The other agent said, “Salter, sir, this tire was shot out. There’s a small amount of blood in the car and Donnelly’s service weapon is under the vehicle.”
Salter immediately ordered them all to get in the truck in case there was a sniper. Aggie didn’t point out that if it was a trap, they’d already had several minutes to get off a shot. Whoever had shot out Brad’s tire was long gone.
But Aggie knew exactly what had happened. Someone had taken Brad Donnelly.
Chapter Ten
OUTSIDE SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Elise Hunt was lying out by the pool drinking champagne—not because she liked it all that much, but because it said something to anyone who watched her.
A woman in charge.
A free woman.
A kick-ass woman who doesn’t fail and if you fail she’ll eat your balls for lunch.
She smiled, sipped the champagne. The heat of the afternoon sun made her sweat, but it felt amazing. She was free. Twenty-two months, two weeks in that fucking jail—juvenile detention—and she wanted to just shoot the bitch who put her there.
Fucking FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid.
Killing her would be so much fun, and Elise was all about fun. But she had to wait.
She hated waiting. Waiting was not fun.
Putting Lucy’s asshole husband in jail was fun. He’d stolen her money and played them all for fools. Well, he hadn’t fooled Elise, but everyone else didn’t realize how smart he was.
Planting drugs on that hunky, sulking FBI agent was fun.
Torturing the man who killed her sister was fun.
She had to admit, when she could sit still long enough to contemplate all the possibilities, that her daddy was right. Revenge was fun, but if you didn’t get anything out of it, it was a waste of time and resources.
She’d visited her dad first thing when she got out of juvie. The government even paid for her airline ticket to Los Angeles, and she’d sweet-talked the dorky clerk into upgrading her to first class.
“We can kill them, and they’re dead, but we won’t have what we need,” her father had told her.
“They should be dead. They killed Nicole and Tobias.” Elise didn’t care much about her aunt Margaret—Margaret was mean to her and she killed her mom, even though her mom was crazy—and Joseph, Nicole’s fuck-buddy, was a thorn in her side and he hated Toby. Elise liked Toby. He was fun and had great ideas.
“They damaged our operation, but they don’t know everything I know. Elise, I need you to do exactly what I say, understand?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Don’t mouth off to me.”
“I’m not.”
And what could he do about it? He was still in prison, and she was sitting here free talking to him. She could walk out and never come back.
She’d thought about it, the walking out and never looking back part, for a long time. Especially when Daddy said she couldn’t kill Lucy Kincaid, the cop who could read her mind. She’d thought about not doing everything he wanted because it was a lot of work and she couldn’t kill Lucy.
But he was her daddy, and he was her only family, and she wanted to prove to him—and to dead Nicole—that she was smarter and better than all of them.
She wasn’t dead, was she? She was free, wasn’t she?
“Do you understand the plan, Elise?”
“Yes.”
“When you leave here, there can be no deviations. I need to trust you.”
“You can, Daddy. Didn’t I do everything that Toby told me to do? Everything! And it wasn’t me who screwed up.”
“You’ve always been a good soldier.”
She wasn’t a soldier. She was a leader. Toby always told her that she was smart enough to be in charge someday.
But she liked that her daddy trusted her. Without her, none of his plans could work. Without her, he would be in prison for the rest of his life.
She didn’t want to be alone. She missed Toby more than anyone. At least Daddy loved Toby like she did.
“So what is the rule, Elise? You have to tell me you understand.”
“I can’t kill Lucy Kincaid. Yada yada.”
“You need to take this seriously. I’m getting out of this place, and I have to know that you know that Kincaid’s safety is a deal breaker. You touch her, I’ll lose everything. We’ll both be dead.”
“I know.” She rolled her eyes and wished her dad would stop treating her like a child.
“Did you get the emergency numbers?”
“Yes.”
“We won’t be able to talk until I’m free, but it’s only a matter of weeks. If anything happens, if anyone comes close to you,