What You See (Sons of the Survivalist #3) - Cherise Sinclair Page 0,112

I speak to the Prophet.”

“Yes, sir,” his subordinates chorused.

“Keep your heads down, stay safe.” His mouth tightened as fresh anger burned him like hellfire. In one truck were the bodies of those who’d fallen in the forest. And Obadiah.

Nabera would say prayers over them as they were flung over the cliff to the depths below. Dust to dust, as it should be.

They’d failed him by not recovering the women and children.

Obadiah had failed him by choosing a sinful woman. A stubborn one. She’d not confessed her crimes, not even when Nabera beat her. When he told Obadiah to kill her.

His men waited, and he could see their faith in the Prophet was unshaken.

“We’ll be back, and we’ll make these unbelievers regret what they did. But we’ll do it in our own time. At the best time.” Nabera gazed at the empty compound, and his teeth ground together. “And blood will flow.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

When the reptile brain takes over in battle, there’s no room for guilt. After combat is when the darkness hits. You gotta remember the faces of who you fought for. Your team, your woman, and the children. All the children. ~ First Sergeant Michael “Mako” Tyne

Cazzo, she hurt. In the quiet room, Frankie shifted in her chair, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt. Her face was all scraped up, her lower lip puffy from a punch. A scraped spot over her eyebrow burned where a branch had nailed her. Really, she was lucky it hadn’t put her eye out…and didn’t that sound like something Nonna would’ve said?

Her side ached with each breath. The emergency room doctor had said one of her ribs was cracked, but the body armor had kept her torso unperforated. A shame there wasn’t body armor for legs. Her calf had a hole right through the meat. Ow, ow, ow. There was no place on her body that wasn’t bruised.

Again, she glanced through the doorway and across the hall at the surgery department’s double doors. Somewhere in there, surgeons were doing their best to keep Kit alive and to repair the damage. Kit had been so very—

“Ms. Bocelli?”

Oh, oops. Someone had been talking to her… She shook her mind back to the moment and the two FBI agents who sat in front of her. A few minutes before, they’d brought her from the surgery waiting room to the adjacent “quiet” room. So, they could talk. “Sorry. I keep losing track of…” the conversation, the location, everything. She sighed.

It was like someone had opened the faucet to her energy and drained her empty.

“You just told us why you didn’t call us in when you got your friend’s letter or even later on.” In dark pants and a white button-up shirt, Special Agent Langford leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “You made sense.”

His partner, Special Agent Acosta nodded, his brown eyes sympathetic.

They’d been exceedingly kind to her, considering that they could have intimidated the heck out of her if they’d wanted. Especially since she kept dodging some of their questions.

Like who’d helped during the rescue.

Bull had warned her that a whole bunch of the volunteer transport crew were off-the-gridders—the kind to go ballistic if feds showed up at their doors. They deserved better than to be bothered.

Leaning her head back, she watched the agents. She had a feeling they were friends of Gabe’s. If they wanted more information, they’d have to get it from him.

“It would help if”—Langford frowned—“did you happen to keep that letter from your friend?

“Certainly. It’s in New York.” With an exasperated breath, she pulled out her phone and flipped to the photo gallery. Not being an idiot, she’d taken pictures of each document Kit had sent before locking everything up in her office safe. “Here—this is the letter—with her request that I care for Aric, my godson. The other documents are there, also. When I got the letter, I knew I had to do something.”

She shrugged. “My family is Italian and Catholic. We take that sort of commitment seriously.”

“Understood.” He gave her a respectful nod as Langford flipped screens on her phone.

A noise at the door had her standing before she even realized she’d moved. Still in scrubs, the surgeon walked through the doorway. The woman looked almost as exhausted as Frankie felt.

“How is Kit? Is she all right?” Frankie clasped her hands in front of her chest. Please.

“I think she’s going to make it, although, it was far too close. She has a concussion. Just about every rib on