Reid - Maddie Wade Page 0,59
was good.
“You’re a clever man, Jack. You know you can’t trust me, but you have no choice unless you want people you care for to get hurt.”
Jack knew he was correct, but he didn’t like it one bit. He thought through his options in record speed and found his only answer. “If you give me the sister and Gunner, I’ll agree to your terms.”
Cold blue eyes watched him carefully, and Jack held his gaze, refusing to show a second of weakness. “You would make this deal for him?”
“I would.” Jack didn’t say what was in his head, which was that he felt responsible for some of this. If Gunner had thought he could come to him, then he and his sister wouldn’t have become targets.
“The sister is at this location, the guard will be taken care of, but you must move fast before Gunner has the chance to follow through on his order.”
He passed Jack a piece of paper which he took, quickly scanning the address. “And Gunner?”
“I will deliver him to you once you have Milla safe.”
“You have him?”
“I knocked him out and put a tracker on him. He has no idea I can see his every movement.”
“Why are you doing this? Apart from the fact I’ll owe you?”
“People are rarely what they seem, Jack, and things are never black or white. I play in the murky grey.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re a man of honour.”
“And are you a man of honour?”
The man looked pensive for a second, his shoulders tensing just the slightest bit before he replied. “I was once.”
The man spun then, walking to the door before Jack stopped him. “Two things.”
The man turned and smiled a humourless smile. “You have a hole in your security, and you can call me Bás.”
With that, he turned and walked away. Jack went straight to the monitor and accessed every camera he could until he found Bás walking out the front door. Jack had no doubt he hadn’t entered that way.
“Alex, get in here,” Jack bellowed and his second came rushing in. “We have a big fucking problem.”
Alex was calm, hands on his hips as he waited for instruction.
“Get the entire fucking team in here now.”
Something in his tone seemed to emanate the seriousness of the situation because Alex moved to do as asked without question.
Jack looked back to the monitor, wondering at the man he’d just encountered. It was hard to figure out whose side he was on, likely his own.
For the first time since Gunner had turned on them, Jack wondered if he could take a deep breath without the weight of guilt almost crushing him. He also decided a K9 unit was long overdue at Eidolon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Callie glared daggers at her former agent as she sat in a cold empty room in what looked like the office of a warehouse. The smell of decay and mould permeated the air, and she shivered as she heard a mouse scurry—at least she hoped it was a mouse—across the floor. Sophia was leaning against a worn wooden desk, her appearance as impeccable as if she’d just walked off the catwalk herself.
The woman was striking and had a curvaceous figure she envied, but as Callie kept her eyes on her, she realised Sophia’s beauty was only skin deep and didn’t reach the vital heart of the woman. She hurt that a woman she’d trusted had betrayed her in such a way.
“Why are you doing this?” Callie watched as Sophia’s expression clouded for a second before a wall came down and her face tightened in hatred.
Callie flinched as she stepped forward quickly and hated that she’d shown any emotion, but it wasn’t far from her mind that this woman had most likely killed Tina.
“You have no idea what it’s like to want something and never get it.” Sophia paced slowly, the gun ever-present in her hand, forcing Callie to keep her eyes on her.
“I do know.” Callie hated that her voice shook with fear and cleared her throat to try and eliminate her fright.
Sophia swung her gaze to her, and the hatred was so intense it was impossible to comprehend she’d never seen it before. “What do you know? Do you know what it is to always be second best? Do you know what it is to care for someone who thinks you’re not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough?”
Callie’s mind whirled at Sophia’s words. Had she been hiding her hatred the entire time she’d worked for her? “I know what it’s