Page 50 of About Yesterday (Foothills #5)

She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, putting on her bravest face, so they knew she would protect Cole no matter how scared she was.

The hand whipped fast, a slap on her cheek.

Trace’s head snapped back. Burning, raw and inflamed, her cheek throbbed, almost numb.

Trace chewed her tongue and lifted her gaze. “I don’t know who you are, nor do I know why you’re here. But I know that you’re going to regret this.” She rolled her neck and forced her shoulders down. Her happy smile fooled all but a select few, but she knew her sneer threatened better than words.

“No one is coming for you. The authorities have been made aware that a routine training operation is being conducted, and to stand down, should they hear any activity, or even any freckled, red-haired darlings calling for a hero.” Lips pursed in a pissy sneer, the woman fluttered her eyelashes, only the whites of her eyes visible with a dramatic roll.

Wow, Trace hadn’t pictured a big bad guy would flutter her eyelashes. She probably filed her nails, too.

Boots thundered out from the kitchen, the door slamming behind them, and feet scuffed over the tarped mini home gym, closer, and ground over the sawdust that coated garage floor behind her. Cole must have been distracted, to leave the garage such a mess.

Winded, a man lowered a big ass machine gun and blustered as his eyes widened, his partner behind him equally distraught. “The parents. They’re gone.”

“Gone?” The leader pushed up from the chair, cracking her neck and stalking closer. She looked them up and down with judgment, then whipped a look over at Janessa, murder in her dark eyes. “Explain. Now .”

“I…I…” Janessa’s eyes widened, and Trace knew she hadn’t worked for this employer for long. “They were in their bedroom. They couldn’t have… I—“

The woman turned back toward Trace and bent forward, grasping Trace’s chin, forcing Trace to look up at her. “Where. Are. They?”

“Safe,” Trace said, not bothering to hide the smugness from her sneer.

The woman glanced meaningfully over at Cole and shrugged a devious look at Trace.

“He should have sent you away as well. Let’s wake him up and see if he is more cooperative when it’s your neck on the line, rather than his own,“ the woman said, her voice filled with fury and a hint of doubt rattling in a higher pitch.

From the pile of lumber in the corner where Cole lay bound, a roar like none other shook the garage. Filled with graveled fury, Cole erupted. “Don’t. Touch. Her.”

Trace’s heart thundered, her voice gone, and her vision blurred with fiery hot tears as he rose to his feet.

“Leave her out of this.” Hands bound behind his back, Cole stood and pushed his shoulders back. “This is between you and me.”

The woman pranced closer, staying just out of reach while Janessa and one of the new guys ran over.

Cole stood tall.

Maybe she’d watched too many movies. Read too many tales of adventure to improve her boring life. And they all sucked all of a sudden. The hero rising from the ashes, ready to kick ass, to defend her above all else. To risk himself.

Trace wasn’t having it. One wrong move, and the hero would end up a pile of blood on her parents’ garage floor. “Wait,” Trace screamed as eight armed, masked intruders ran after Cole, guns aimed, and he stood heroically in the middle of it all. “I know about the backup files,” she said quickly.

Every head in the room whipped around to look at her, Cole’s included.

“Trace, no,” he pleaded, his voice low and filled with gravel. “It’s not worth it. Too many lives are at stake.”

She nibbled her bottom lip, gazing desperately at him, letting words flow to save his life. “All of that evidence you want buried? It’s floating in a secured cloud.”

The woman stalked toward Trace in her noisy heeled boots. “I knew it. I knew he wasn’t foolish enough to trust his hard work would reach the client.”

Cole shouted, reaching, quickly jumping back and holding his bound hands up, before he got shot. “Stop. Please. Ursula, please. She doesn’t know how to access it.”

“Cole, stop. I can’t lose you.” Trace’s chin quivered as she looked at him with wet eyes.

Ursula flicked a look, then back to Trace.

“If you lie, I’ll let you live long enough to watch him die.

If you’re telling the truth, you’ll have to wait here until we have confirmation that the.

..” She sneered before spitting a mumbling admission that Trace had so much power. “The data has been erased.”

Trace swallowed hard, holding her head high. “Even your best hackers won’t be able to access it, but there’s a back door.”

Ursula lifted an eyebrow. “I cannot imagine he told you so much.”

Trace snorted into her own sneer.

She was about to make something up, but Cole jumped on it before she had to.

“Think I’m fucking stupid? I told her how to access my backup files when I realized all my hard work never made it to the client.

