Trevor gazed out the window of the common area, watching as the sun went down on the four Stillwater orderlies who’d been standing in the circular driveway for the past fifteen minutes, talking to Mahsood and Brand.
When the conversation was over, the group of men moved over to the large van parked near the curb. One of the men looked around as if worried there was someone watching them before opening the door. Reaching inside, he pulled out sets of night-vision goggles for him and his buddies, then short MP5 submachine guns equipped with long silencers for each of them.
Beside Trevor, Brooklyn inhaled sharply at the sight of the weapons. He didn’t blame her. Obviously, Mahsood was going with a new approach when it came to Ian. One that included heavily armed men. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the four men gearing up for another go at the hybrid who’d been on the loose since late Thursday night were the biggest and most militant-looking members of Stillwater’s orderly staff. No doubt they were among the new employees who’d started working at Stillwater around the same time Mahsood had shown up.
Weapons in hand, the men disappeared into the thick woods. Despite the fact that Mahsood and Brand already had other orderlies out there searching for days, things were different this time. Clearly, Mahsood was cutting his losses and was more interested in killing Ian than capturing him now.
Trevor only hoped Ivy and Landon were aware the situation had changed. Without any way to call them, he couldn’t warn them that there were going to be four more people out there in those woods running around with weapons carrying bullets instead of tranquilizer darts. The possibility of this whole clusterfuck turning ugly was getting worse by the second.
“You don’t think they could hurt Ian, do you?” Brooklyn asked softly, anguish clear in her voice.
On the street below, Mahsood and Brand got into a shiny BMW and drove off.
Trevor forced a smile. “I wouldn’t worry about Ian too much. According to Ivy, he’s been running them and everyone else in circles for the better part of three days. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
Brooklyn didn’t look convinced.
“While Mahsood and Brand are away and most of the orderlies are out in the woods, we should seize the opportunity and try to get into the isolation ward,” he said, both because it was the best time to try and because Brooklyn looked like she could use a distraction. “We could be in and out of there in a flash and catching up with Ian in a couple of hours.”
Trevor had been looking for a chance to sneak into the isolation ward since Friday, but the opportunity had never presented itself, which had been frustrating as hell. Since their meeting with Ivy, Mahsood and Brand had that part of the Stillwater facility under constant guard by anywhere from four to eight men. He and Brooklyn had tried to go to the janitor’s room several times and hadn’t gotten close even once. Mahsood and his goons had just given him and Brooklyn their first—and maybe only—chance to get where they needed to go. Trevor couldn’t waste this opportunity.
The thought of meeting up with Ian soon seemed to brighten Brooklyn’s mood. With a small smile, she wandered casually over to move the white piece of surgical tape on the far window in the corner. The two of them had been taking turns moving that damn piece of tape every four hours since late Saturday afternoon, and it was getting old. He was ready to get into the isolation ward and get this mission over with. He just hoped he hadn’t waited too long. If that shifter in there had died because he’d been too cautious, he’d never forgive himself.
He and Brooklyn headed down the same hallway they’d used a few nights ago when they’d first tried to sneak into the isolation ward. Even though it was late afternoon now, it was quiet. Since Ian had escaped, most of the patients had taken to staying in their rooms. It was like they could feel something bad coming and didn’t want to have anything to do with it.
Man, he hoped they were wrong about that bad feeling.
He and Brooklyn made it to the door of the janitor’s closet easily, and Trevor was relieved to see that no one had gotten around to putting a better lock on it. While it was a new one, it was as cheap as it had been before. His nose and ears told him there were four orderlies manning the recently repaired doors to the isolation ward, but they were around the corner and down the hallway from where they were, so he wasn’t too worried about them. As long as he didn’t make a lot of noise popping the lock, it’d be fine.
Brooklyn slipped to the corner to keep an eye on the orderlies while he went to work on the door. The lock snapped so soundlessly that Trevor couldn’t help thinking this might actually work out even better than he’d hoped.
Then he picked up the scent of a man coming down the hallway behind him.
Shit.
He’d been so focused on the four orderlies by the isolation ward that he hadn’t even thought about anyone sneaking up on them from behind. But the guy was already close and coming fast.
Trevor shoved the door to the janitor’s closet open and turned to yank Brooklyn in with him, only to realize she was still at the far end of the hall, keeping an eye on the orderlies near the isolation ward. She had her back to him and didn’t have a clue what was coming, and it wasn’t like he could shout to get her attention.
