Intel disappeared. “She wanted them.”
Helen pointed his way. “She’s got a safe place. A whole bunch of women who have her back no matter what.” She smiled a little. “And I’m betting you had something to do with that too.” She walked back his way, reaching out to pat his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Pierce. Stop trying to convince yourself you’re not.”
Helen turned to walk away once more.
“Where’s Amelia?”
Helen gave him a sad smile over one shoulder. “She’s not real happy with me right now. I’m giving her a little space.” She lifted her brows. “I think she likes your friend Vincent even less than me though, so at least there’s that.”
“Lovely.” He could only imagine the delicacy Vincent would employ when dealing with a young girl. She was probably still sobbing.
Pierce turned and went back out into the cold. He needed to distract himself until Mona’s kidnappers returned her.
Maybe he could pay a ransom.
Pierce pushed the button on his earpiece as he walked toward the edge of the lot. “Tell Intel I’ll give them anything they want if they bring Mona back.”
“I’m not telling them that. God only knows what they’ll ask for.” Dutch sounded slightly less agitated than he did earlier. “How you holding up?”
“Ask me in an hour.” Pierce stopped as men started filtering through the trees. Vincent led the pack. Amelia was right behind him, her eyes narrowed in a scowl as she trudged through the snow in all white.
Vincent stopped as Amelia and the group of men who’d been tasked with protecting her for most of her life continued on. Her eyes stayed on the head of GHOST as she passed him, one hand lifting, middle finger high in the air as she walked toward the building.
Vincent didn’t react. “Not sure if that was for you or me.”
“I would guess both.”
“My team is looking into the messages between them.” Vincent crossed his arms. “Looks like she had a few secret social media accounts Anthony used to contact her.”
“Thank you for looking into it.”
“I’m not doing it out of the goodness of my heart, Pierce.” Vincent smirked. “Don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.”
A black SUV belonging to GHOST slowly came around the building toward them.
“It appears that Anthony was having a difficult time keeping the men he needed and his supply chain was falling apart.” Vincent scanned the space as his men filtered in from the woods, two of them toting a body bag. “From what we can tell he was running low on cash and owed a number of people money.” The SUV came to a stop right beside them and Vincent opened the passenger’s door. “The kind of people you don’t want to owe money.”
“So he was planning to get his hands on her trust.” It was what he thought all along.
“He had big goals, big balls, and a small brain.” Vincent sat. “Not a good combination.” He tipped his head at Pierce. “I’ll be in touch.”
Pierce watched Vincent drive away, the team from GHOST loading Anthony’s body into a van before they followed the SUV out.
He turned back to the building.
It was over.
The driving force in his life was no longer the same.
And it was time to make good on all he promised.
CHAPTER 25
ELI STOOD IN the doorway to the small examination room. “I can’t believe you all fit in here.”
“Believe it.” Eva pointed to Mona. “Fix her so we can get her back to Pierce before he burns the place down.”
“I think he’s got enough to occupy his time right now.” Eli went to the bank of cabinets tucked in the corner and opened the top drawer, pulling out a pair of scissors before turning Mona’s way. “They had to call the fire department to put the fire out.”
“Is there a lot of damage?”
“Hard to tell.” Eli perched on the edge of a rolling stool and came to her side. “Looks like the van was GPS controlled so at least there’s only one body to deal with this time.”
Mona frowned as Eli cut up the sleeve of one of her favorite sweaters.
Not because she was upset about the sweater, which she was.
But what kind of person killed a man and then mourned the loss of a favorite sweater?
“I think I’m a bad person.” She turned away as Eli started to poke around at the wound still seeping blood.
Every face in the room scrunched up.
Heidi was the first to respond. “You are the least bad person I know.”
“I