“She ran straight to the hospital, just like you said,” Patterson continued. “We put down three of those fucking SWAT assholes, too. Told you there was no reason to bring outsiders in to deal with this. We’ll be at the hangar in thirty minutes.”
Mac swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure how badly Cooper and Becker had been hit, but Hardy’s thugs must have put a couple hundred rounds into the SUV. There was no way Brooks had made it through unscathed. Gage had told her werewolves weren’t immortal. Could Hardy’s men have killed them? Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t even want to think about that.
“What are you going to do to me?” Mac asked.
Patterson ignored her as he said something into a handheld radio. Since he kept looking in the side mirror, he must have been talking to someone in a car behind them. She was right. A moment later, another sedan passed them and took the lead.
Patterson gave her a nasty smile. “Honestly, I don’t know what Mr. Hardy has in store for you. But considering that your boyfriend is responsible for the destruction of his entire business empire, killed his son, then had the balls to walk in and threaten him in his own home, I assume it’s going to be something very painful. I really wouldn’t want to be you when the boss gets his hands on you.”
Mac didn’t have a clue what the man meant about Gage threatening Hardy in his own home. But if Hardy had gone to the effort of grabbing her alive, it meant he had something specific in mind for her. If he’d wanted her dead, his men would have gunned her down like Cooper, Becker, and Brooks.
They must have been the ones who’d beat up Zak and used him as bait to draw her out of the compound. She had no idea how Hardy could have known about her relationship with Zak and that it was one thing that would pull her out of hiding, but somehow he had.
Mac saw a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye. Up ahead in the darkness, something big slammed into the side of the car in front of them, sending it spinning out of control. The driver of the car Mac was in swerved, barely avoiding it, then slowed to a stop.
“Shit,” muttered the guy beside her. “That was a freaking man who hit them.”
“No way,” Patterson said, turning to look over his shoulder at the other car that was now thirty feet behind them.
“I know what I saw,” the other man insisted. “It was a man. He hit them like he was tackling the damn car.”
Mac had seen it, too, but she wasn’t going to clarify that the man they’d seen wasn’t really a man at all. She didn’t know how it was possible, but Brooks had survived the ambush and chased down two speeding cars to rescue her. She hadn’t realized a werewolf could do that. Then again, she didn’t really know what a werewolf was capable of.
Gunshots echoed in the air. Mac turned to see orange flashes of light in the dark.
Patterson swore. “Get us out of here.”
“What about the others?” the man driving asked.
“Screw them if they can’t take care of themselves.”
Over her shoulder, Mac saw a dark shape hurtling toward them. Even though she knew it was Brooks, she still screamed when he slammed into the passenger door hard enough to shatter the glass and dent the door panel. She screamed again when he yanked off the door and dragged out the man beside her.
She had enough sense to get out while she could. Or would have if the man on her right hadn’t grabbed her at the same time the driver floored the gas and sped away. As they did, she caught sight of movement behind them.
“What the hell was that?” the driver asked.
Patterson was looking around everywhere at once. “How the fuck should I know? Just get us the hell out of here.”
Mac jerked around, trying to get another glimpse of the werewolf chasing them, but it was too dark. It wasn’t big enough to be Brooks, so it had to be either Cooper or Becker.
She braced herself, expecting whoever it was to slam into the car again, but nothing happened and the blurred shape fell back. She kept looking around, but twenty minutes later, they drove through a small gate somewhere on the backside of the airport and stopped in front of a series of hangars. The man beside her dragged her out of the backseat.
“Keep an eye out for Mr. Hardy,” Patterson ordered the man, grabbing Mac’s arm and pulling her toward a metal building. “We’ll be leaving as soon as he takes care of her.”
Mac fought Patterson, trying to jerk out of his grasp, but it was no good. Even with the soft cast on his arm, Patterson easily overpowered her and dragged her toward the door that another man was holding open for them.
“Stay out on the gate, and make sure no one followed us.”
Before Patterson shoved her through the door, she got a chance to see the man alternating looks between the ripped-up car and the darkness beyond the gate. He didn’t seem like he wanted to be out there, either.
Patterson dragged her across the hangar and around the big, sleek jet in the middle of it until they reached a door on the far side. Without a word, he opened the door and shoved her inside, slamming it behind her.
The room was almost completely dark except for an orange glow leaking through the row of small windows near the top of the outer wall. She looked around, but couldn’t see much more than some shelves and a lot of boxes.
Mac ran her hand along the door for the knob, but it was locked. She jerked on it a few times, but it didn’t give. She felt her way around the room, looking for another