Cursing silently, Trevor closed the door of the janitor’s closet just as the man rounded the corner and saw them. Trevor prayed the man wouldn’t notice the broken door. Maybe then, he and Brooklyn could talk themselves out of this situation.
“Hey! What are you two doing here?” the blond man demanded.
At the end of the hallway, Brooklyn spun around, her eyes wide.
Trevor cringed. No chance that the other orderlies hadn’t heard that. This was getting messier by the second.
“We were just taking a walk.” Trevor glanced at Brooklyn to see her hurrying down the hallway toward him. He grinned at the blond orderly. “Getting some air, you know?”
The guy frowned, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Uh-huh. Step over to that wall there, and stay where I can see you.”
Trevor had the urge to point out that they were standing in a wide open hallway and that there wasn’t anywhere he or Brooklyn could go that the man wouldn’t be able to see them. But he refrained. Pissing off the orderly any more than he had wouldn’t be a good idea.
It turned out that it didn’t matter.
The man walked straight over to the door on the janitor’s closet and twisted the knob. Not only did the door open up easily, but the knob spun in his hand, some piece of the lock mechanism falling off and bouncing loudly across the hard floor.
The orderly immediately spun and advanced on them, his face angry. “Turn around and face the wall!” he shouted, pointing as if Trevor and Brooklyn were too mental to understand the simple instructions.
Trevor nodded at Brooklyn, then turned and faced the wall, only to have the man shove him against it. The orderly grabbed his arms, twisting them around behind his back. It grated on Trevor to let a guy four inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter manhandle him like this, but he knew he had to put up with it. Hopefully, the orderly would simply take them to their rooms, and this would be a temporary speed bump to their plans.
But then the asshole reached into the pouch at his hip and came out with a set of thick, plastic police zip ties, putting them on Trevor and cinching them tight. Then he moved over to Brooklyn and did the same. The guy seemed to get his jollies restraining the teenager, yanking the ties so tight, he practically lifted her right off the floor.
“Ow! That hurts,” Brooklyn protested.
“Come on, man. Back off,” Trevor growled. “She’s just a kid.”
The orderly gave him a smirk as he jerked the plastic restraints even tighter, cutting them into Brooklyn’s wrists. “Right, she’s just a kid. Is that why the two of you were sneaking into the janitor’s closet?”
Brooklyn let out another cry of pain, and Trevor decided he’d had enough. Screw this perverted a-hole.
Flexing his shoulder muscles, he twisted his wrists in opposite directions at the same time. The plastic of the zip ties held for a fraction of a second, digging into his skin, but then snapped with an audible pop.
Biting back a growl, Trevor grabbed the orderly by the shoulder, slinging him across the hall and bouncing him off the opposite wall with a loud thud.
Brooklyn was twisting her arms back and forth, trying with all her might to get the plastic bands off her wrists or at least loosen them. But all she did was chafe the hell out of herself. If she kept that up, she was going to hurt herself badly, maybe even cut off the blood flow to her fingers.
Trevor grabbed one of her arms and steadied her. “Hold still.”
When she complied, he slipped one of his claws under the plastic cuff material and yanked, severing the thick restraint in a single swipe.
Trevor didn’t have time to check to see if Brooklyn was okay, because four orderlies rounded the corner to find out what all the commotion was. That’s when everything went to shit.
He threw himself at the four men, but one of them already had his Taser out and tagged Trevor right in the middle of the chest before he could reach them, sending a couple of thousand volts through his body. Trevor stiffened, every muscle in his body contracting at once.
Yeah…that frigging hurt.
A shifter could manage a hit from a Taser, but that didn’t mean it was fun, and it still slowed him down as he fought to reach up and jerk the barbed electrical probes out of his chest.
That gave the other three men all the time they needed to dogpile him. He growled but did everything he could to keep his claws and fangs from extending. He fought them with pure and simple muscle power and technique, shoving them away to give him room to maneuver, slamming one against the wall and another into the floor. But then one of the idiots jumped on his back and shoved a needle in his shoulder, injecting him with some clear liquid.
Assuming it was some sedative that the orderlies carried to handle unruly patients, Trevor didn’t expect it to have an effect on him, but he’d barely slung one guy off his back and was reaching for another one trying to get to his feet, when the whole corridor went wobbly, and his knees when weak.
What kind of frigging drug had they just pumped into him? He never knew a shifter could be taken this easily, especially one like him, who usually shrugged off drugs like they were nothing.
Trevor took a step forward, hoping movement would force his body to metabolize the drug faster, but his feet wouldn’t work, and he saw the floor coming up to say hello to his face. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt that much when he landed.
