Page 36 of Gabe (Blue Team #2)

“You might wanna start fanning your woman, brother,” Owen added.

I blinked then blinked again, trying to get Zane’s dimples out of my mind, but the visual was burned into my retinas.

“Babe?”

“Huh?”

“Is there a reason you’re staring at my boss?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, scratch that, how about you stop staring at him?”

“Why?”

“Why?” Gabe grunted.

“Yeah, why? I’m afraid if I look away it will have all been a mirage.”

Owen laughed and Gabe growled. This was a different kind of growl and didn’t send shivers down my spine but instead indicated he was annoyed.

“I don’t know why you’re growling at me, Gabe Harris, but I’m a little in shock that under all that asshole Zane can actually smile.

Give me a minute to process this before I need to move on to decode the grunts and groans of an alpha male.

I’m not hip on the lingo, but I know annoyed when I hear it. ”

“The lingo?” Cooper asked through a laugh.

“What else am I supposed to call the growling? He’s communicating in some wordless male dialect. And you do it, too, only you grunt and use facial expressions,” I informed Cooper.

Gabe’s arm went around my shoulder and he pulled me closer so I was leaning heavily into him. During this, I lost sight of Zane .

“Cute,” he whispered and kissed my forehead.

I wasn’t trying to be cute but if Gabe thought that, who was I to argue?

Garrett dropped a burner phone in front of me. It was a different one than I’d used to call Anaya. This one was an old-school flip phone.

“They still make these?” I opened the phone and smiled at the rudimentary screen.

“Yep. No GPS, internet, or apps. Plain ol’ phone.”

“Texting?”

“Nope, disabled.”

I fiddled with the phone as nerves bubbled up. Maybe I should’ve prepped.

“Hey,” Owen called. “You’re gonna do fine. You were right, just be yourself. Natural. And if you can’t get her to commit, don’t push it. We’ll find another way to get her safe. But if she feels threatened by you that’s gonna be harder. Take a breath, relax, and be you.”

I nodded and looked at the big screen on the wall. Garrett had pulled up the email Delilah had sent with her phone number. I noted the time and inhaled.

Natural.

Relaxed.

“I’m gonna mess this up,” I said under my breath as I dialed the number.

“No, you’re not. You’re gonna do great. You’ve been worried about her. She’ll hear that and know you’re on her side.”

My finger hovered over the send button and I nodded.

“Okay. I can do this.”

“Put it on speaker,” Zane instructed.

I looked back down at the phone and frowned. “How?”

Gabe chuckled and pointed at the button above the send.

“Don’t laugh at me. These were phased out when I was like ten.”

That was a total exaggeration but whatever.

I hit send and waited for it to ring once then I pulled the ancient phone from my ear and put it on speaker. Four rings later the call connected but no one spoke .

I waited another beat then I started, “Hey. Are you there?”

Nothing.

I glanced around unsure what to do and it hit me I should’ve prepped. Or at least asked for some guidance because I had no idea what to make of Delilah’s silence.

Gabe tapped my hand then made a keep going motion.

“I…uh…got your message. It was helpful.”

Gah. Helpful?

“Are you someplace safe, where you can talk?”

Still nothing.

“Because if you aren’t. I can help you.”

Garrett rapped his knuckles on the table. My gaze went to him and he was frantically giving me the universal sign to disconnect. You know, the one where there’s a lot of hand movements around the neck area making a slicing gesture.

Gabe was quicker than I was. His finger was about to disconnect the call when a voice came over the line. One that was not Delilah. A deep male voice with a dire message.

“Sorry, Miss London, but Miss Watts is no longer available. But since I have you—”

The voice was silenced when Gabe ended the call.

“Did you get a location?” Zane asked.

“No,” Garrett answered while tapping furiously on his keyboard.

“Were we traced?”

“Absolutely not.”

Okay, that was good. Our call wasn’t traced but it was seriously bad that Delilah was no longer available.

“Gabe,” I stammered.

“Hold it together, honey.”

Right, hold it together .

Some creepy voice just told me Delilah wasn’t available. I wasn’t big into bad-guy-assassin lingo either but I was pretty sure that didn’t mean Delilah was taking a bubble bath and he didn’t want to disturb her personal spa time.

“I didn’t say my name,” I blurted. “He knew my name but I didn’t say it. He knows—”

“Babe, hold it together for me, yeah? Just a few minutes then we’ll be on our way.”

On our way .

Gabe was taking me someplace safe. His team would fix the shitstorm I’d brought to their door—or lobby as it were. I’d waltzed right in and dumped all my problems on Kyle. Then without so much as a blink, Gabe had picked them up and began to solve them.

Guilt slammed into me and made my heart pound.

There was conversation going on around me and I vaguely heard Tex’s angry voice mingling with Garrett’s concerned one. I heard Zane barking orders then Owen and Cooper leaving the room.

I didn’t hear Gabe, I felt him. The atmosphere in the room had changed again.

Hot and stifling.

Waves of blistering fury were rolling off him until I was engulfed in his rage.

Two black backpacks were tossed on the table in front of me. I didn’t even have time to flinch at their appearance before Gabe swung one over his shoulder, nabbed the other one, and pulled me out of my seat.

“Ready?”

This wasn’t a question; he was hauling me across the room.

Guess we’re leaving—as in right this very second.

“What about—”

“We’ll pick up what you need on the way,” Gabe cut me off.

The walk through the office was a blur. It wasn’t until we were out of the building I noticed we hadn’t gone through the lobby into the parking garage.

“Where are we going?”

“Backway to the throwaway.”

“Throwaway?”

“A car registered to a dummy corporation with no ties to any of us. It’s a POS, junker. A throwaway we can ditch if we need to.”

Sheesh. Who knew there was such a thing as a throwaway car?

“Where— ”

“Not here.”

I snapped my mouth shut and glanced over at Gabe.

He was steadily scanning the area which made me look around.

I didn’t see anyone but then I didn’t think an assassin would be wearing a bright orange shirt with a logo announcing he was part of the Assassins-R-Us union.

So I stopped looking and started concentrating on walking.

One foot in front of the other.

That was all I needed to do, Gabe would take care of the rest.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“We’re on the—”

“Babe. Seriously, we’ll talk about this later.”

Once again I clamped my lips closed and didn’t say another word.

Not even when he unlocked the passenger side door of an older, silver Buick. There was nothing that stood out about the car. It was utterly bland and boring. Exactly what you would think of if someone said, nondescript.

After Gabe got me closed in, he went to the other side and unlocked his door, tossed the bags in the back seat, got in, and without preamble started up the car, and pulled out into traffic.

Throughout this I was thinking, Zane and the guys were pretty smart to have a throwaway car parked on the street around the corner. It was more like a getaway car than a throwaway but I didn’t think Gabe would appreciate me pointing that out so I kept quiet.

We’d been in the car ten minutes when it happened. And it happened so fast it was a blur.

An explosion went off at the same time a car sideswiped the Buick.

Then a van stopped in front of us. There was another explosion.

My head slammed into the dashboard despite wearing a seat belt.

I looked over at Gabe and blood was spreading across his chest. Not an explosion, a gunshot.

I didn’t have time to contemplate this realization.

Both front doors were opened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabe lifting his gun but it was too late.

Everything went black.