch.”

  Caitlyn went right. Drea dodged left. Where were the cops? There was no way they couldn’t hear the yelling.

  She backed up, and someone in the crowd circled around them, shoved her back into the center.

  Blood trickled down her abdomen from Caitlyn’s earlier slash, but the throbbing pain wasn’t her biggest worry right now. If she didn’t do something, she was going to die. But she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  She rushed Caitlyn, grabbed the other woman’s arm. They wrested for control of the ring. Drea slammed Caitlyn’s hand against the floor and banged it against the cement as hard as she could until the ring slipped from Caitlyn’s fingers.

  A loud buzz sounded, and—finally—cops rushed in.

  The cell door opened, and hands grabbed her from behind, yanked Drea off her opponent and dragged her out of the cell.

  “Not the way to make a good impression before your arraignment,” Reggie grumbled as he gripped her upper arm tight. “I’m taking this one to the nurse’s station to get cleaned up. Then it’s a single cell for her before she attacks someone else.”

  She pressed against the cut along her ribs. “I didn’t—”

  “I know,” he whispered close to her ear. “But if you’re going to make it through the night, I need a solid reason to separate you.”

  Relief slowed the adrenaline flowing through her veins. “Thank you.”

  He kept his face forward as he marched her through the security door. “Thank Cam. If it wasn’t for the fact that he believes in you for some fool reason, you’d be in a pool of your own blood by now.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Creativity is your best makeup skill. Don’t be afraid to experiment.” - Pat McGrath

  The wires sizzled under the late model SUV’s steering column. After a few moments, the engine roared to life. Cam hadn’t stolen a car since high school, but he still had it when it mattered. Now to get this car out of the airport’s economy parking lot before the wrong person saw them.

  “You ready to do this?” he asked his passenger.

  “I’m as ready to go as a teenage boy on prom night.”
Roscoe adjusted his black ski mask so it could be pulled down into place at a moment’s notice.

  “Thanks for the visual.” Cam pulled out of the parking spot and followed the arrows out of the lot. He tapped the mic hooked to his bulletproof vest.

  “What?” came the immediate response.

  That Lee was such a charmer.

  “We have forty-five minutes to get to the intercept spot and hit the prisoner transport bus. You good to go?”

  “In a second.” A quick fizz sounded followed by an engine’s purr. “Got it.”

  He spotted Lee in his rearview mirror. His stolen SUV was close enough that they could work together, but not so close they’d tip off the bus driver until it was too late. At least that was the plan. He’d run similar extractions a million times before, but that was with a squad of highly-trained mercenaries—and it was to pull some stranger to safety, not Drea. He quashed the nerves rumbling in his stomach. The coffee he’d been mainlining since last night bubbled in his stomach like an acidic Jacuzzi.

  It would work. It had to.

  Cam tapped the mic again. “Ryder, you online?”

  “Watching the traffic cams now. No movement out of the precinct.”

  “Not a surprise, they shouldn’t leave until around eight.” That would get the transport to the courthouse with enough time for the usual rigmarole before arraignment, but not so much time that the prisoners got fidgety.

  “And this is the most logical route?” Lee’s voice crackled over the connection.

  Cam had done his research and planned the OP down to the millisecond. “Absolutely.”

  “How many other people have the same information?” Ryder asked.

  This time the coffee didn’t just bubble, it turned molten. “Too many to assume Diamond Tommy isn’t planning the same thing we are.” He gunned the SUV’s engine.

  …

  Drea bounced back in her seat as the bus rumbled through the precinct’s secured parking lot. There weren’t any guards in the back. Only her and fifteen women who were either too pissed, too scared, or too hungover to talk.

  They looked at her though. It seemed like every pair of eyes behind the Plexiglas sheet dividing the driver and a single guard from their charges was on her. The whole thing made her skin crawl. She scooted closer to the window.

  “Hey,” the guard hollered. “No moving around.”

  She stilled, her elbow angled oddly against her injured torso—a little reminder of what was in store at county. If she was lucky. After getting bandaged up—no stitches needed—by the nurse, she’d spent the night on a cot in a single cell that reeked of puke and bleach. But it was better than the morgue.

  The dark tinted windows allowed more for a feeling about the outside world as opposed to visual confirmation, and she could barely make out the city as they rolled through the neighborhood. They slowed down for an intersection, but instead of stopping at the traffic light, the driver gunned it.

  “Yo, Anson. We got company coming up fast.”

  “Oh fuck.” The guard hit the communications mic hooked to his shoulder. “We have 8-25 on prisoner transit. Officer requesting backup immediately.”

  Drea pressed her face against the window. The warmth of the sun heated the tinted barrier but didn’t shed any light on what was happening outside.

  Tires screeched. The bus veered to the left and slammed to a halt. Drea sailed forward and hit the high seat in front of her hard enough to rattle her teeth.

  “Stay the fuck down,” the guard yelled.

  Shouting outside. Slamming of doors.

  Someone yanked open the bus driver’s door and hauled him out into the street by the shirt.

  A second later a masked gunman in full body armor jumped into the seat and leveled a sawed off shotgun at the guard. “Anybody here worth your wife getting a flag at your funeral, fella?”

  Without a word, the guard raised both hands in the air.

  The gunman tapped the mic on his vest. “Go time.”

  Someone pounded against the bus’s emergency exit.