Brooklyn tried to run, but one of the orderlies chased her down and shoved her violently to the floor. Trevor promised to find that particular man and kick the shit out of him as soon as whatever drug they’d given him had worn off.
The last thing he saw was someone getting a grip on his ankles and dragging him toward the doors of the isolation ward. If his mouth worked, he might have laughed. He had wanted to get in there, after all.
* * *
“Crap. We’re in deep trouble,” Ivy said over her headset microphone as a van full of men who looked like mercenaries unloaded in front of the Stillwater facility.
It had been bad enough when those four orderlies had run off into the woods with night-vision goggles and silenced automatic weapons thirty minutes ago. Now it looked like Mahsood and Brand were bringing in heavyweight backup. If her experienced eyes weren’t fooling her, these new guys were military to the core. And all those bags they were toting sure as heck weren’t carrying stethoscopes in them. They were weapons—lots and lots of weapons.
This mission was getting uglier by the second.
“What’s wrong?” Her husband’s voice came over the line.
“That member of the Committee funding Mahsood’s research just sent in more muscle,” she said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Landon replied, his voice taking on that whisper-soft tone he used when he was worried about being overheard while out in the bush. “I think Frasier and his crew have given up on capturing Ian. They’ve turned around as a group and are heading to your location.”
Dammit. That was all they needed. More heavily armed men converging on Stillwater.
Landon had been trailing Frasier and his group since Friday night, keeping tabs on them and making sure they never got too close to Ian. That had been a tough task, because Frasier’s crew was well trained, and that tracker they had was damn good. If Landon hadn’t slipped in to mess up Ian’s trail a couple of times, Frasier probably would have caught the hybrid teen by now.
The one good thing was that Landon and the hybrid had crossed paths a few times. Somehow, the kid seemed to realize Landon was out there helping him. For a hybrid, Ian seemed to have it together.
While her husband had been running through the woods, keeping an eye on Ian, Ivy had been stuck watching Stillwater to make sure Trevor and Brooklyn didn’t get in trouble. They hadn’t yet, if the recently moved piece of surgical tape on the window was any indication.
But that could change quickly.
“What do you think Frasier will do when he gets here?” she asked, dreading the answer.
When Landon didn’t answer, Ivy felt a tendril of worry creep up her spine. She hated working apart from her soulmate like this. It felt wrong the entire time they were apart, and it made thinking straight damn near impossible. But it was necessary, so she forced down her fear and pushed it into the dark hole it had crawled out of.
“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s tired of chasing after Ian and decided to go to the source instead,” Landon finally said. “He’s probably going to break into Mahsood’s lab to get his hands on the man’s research. Hell, he might even go after Mahsood. Once he has what he wants, he can chase Ian at his leisure without worrying about what happens if the hybrid gets away.”
Ivy swore silently. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, too. Frasier was an impatient man, and if Thorn had been lighting up his phone like he had Ivy’s and Landon’s, it was likely he was under pressure to make something happen sooner rather than later.
Thorn had called her and Landon a few times right after Frasier had first shown up in the area, wanting to know what they were doing to capture the hybrid in the woods and get into Stillwater for Mahsood’s research. Thorn had never dropped anything to confirm Frasier was up there operating on his orders, but the fact that Thorn knew everything that seemed to be going on before they told him pretty much proved it. The scary part was that Thorn hadn’t called since late yesterday. It was entirely possible that he no longer trusted Ivy and Landon and was depending on Frasier to get what he wanted.
To say that was bad was an understatement. She and Landon had twisted themselves into knots over the past couple of months to get in good with Thorn. All on the off chance it would get them close enough to find the information that would put him in prison.
If Thorn knew they were playing him, there was no telling what the man would do. He wasn’t above trying to have them killed. Worse, while Thorn might think they had switched sides and were playing for another member of the Committee now, it was also possible that he’d figured out who she and Landon were really loyal to. Thorn coming after her and Landon was one thing, but the thought of him going after John scared the hell out of her.
“What’s the plan?” Landon asked in her ear. “You need me to come in?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “With those new guys moving your way, I want you out there watching Ian. But be ready to come in the moment I call you and say there’s a problem. I’m going to get in contact with John and let him know what’s happening. With all the trigger pullers showing up around here, we need backup—fast.”
“Agreed,” Landon said, and Ivy could practically hear her husband’s tactical mind spinning as he thought out all the angles. “But what do we do when this backup arrives?”
“I think we need to go into Stillwater and get Trevor, Brooklyn, and that shifter out of there immediately. We can’t wait around any longer. Hopefully, we’ll catch Mahsood and destroy his research at the same time.”
