“Where’s the woman?” he growled.
“Fuck you,” the guard spat, and then he stopped, because Jem was cutting off his air.
“Jem, hold up,” Gunner said, then spoke directly to the guard, the only one near them who hadn’t been knocked out. “The man you’ve been taking orders from isn’t Drew. You’ve been taking orders from Donal, the man who killed your boss.”
He waited to see if the guard would contradict him, say that both Drew and Donal were working together. Instead, the man looked confused but didn’t say anything.
He had no real reason to believe Gunner, but he pulled out a picture of Donal and Drew and showed it to the man still in the headlock.
One of the guards on the ground had woken up, was listening. He was handcuffed and his ankles were tied, and Gunner showed him the picture too.
“You never wanted to be back,” he sneered. “Now we’re supposed to believe you’ve got Drew’s best interests at heart?”
“I don’t give a shit what you believe, but if Drew’s still alive, I’m betting he won’t be for long.” Gunner dropped the photos on the ground. “This happened about two months ago. Maybe a little bit before. Probably around the time I left to do the last job. Anything strange happen around that time?”
One of the other guards started to speak, but the big one barked at him to shut the fuck up.
Jem knocked out the big one. “Say what you were going to say.”
“Just around the time you left . . . Drew said that we needed to tighten security. That no one was to come on the island unless he gave the okay in person. Didn’t matter who they were. We weren’t even supposed to let boats inside a two-mile perimeter.”
Gunner looked at Jem. “Landon knew Donal was coming for him. Had to be because I came back to work for Drew.”
“Sounds that way.”
“Tie them up good. Give them the shots and let’s go find Dare and Avery,” Gunner said. Jem and Key used the sedatives Drea had prepared. But first, Jem took the guard he’d nearly killed aside and Gunner heard him ask about Drea. Again.
“If you tell me, you can keep your balls.”
“Go ahead and kill me,” the guard said.
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to castrate you and let you live,” Jem explained patiently. “And I’m not going to use anesthesia. I’ll stitch you up myself to make sure you live, you ball-less fuck.”
The guard went white. “She’s in the tower. Landon wanted us to keep her here. Said her husband would pay good money for her.”
“Did you hurt her?”
“No,” the guard said. “Can’t say the same about Landon.”
It was Jem’s turn to go white.
“Take Key and go find her. I’ll go after Avery and Dare,” Gunner told him. As soon as the men were unconscious, they went their separate ways, Gunner praying the entire time that Drea was all right.
Jem ran the tower steps two at a time. Key went slower behind him, backward, watching their six just in case the other guards were alerted.
No, he wouldn’t think like that. Never dealt in the negative.
He didn’t want to call out to her and alert any guard who might be with her. Instead, he moved quietly once he got to the last twenty steps. Key did the same.
He peeked into the tower and saw her, sitting so still on a chair in the middle of the circular room.
“Drea, it’s Jem,” he said quietly.
She didn’t move. He held his breath as he walked around her slowly, and when he met her eyes, he saw why she wasn’t moving.
The bomb’s trigger was attached to her chest. If she spoke, even breathed heavily, it would set off the bomb.
“It’s okay, baby—we’re here. Not a problem,” he told her. “You just keep holding it together. Everyone’s okay. And now you are too.”
She stared at him. She looked exhausted, relieved and scared to death all at the same time.
Avery and Dare took the building while Gunner, Key and Jem subdued the main guards. Dare entered the house first, took down three beefy guards who came at them. He’d used a silencer but they’d kept moving anyway, clearing the first floor.
Avery locked the kitchen staff into a closet after tying them up and taking their phones. They looked scared and might be innocent, but she didn’t trust anyone associated with the Landons.
The second floor was empty. She looked out the window and it was all quiet. Maybe too quiet.
“Clear,” Dare told her, and, weapon drawn, she went up the third flight of stairs. It was deadly quiet up here now that Dare had cut the alarm.
She listened for Dare’s footsteps behind her. He’d been on her six the whole time, but she was alone. She was on the landing of the third floor, was about to turn back to find him when an electrical current tore through her body. She would’ve toppled back down the stairs if Donal Landon hadn’t yanked her forward.
She landed on her side on the hard, cold marble floor, unable to do anything but convulse from the Taser. He was keeping it on her, keeping her helpless, unable to cry out for help or defend herself.
Not again.
When he moved the current from her body, he asked, “Back for more?”
She blinked, stared up at Donal Landon. He held a Taser in one hand and a knife in the other. “Trying again, you chickenshit?” she managed, and he slapped her hard across the face. Her cheek stung, her lip split against her teeth, but she didn’t stop.
She rolled before another slap could come, but he caught her with the Taser and her muscles contracted involuntarily for several long moments as he held her caught in its electrical current. Her only comfort was that he couldn’t do much to her while her body jolted. He could just kill her this way.
Finally, he pulled the current away and her body went slack. She could move, but she’d paid a price from too many of the Taser’s shocks in such a short period of time.
“You’re mine, bitch.”
“You’ve got that backward—you’re my bitch,” she told him before she kicked him hard in the side of the neck. He lost his balance, Taser and knife went flying and she was up and on him in seconds. She wouldn’t waste this opportunity, so she dove on him, scratching and punching, looking to maim, disable . . . and then she would kill him.
They rolled together, her hand on his Adam’s apple, his hand on her wrist, stopping her from crushing his trachea.
“You’ll never be able to forget me,” he croaked.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Donal. As soon as I kill you, you’ll be completely forgotten.”
He smiled quickly to cover his look of surprise at hearing his real name, then kicked. It caught her on the side of her head and she went down, still holding on to him. That put her in the worst position possible— underneath him.
He had the knife above her throat and she couldn’t move. Fear flooded her and she pushed it back. “What did Drew do to you that made you hate him so much?”
Donal considered that for a long moment, never moving the knife. “He was born with a conscience. I wasn’t. That always seemed to put us on different sides of the fence. Drew always felt too much. His emotions seemed strange to me, and at first, I tried to copy them, but then I gave up. When Father was alive it didn’t matter as much, but once Drew was put in charge, he made it his mission to go after the traffickers.”
“And you didn’t want to.”
“Avery, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Last chance to tell your story.”