She’s not the only person I told. Who do you think got her parents out?

People more dangerous than you. Call it an insurance policy.

Harm her, me, and that information will be on every news outlet within an hour. ”

Ursula glared daggers at Cole.

Trace quickly said, “What is this evidence that scares you so much? Drugs? Guns? Information? Money? What is it?”

Ursula traced her thumbnail like a blade across Trace’s neck. “Does it affect your decision to risk your life, and his?”

“Sort of,” Trace said, realizing she didn’t have a good answer, but she needed her to keep talking. “Risk versus benefit. Is it worth our lives? So, yes, it matters.”

Gripping Trace’s shoulders like Ursula was about to give her a massage as she stood behind her, squeezing painfully tight, Trace cringed under the pressure.

“I see why his dreams were so full of you.” Ursula cooed and smiled.

She trailed her fingers over Trace’s shoulder as she stalked around her and crouched down, nibbling her bottom lip, her perfect red lipstick not even smudging.

“So he told you how to find the evidence, but not what it is? I suppose he wanted to protect himself. After all, he had to get his hands very dirty to gain my trust.”

“Don’t,” Cole warned sharply.

It seemed to encourage Ursula more than anything. “Power, sweetheart. Money. Blackmail. A prime minister boning one of my girls is my personal favorite.”

“Your girls?”

“Human trafficking is remarkably profitable. These girls are just looking for a way out of their miserable lives, and I am more than happy to provide.”

Trace’s stomach rolled. “You’re disgusting.”

“A royal snorting a line of coke. A general meeting with an arms dealer. I can arrange whatever my clients want, and I’m not stupid, I keep excellent records. I mean, I suppose you’d be doing the world a favor, releasing the evidence into the wild, I suppose.”

Trace lurched a snorty scoff to mask the acidic horror churning in her gut. “Do you drug them to make them do these terrible things, or are they down to get dirty with whatever you offer them?”

“Oh, it depends. Sometimes I have to get creative. Your boyfriend ought to be familiar with some of our methods to entice them to… share what they know, to indulge in what I have to offer. A little concoction I obtained from your military.”

Trace followed the bitch with her eyes, letting her see her fury boiling over. “Tell me about the girls you take. I don’t give a damn about who you’re blackmailing, but when I get out of here, you’d better believe you’re going down.”

“You really think you’re going to walk away from this? Oh, my, you’re a sweet one, aren’t you?”

Trace sneered.

Cole laughed and quickly lifted his chin and bound hands as guns clicked off safeties. “Sorry. Just saying. She doesn’t like to be called sweet.” He flashed her a loving wink, and she knew he was following.

C ole stood back, astonished as Trace got Ursula bragging.

Offering just enough, holding back long enough, eliciting the best damn confession, while he’d left Jeremy’s phone plugged in, dialed on speaker while he was working in the garage, connected all afternoon to the Foothills Police Department, listening in and recording every word, with, hopefully, the FBI by now.

Already, one eye was swelling, Trace’s cheek was bruised, and he could hear the pain in her voice.

It fucking killed him, his gut aching as it wrenched, fallen and hollow, that he’d brought this on her.

That she’d agreed to all this, and he was the asshole who let her, knowing he couldn’t do this without her.

She didn’t falter for a moment.

Ursula didn’t budge, but slowly looked toward him, the corners of her mouth curling up. Her face still haunted him, her voice driving most of his nightmares. “Have a seat,” she said.

Cooperation wasn’t his style, and they knew it. Stabilizing on his good ankle, he drove his knee into the first asshole to come at him.

Before he could smack the back of his head into the one coming up from behind him, the butt of an AK smashed into his abdomen.

Breath rushed from his lungs. On impact, he dropped to his knees. His muscles throbbed, his damn organs threatened to burst.

In the distance, behind the ringing in his ears, past the blackness that covered his vision, he heard Trace scream.

No amount of preparation or even plain toughness could prevent the blistering pain of blunt abdominal trauma. Arms behind his back, he tugged at his bindings, instincts firing with a desperation to protect himself from another blow.

As he struggled to stay upright, a block of a fist slammed into the side of his face. “Fuck,” he growled, tipping up to look his attacker in the eye. His cheek throbbed. His jaw crunched with the slightest movement. “Just fucking tell me where you want me.”

Janessa grabbed his bound hands and yanked him to stand. He moved fast before he toppled over and landed on his face.