breath beside him.
“The poison wouldn’t have killed you, just incapacitated you.”
“That’s what I’m saying. You need me incapacitated before you can try anything. Well, guess what?” He clutched his weapon with both hands and pointed it Jim’s head. “I’m not incapacitated.”
“I’ll shoot you, Stark, and your wife and your kid.” He drew a cross with his weapon. “I’ll just start shooting and I won’t care who I hit.”
As Jim’s gun tracked to the left, Cade squeezed off a shot and backed Jenna and Gavin against the wall. The blast echoed and a second shot followed it.
But Jim had already dropped to his knees and his bullet hit the plaster of the wall.
Cade gave Jenna a shove. “Get back around the corner.”
Blood soaked Jim’s shoulder as he tried to gain control of the weapon in his hand, but his hand wouldn’t cooperate.
Cade ran at him in a crouched position and then kicked the gun from his unsteady hand. He then landed his boot in the center of Jim’s chest, sending him plummeting backward.
Cade scooped up Jim’s hot gun from the floor and held his own to Jim’s head. He grabbed the collar of Jim’s shirt and dragged him into the corner of the hallway.
“Cade! Are you all right?”
“It’s okay, Jenna. We’re getting out of here.” He shot Jim again in the kneecap, and the other man wailed.
“What are you doing?” Jim covered his head with his arms. “I demand to be arrested. I demand to be turned over to the CIA.”
Cade peeled his lips back from his teeth in a snarl. The man’s cowardice made him almost as sick as his treachery. “I want to make sure you can’t let your buddies into the compound when they get here. There’s too much valuable intelligence, even though I wouldn’t mind letting Zendaris’s men get a crack at you once they figure out you let my family slip through your hands.”
“Wh-who said Zendaris’s men are on their way?” Jim gasped and clutched his leg.
“We didn’t fall for the poisoned pasta you used on Sonia, but that didn’t concern you because you had a backup. You don’t have the stomach or the skill to take out a Prospero agent.”
Jim’s face reddened, almost matching the blood soaking his pant leg. “You’re not fooling anyone, Stark. You compromised your family’s safety for glory by stealing those plans from Zendaris, whether you still have them or not.”
“You compromised your country’s safety for money. What does that make you?”
“You don’t have to prove yourself to this man.” Jenna tugged on his arm. “If Zendaris’s men are on their way, we need to get out of here.”
Cade ran the back of his hand across his sweat-soaked brow, and then he pushed to his feet. He hustled Jenna and Gavin toward the door and turned for one last look at Jim. “I’m sending Prospero out here and a warning to Miyata. If you’re lucky, they’ll arrive before Zendaris’s thugs.”
Cade exited the compound after Jenna and made sure the door was closed and sealed. They bundled Gavin into his car seat and Cade sped away from the Prospero outpost, his weapon in his lap.
He fumbled for his phone and punched in the warning message for a compromised compound with an enemy on the way. Then he used a text message to tell the Prospero message center that Jimbo was a traitor, Sonia dead and Miyata in danger if he returned to the outpost.
He waited for the response, hands clutching the steering wheel. When his phone buzzed, he lunged for it and read the message. The single word, confirmed, as cold and clinical as it was, made his breathing come easier and the rate of his heart slow down.
Cade drove several miles before either of them said a word to each other. Jenna had been turned in her seat, soothing Gavin, and Cade had been busy looking in all directions for suspicious vehicles. He almost welcomed the opportunity to meet Zendaris’s men head-on. It wouldn’t stop Zendaris, but he’d have to send fresh meat.
“Jim must’ve been a traitor all along.” Jenna settled back in her seat and hugged herself around the middle. “When you let him know we were coming in, he saw his opportunity and grabbed it.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a rare occurrence. We have moles. They have moles.”
“But to murder his coworkers like that—because Zendaris’s thugs would’ve killed Miyata when he returned.” She hunched forward, touching her forehead to her knees.
Cade ran a hand along her back. “He didn’t consider Miyata