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“Check her for concealeds,” Antilla directed the driver, who was quickly proving to be very adept at several things: chauffeuring, bleed outs, and pat downs. Her ankle-holstered .38 was removed as well as the knife tucked into the back of her pants. “And get her inside.”
The driver manhandled her through the door. If Cash’d seen that subcompact at her back and the unfriendly shove, there was a solid chance the driver was going to die tonight.
Despite David’s murder, Nic wasn’t as nervous as before. The fear was gone. She was stone-cold ready to work. Her backup was a sniper extraordinaire, and somehow, he’d get eyes on them. Hopefully, he’d heard everything.
Antilla walked to a far corner to make a phone call and started talking. Sweet Jesus, she’d knocked out the phone jammer, and Antilla was too preoccupied to worry about it. The driver walked outside, most likely to remove David.
Nicola bent her chin as close to her collarbone as possible and whispered, “Cash, can you hear me?”
She held her breath. A noise clattered on the metal roof.An acorn or a tree branch. Something.Something that Cash shot long range. A smile melted across her face that she faked as a yawn, just in case.
“Hi,” she whispered again and waited. “Second bomb. My parents’ house.”
A dull bang echoed through the empty room.Definitely Cash.He’d take care of her family. God, she loved him.
“Fucking squirrels,” the driver murmured, pulling David into a corner. “What are we doing with her?”
“We wait. I need to handle my inventory problem. Tie her to something. I don’t care. And then find me dinner. Try to have it still hot when you return. And none of that American fast food crap.”
The driver snagged a rickety folding chair and pushed her into it, zip-tying her arms together around a metal piece.
All right, Smooth. Just you and me now. Let’s do this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Whatever Nicola had done to fix their jammer problem had worked. Their earpieces squealed, and both Cash and Jared grabbed at them.Perfect clarity that’d make Verizon jealous. Talk about a listen and learn session.Cash prayed to the techie gods that Parker also had access to this feedback at headquarters.
“There were twins? Smooth’s still alive. Fuck me.” Cash whistled, lying prone on a warehouse roof. A warm breeze swirled around them, bringing with it the gasoline and plastic smells of an abandoned factory.
He looked through Miss Betty’s scope and caressed her perfectly molded trigger.
“Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.” Jared growled slowly next to him and rolled onto his back, laying the binoculars to his side and texting into his secure phone. “Talk about a huge hole in intelligence. How did the CIA not know there were two of them?”
“Not even a rumor. You know gun runners talk. Nothing.” He followed through the eye of his scope, still listening. Nicola was pushing the conversation, narrowing in on a crack between her captors.
“You hearing this?”
Jared grunted. “David’s going to get himself—”
They didn’t need earpieces to hear the single blast of close range fire power.
“There goes Operation The-Butler-Did-It.” Jared paused. “Don’t take out Smooth yet. No telling what the other man will do with that automatic at her back.”
Cash nodded. Endangering Nic’s life wasn’t worth a clean shot now. Smooth would die shortly. How and when were still to be determined, but it might as well have been etched in stone. He’d make sure both Smooth twins were hanging with an angel of death. By his hands. And Cash would ensure David was never awarded a nameless star on the inner hallways of Langley.
Jared rolled back in place, spotting and surveying for Cash. Both men watched Nicola take a push from the butt of a gun. A growl rumbled low from Cash’s chest.
“Keep it together.”
He was together. Never more confident in his girl, and never more ready to pull the trigger if she needed it. Though she was in the warehouse now, he could feel her, sense her. He didn’t need to see her to know she was mentally the one in control this moment. After all, she’d just played Antilla’s emo-card and was now one captor less. Two was better than three, even if David had been the weakest link.
“Cash, can you hear me?” her voice whispered into his ear.
The sweet question stirred his soul. Concentrating for all he was worth, he took a moment to feel the quick fire of pride flow through his chest.
With a deep breath and intense focus on an old tree leaning over the metal-topped building, Cash aimed. The silencer did its job: a muffled shot, but nothing that would register as gunfire in the warehouse.
A small branch landed on the metal roof.