“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.
Chapter 23
Ambush.
A motherfucking ambush.
That was what went through my mind when I came to. That and extreme anger but I needed to be smart. Not for me, for Evette.