Landon was silent on the other end of the radio for a moment. “You realize Frasier and his crew aren’t going to sit back and let us carry out that plan, right? This could turn into another shoot-out like we had over in Tajikistan and Costa Rica and Washington State. Worse, any chance of talking our way out of this with Thorn is going to be gone the second Frasier realizes what we’re doing.”
“I know.” She sighed. “We knew it would come to this at some point. But on the bright side, we shouldn’t have to deal with too many hybrids.”
“We hope,” her husband said. “But in those other fights, we didn’t have to deal with a whole mental institution full of innocent people hanging around either. The chances of a civilian getting hurt is pretty high with this plan.”
“We’ll just have to be careful.”
“Uh-huh. Tell that to Frasier’s crew and those other trigger pullers who just showed up.”
Ivy didn’t say anything. If they were lucky, they would be able to get in and out of there without ever firing a single round. Hell, maybe they’d get really lucky, and Trevor would have gotten into that isolation ward on his own before she and Landon had to go in.
* * *
Braden looked across the conference room table at Dreya, hoping his face didn’t show how much he was freaking out on the inside.
They’d just gotten home to his apartment when the phone had rung, and John called them in to the main office in DC for a mission briefing. While Braden was extremely interested in what the new mission was—not to mention curious to finally get a look inside the secret offices under the EPA building—he had to admit he was more worried about Dreya and what the hell she was up to.
The moment Dreya had told him that she needed to borrow his car to run an errand after lunch, his BS radar had started screaming off the hook. He’d been questioning her about crimes for years and had never been able to tell when she was stringing him along, but when she looked him in the eye and said she was doing something for him, he had absolutely no doubt that she was lying her sexy little ass off.
The fact that he realized it had shocked the crap out of him almost as much as the lie itself. Had he seriously gotten to know her so well in the week they’d spent together that he could tell when she was lying to him?
He’d been so sure of it that he’d borrowed a DCO vehicle and followed her, hating himself the entire frigging time. But then she’d driven straight to the Chadwick-Thorn headquarters on I-295 near Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. He sat there and watched for almost an hour as she cased the building, scouting along the perimeter fence and looking at the place from every angle.
Dreya was planning to break into the place and steal something. And not just any place but the frigging seat of power of the man who had nearly killed her only two short months ago.
That knowledge had been eating at Braden ever since. It was like everything Coleman had said was coming to pass. Dreya was falling into her old ways, for no other reason that he could see beyond needing to give the shifter inside her another jolt of adrenaline like some junkie. What else would explain casing the offices of the most dangerous man in Washington, DC? Then again, there was always the possibility she was there to get revenge for Rory’s murder.
Neither of those things made him feel any better.
Sitting outside Chadwick-Thorn earlier, he had come damn close to calling Coleman and telling him everything so the DCO could intervene before she did something that couldn’t be repaired or covered up. Breaking into Thorn’s company definitely seemed to be in the irreparable damage category.
The only thing that had stopped him was Tommy’s voice in his head telling him he was screwing up, that partners didn’t do stuff like this to each other. But he was terrified Dreya was going to do something to break up their partnership and get her canned from the DCO, maybe even sent off to jail, or worse, killed. He couldn’t deal with any of those things happening, no more than he could accept her stealing again just for the thrill of it.
Braden knew the reason he was so torn. Dreya wasn’t simply his partner anymore. She was the woman he’d fallen in love with.
That was insane, of course. They’d known each other for all of a week. Even if he included all the hours he’d spent interrogating her over the past few years—which no one in their right mind would consider as quality date time—he still hadn’t known her long enough to be in love with her.
Yet, he was in love with her all the same.
He had to admit, there was a lot to love about her. She was the toughest, smartest, most tenacious, most stubborn woman he’d ever dealt with. She was also the most beautiful, passionate, and alive woman he’d ever been around. She was funny and engaging, with an infectious laugh and a sparkle in her eyes that were impossible to resist.
Damn…he had it bad.
But that didn’t solve the problem. He was a cop, even while he was working for the DCO. It wasn’t like he could overlook the fact that she was stealing. So did he call Coleman, or did he trust the woman he’d fallen in love with to somehow not be the woman he once knew her to be? Or did he confront her?
On the other side of the conference table, Dreya was talking excitedly about the mission, wondering out loud if they would get to go to some exotic foreign country like Nepal, Fiji, or Belize. When John walked in a few minutes later, however, she immediately fell silent. Braden could understand why the moment he saw the older man’s face. Something was wrong…very wrong.
