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Mick blows out a breath. “That’s good, right? Easier to get her out.”

“Yeah.”

“I feel a ‘but’ coming,” Jake says.

I’d have to agree. If Brooke’s not moving, she’s either badly hurt, drugged, or dead. No one wants to say it out loud to Mick, and I’m not about to be the one to point out that drugging victims seems to be their MO. It keeps people pliable, less likely to fight back—and from what I saw, Mick’s sister wasn’t going down easy.

Jake’s prediction is unfortunately correct. Caleb’s shoulders tense, his jaw works, and he zeros in on Mick. “There are large quantities of nitrocellulose inside.”

When he receives nothing but blank looks, he’s forced to elaborate, and his words land like poisoned arrows. “It’s the same compound used to blow Verity’s apartment.”

Mick

I lurch to my feet, fear mingling with frustration as I fire words at Caleb. “I need to switch places with Luke.Now.”

Caleb holds his hand up. “I know you want to move, but now isn’t the time.”

Is he kidding me? He drops that and expects me to just sit tight and wait?

“We’re running out of time to get her out,” I say.

“We’re on schedule. But we need to keep the element of surprise or we have no chance,” Caleb says.

“Let me leave now so we can confirm whether she’s injured,” Adena says.

I nod, gesturing at her as I try to plead my case with Caleb. “If you won’t let me go, then listen to her.”

Caleb rubs his hand over his smooth jaw and looks around at the laptops set up on makeshift desks around the room. “Fine. Gear up, and take the twins out. Jake, I want you with her, and I want you both armed. No one takes any unnecessary risks.”

He grabs a handheld signal mirror and a low-light flashlight from the gear pile—silent tools for fallback signaling.

Jake gives him a sloppy attempt at a salute, and as Caleb looks at the blueprint of the house, he slips out of the room with a fierce Adena in tow. I’m so preoccupied by the specs and Caleb’s thoughts on the layout that I miss Samantha’s entrance into the room until she speaks.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Caleb’s eyes don’t leave the screen as he answers. “Don’t think so, sweetheart.”

I glance over my shoulder at her, and she peers down, picking at her nails, then sits, perching on one of the chairs we dragged in here.

“We need to enter from the roof, the back, or the window,” I say.

Caleb nods. “Our best bet is a synchronized attack.”

He taps three points on the blueprint—window, rear entrance, and hallway junction.

“What about the explosives?”

“They aren’t explosives yet. They’re ready to be assembled. If it comes to that, I can handle disarming something simple. Anything more complicated, Verity will be on hand.”

“When are they arriving?”

“They’re en route.”

I glance around the bedroom. Once Adena and Jake return, it’s going to be a tight fit. “It’s going to get crowded in here.”

His lip twists. “We can’t risk any more trips today. If this runs over to tomorrow, Jake will get them first thing, but until then, they’ll be waiting down the street in their rental with a radio jammer that will knock out all cell coverage and all radio signals.”

He holds up a small field map. “Verity will trigger the jammer manually if the call comes. Until then, we maintain comms through line-of-sight and hand signals.”