  The sound vibrated in Drea’s bones. She had nowhere to go. This was it. She’d be dead as soon as the door opened.

  “Looks like your date is here, bitch.” A woman sitting a row up smiled and showed off teeth ravaged by meth. “Tell Tommy I said hi.”

  The door swung open, and she squinted her eyes against the bright light flooding in. All she could pick out was a man with a gun outlined by the morning sun.

  She blinked.

  The man came into focus. Cam.

  “Come on, babe. We gotta go.”

  …

  It killed Cam to see her hesitate in her seat.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice shook. “You can’t do this. You’ll go to jail—”

  “It won’t be the first time.” He strolled up the aisle to her. With Lee in the driver’s seat and Roscoe acting as lookout, nothing unexpected would happen. “And it would be totally worth it. If it happened, but it won’t.”

  He took her cuffed wrists in one hand and worked his lock pick with the other. The handcuffs around her wrists released, and he dropped the metal to the seat.

  She rubbed her wrists. Her eyes never left Cam’s face. “This is nuts.”

  “So I’ve been told.” He hustled her out of the bus and into his SUV. “But let’s chat out the details later. We’ve got to get to Fergus before Diamond Tommy does.”

  They peeled away from the bus with its sliced tires. Police sirens wailed in the distance, closing fast.

  “What happens back there?” She sat stiff, not looking at him, with her arms wrapped tightly around her body.

  He checked the rearview mirror. Maltese Security’s newest agents were still on target at the bus. “Lee and Roscoe hang around until the cops get close to make sure the prisoners stay put, and then they get the hell out of there. Ryder’s manning the traffic cams and will give them the signal to blaze.”

  The stolen SUV’s tires squealed as he made the sharp turn off Eightieth Street onto Evanston Avenue and floored it. They’d gotten this far, but they weren’t scot-free yet. That wouldn’t happen until they got Fergus to sing.

  “Drop me off at the nearest Greyhound station.” She rubbed her upper arms. “I’ll catch the first bus out of town. I can’t let you risk your life for me. I thought you’d died back there and it was my fault.”

  He almost slammed on the breaks in shock. “But I didn’t, and I promised I’d see you out of this fucked up situation I created.”

  “You didn’t make this mess. They’ll find me again. It’ll never end.” She shrugged. “I need to get the hell out of here before I really do get you killed.”

  It was bullshit. Total bullshit. He switched lanes and went around the slow moving sedan and then hit the gas. “What happens to me doesn’t matter. All that’s important is getting you safe, then I’ll get out of your life for good.”

  “After everything we’ve been through and the other night at the hotel, you think leaving me as soon as this is over will make me safe?” Her words boomed in the SUV’s vast interior, part accusation and part question. “If so, you’re a bigger asshole than Diamond Tommy.”

  Forget target-guided missiles, there was nothing that could inflict damage with as much precision as she did. And it pissed him off. There was nothing about the two of them together that was easy, but that didn’t make it any less right.

  “Yeah, I do.” He hooked a right turn onto Fergus’s street and slowed down enough to meld into the normal flow of traffic. “I’ve spent most of my life running—first from home, then school, then to the Army and the hostage rescue crew.” His voice rose with each word until he was full on bellowing. “You’re the first person who ever made me want to stay, but all I do is hurt you.”

  It wasn’t until he’d yelled the words that the truth of it hit him. He loved her. That was why it had been different with her. That was why he couldn’t stop chasing her, no matter how many obstacles she put i
n his path.

  Drea snorted, but there was no missing the moisture gathering in her eyes. “Bullshit. What did you tell me in my kitchen? To live to fight another day. Well we did, and if you want to blame someone, blame Tommy.”

  His entire body ached. This was not how it was supposed to go. This was not the plan. “This shit with Diamond Tommy ends today. That’s all I know.”

  She didn’t have a quick answer for that. Not that it made Cam feel any less miserable.

  They approached Fergus’s building, the silence in the car like an ever-expanding balloon filled with poison that was about to pop at any second. It pressed against his chest and made it hard to breath.

  He slowed as they neared. That was when he spotted the tattooed man who looked like he’d tangled with a grizzly bear and lost.

  “Oh, shit.” Cam slid into an open parking spot. “That guy should be down for the count.”

  Drea looked around. “What?”

  “Isaiah Knight just went into Fergus’s building. He’s gonna kill him if we don’t get there first.” He’d fucked up before by not letting others in on his plan. He wasn’t about to make that mistake with Drea. “You ready to end this?”

  His world hinged on her words.

  She reached for the door handle, refusing to look at him. “Past ready.”

  They rushed across the street and into the building right as the first in a line of speeding patrol cars turned the corner.

  They reached Fergus’s door in time to see it shake as something inside the apartment was thrown against it. A low moan snuck through the crack under the door. He had to get in there now. It wasn’t that he cared what happened to Fergus, but he couldn’t save Drea if Knight killed the butler before he had a chance to confess. For the plan to work, they had to keep Fergus alive until the cops were there to hear the butler’s confession.

  He turned and grabbed Drea, pulled her into a kiss that contained all of his regret for missed opportunities. He didn’t expect to come out of this unscathed. No doubt, Knight was nursing a well-deserved grudge against Cam right about now. Pulling away from her sucked, but if he didn’t, they’d be running for their lives forever.