Hostile Ground (The Arsenal #7) - Cara Carnes Page 0,50
ankles to one another but was thankful that at least her ankles weren’t buckled to her wrists. Another thicker restraint coiled around her neck. All were mounted to the wall behind her, but she had more chain length than was smart.
Either they were lazy shits, had been in a hurry, or didn’t deem her much of a threat.
“She just woke.”
Her gaze tracked to Kristof’s voice. Shock rolled through her. Blood oozed from cuts along his torso and a busted lip. How long had she been out? Why had he woken so much sooner?
Fatima did an awkward elbow and knee crawl toward her. When she was almost there, she paused. “I have the ear thingy.”
When the hell had she gotten the com from Addy’s ear? And why?
“I had her hide it,” Kristof said. “Hurry. We’re low on time.”
Right. The Arsenal was likely tracking her location, especially if the com was still active. She’d add zero value to any conversation with Operations right now, though. She turned to face the wall and braced her bare feet on the stone wall.
“Addison,” Kristof said.
Dammit. She glared across the dank cell. “Don’t call me that.”
“We’re way past formalities here,” he said. He took a deep breath. Pain flashed across his face. “You need to talk to Edge. Now.”
“Fine. Bring it to me, but I don’t have anything of value to share right now. I need to focus on these damned chains.” The chain links were old, which meant they’d likely been there since God only knew when. Fuck. Logan was going to make her take a damn tetanus shot.
Breaking chains was highly doubtful. She picked up a large loose cinder block beside her and slammed it against the ringlet in the wall securing the chains. Metal, even rusted, might not break, but the eyelet very well might since the stone around it was older than hell.
“Mine are new,” Kristof said. “Are you okay? You didn’t wake as fast as us.”
Cause she’d stupidly breathed too deep way too late. Fatima ended her crawling trek and held out the ear com. Frustrated and more than a bit pissed that she’d been captured, Addy shoved it into her ear and then continued to tug on the chains mounted to the wall. Rusted metal versus crumbling stone versus one pissed off Addy. She was going to win. “I’m fine. Just a little pissed off right now. Give me a minute to assess my situation.”
“You assess. I’ll talk,” Edge said. “An interrogator is coming in fifty minutes to find out where the missiles are. They started in on Kristof for the money.”
Addy froze and swept her gaze back to Kristof. Damn. The last thing he needed was more injuries. Had he been injured beyond the surface level abrasions she saw? Worry halted her assessment a moment.
Head in the game, Rugers.
“He did well, better than I could’ve expected.”
“He was trained by the same people I was,” Addy said. “Though, I’d bet it’s been a few years since any of what he learned was used.” Not that a person tended to forget hells like what they’d endured during their “practice sessions.”
“You’d be surprised,” Kristof said from across the room.
Damn. Contemplating what he meant by that wasn’t an option. She needed to get them out of this situation. The last thing she needed to do was think about who would’ve imprisoned or tortured Kristof.
She wouldn’t let him get hurt more than he already had.
“He convinced them to contact a fake third-party financial broker for the transaction. He used Zoey’s old Dark Web email address and convinced them to provide a phone number for the broker to call them back.”
“And they did?” Talk about idiots.
“Not the sharpest tools in the shed,” Mary said.
“Either that or they were very desperate,” Jesse said. “How are you holding up, Red? We’ve got a lot of really worried and pissed off operatives out there looking for you.”
“I’m fine. Don’t…” She forced a breath. “Don’t patch me into them until we have an exfil strategy. They…they don’t need to hear what happens if the interrogator gets here before they do.”
“We’re forty-eight minutes away. So is he. The chopper is just over an hour out,” Mary said. “You were on the farthest edge of our search parameters.”
“Couldn’t have been farther away if you tried,” Jesse said.
“Which means we need to exfil ourselves and hole up somewhere until the cavalry comes,” she said. Or go through another interrogation with an expert interrogator.