Deliver us from Evil - Logan Fox Page 0,65

reading corner the night I left my home forever. But when I pick it up, it has the same weight. The same gold-trimmed pages.

I open the cover. There’s a letter-sized safe inside, perhaps two inches thick.

4-2-1-1

There’s a soft beep.

I go to my knees, laying the book on the carpet so I can open the little safe’s door so I can look inside.

A floorboard out in the hallway creaks.

I spin around, my heart climbing up my throat, and stare at the study door. But no one emerges from the hallway after a few ridiculously long seconds.

Jumping at ghosts. Or is it shadows?

I swear, if one of my men come in here because they think I can’t look after myself for one second…

There will be hell to pay.

I shake my head and go back to the safe. Open the door.

A stack of hundred-dollar bills. Three sturdy envelopes.

The first envelope has a small thumb drive in it. I take it out, tuck it between my breasts.

Should have brought my purse, but I guess my bra will do for now.

The second envelope has a passport and some folded papers inside.

I open the passport.

Frederick Dalton.

I frown at the passport photo.

Who the hell is—

There’s another creak, louder, right behind me. I whirl around, a hand to my chest. My cheeks flush with anger. “I told you to wait in the…”

But it’s not Reuben. It’s not Cass. It’s not Zach, or Apollo.

It’s a middle-aged woman I’ve never seen before, and she’s smiling at me.

Which is fucked up, because there’s nothing friendly about the gun she’s pointing at my face.

Chapter Thirty-One

Trinity

Scream, Trinity, scream!

But my lungs are frozen with shock. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before—not one I was aware of anyway. It’s more chilling than I’d ever imagined. So malicious. So…impersonal.

The fact that it’s a woman holding it doesn’t matter. Her eyes are as cold and heartless as the gun’s gleaming exterior.

She’s dressed in jeans and a faded suede jacket, boots up to her knees. With her auburn hair pulled into a tight ponytail and a large handbag hanging from her shoulder, she could have been just another person walking past on the street.

Instantly forgettable.

When my lungs thaw enough for me to consider yelling out for the Brotherhood, three men walk into the study.

One has his gun aimed at me. The other two have theirs tucked in their belts.

“Get up,” the woman says.

I obey reluctantly, my mind churning with useless options. No way I can run past them. And the study only has one window—and it’s closed. Maybe if there’d been a gun in the safe…

“Shoes.” The woman holds out her free hand and clicks her fingers.

“You…want my shoes?”

It’s like there’s a swarm of bees droning in my head. The woman tilts her head, as if daring me to say no, and I quickly slip off my shoes.

“Toss them.”

I’m so fucking confused, but I throw them in front of the man wearing a black hoody. The other two are wearing dark sweaters, one with the collar of a polo shirt neatly arranged around the neckline.

Hoody picks up my shoes and tucks them under his arm. The man with the polo shirt sticking out of his sweater walks up to me.

I stiffen, my hands going into fists. But he walks right past, crouches, and picks up everything I’ve left on the floor—the passport, the money, the bible-safe. Then he goes over to the woman and puts everything inside her handbag while she holds it open, her eyes not leaving mine for a second.

“We’re going for a walk. If you make a sound, I guarantee you’ll need years of therapy to get over what they’ll do to you.” She cocks her head to the three men standing behind her. “Got it?”

My skin slowly starts crawling off my body. I nod, swallow hard.

I could still scream, of course. My men would be here in seconds. But they’d be walking into a gunfight with nothing but their fists. There’s no way in hell I’m letting any of them take another bullet for me. Not when it was my decision to come in here alone.

And I’d joked the front door was booby trapped? Lord, the irony.

The woman makes a show of sliding her gun inside her handbag, still pointing it at me but circumspect about it now.

Hoody moves behind me and grabs the back of my neck. Pushes me forward.

I don’t know what horrifies me more—the fact that his hand is cool and dry, or the considering look in his