John sat at the head of the conference table, a thick folder in his hands. “I don’t have time for a full briefing, because you two need to be on the way to the airport in less than fifteen minutes if you’re going to make the flight I chartered for you.”
“What’s wrong?” Dreya asked, her face suddenly as worried as John’s.
“I have three DCO agents on an operation in Maine, and one of them just called in asking for emergency backup. Those operatives are some of my best, so if they are asking for backup, it’s bad. I would normally have a dozen people heading up there already, but this mission is sensitive, and there aren’t that many people I can trust to handle it.”
Braden frowned. What kind of mission was so sensitive that the director would rather send a brand-new team than people with more experience? He opened his mouth to ask John that same question point-blank when he spoke.
“You don’t know Trevor Maxwell, but you’re both familiar with the other two agents—Ivy Halliwell and her partner, Landon Donovan.”
Braden did a double take. “Ivy and Landon were working for you the entire time they were helping me track Dreya?”
“Ivy’s in trouble?” Dreya asked, ignoring Braden’s question.
“Yes, Braden. Ivy and Landon were working for me back then,” John said. “And yes, Dreya. Ivy’s in trouble. She’s the one who called for backup.”
Braden had about a million things he wanted to ask, but John held up his hand to forestall them. “I know you both have a lot of question, but we don’t have time. I have to give you two the basics of what’s going on up there, so you can decide if you’re willing to go on this mission.”
That stopped Braden cold. John wasn’t telling them he had a dangerous mission he needed them to go on. He was asking them to volunteer for it.
“What the hell’s going on, John?” he asked. “What kind of trouble did your agents get into up in Maine?”
John’s mouth tightened. “The kind that involves Thomas Thorn.”
Shit.
John opened the folder and took out pictures, placing them on the table. Braden recognized the first few. There was Thorn, then his head of security—Braden was pretty sure his name was Frasier. Next came photos of Ivy, Landon, and the man Braden assumed was the other DCO operative, Trevor. The next two people—an older dark-haired woman with sharp features and a gray-haired man in an expensive suit—were also familiar.
Then John laid out a series of disturbing photos that almost made Braden cringe—and he’d seen some terrible things on the job. The people in the pictures were dead shifters, their bodies horribly twisted and their faces bearing the grimaces of humans who had died in terrible agony. Some of the dead tortured souls were lying on the ground, while other were strapped into beds or thrown onto piles of other bodies. It was truly gruesome.
Braden looked at Dreya. Her face had gone pale, her eyes wide.
He glared at John. “What the hell are you showing us these pictures for?”
“So you have some idea about the kind of people you’re going to be dealing with if you go on this mission.”
The director tapped two of the photos. “You both know Thomas Thorn. This man beside him is Douglas Frasier, his chief of security. Dreya, it might interest you to know that this is likely the man who killed your friend Rory.”
Braden darted a glance in her direction to see her eyes glowing green. She looked fierce—and angry.
“Frasier is up in Maine right now, leading a group of trained killers you’ll probably end up facing if you go up there.” John pointed out the other pictures, one by one. “Ivy, Landon, and Trevor.” He took a breath. “Trevor got himself committed to a psychiatric facility undercover almost five days ago. Ivy thinks he’s okay but doesn’t know for sure, since she has no way to make contact with him at the moment.”
John moved to the photos of the other man and woman Braden had recognized. “You might recognize these two if you follow DC politics. They’re Congressional Representatives Rebecca Brannon and Xavier Danes. Along with former Senator Thorn, they’re the three most powerful members of the oversight Committee that runs the DCO.”
Braden wasn’t sure, but he thought his jaw might be sitting on the table. He scooped it up to ask the same question he’d already asked. The one John hadn’t answered.
“Okay, what the hell is going on here? What do Thorn and these congressional reps have to do with a psychiatric facility in Maine and with these tortured shifters?”
John spread the pictures of the tortured people out a little more, like he wanted to make sure Braden and Dreya could see them clearly.
“These aren’t shifters,” he said. “These are regular, everyday people who some very sick, power-hungry doctor experimented on in an attempt to make them into man-made shifters. We call them hybrids. The process is prone to failure, and when it fails, the results are horrible. On those occasions when it is successful, the hybrids are usually violent and uncontrollable.”
“Who would do something like this?” Dreya asked softly. “Some of these people don’t look any older than teenagers.”
“Thorn would do it,” Braden whispered.
“He would, and he has,” John agreed. “Most of these people are victims of the research programs Thorn has funded all around the world. Unfortunately, he’s not the only Committee member involved in this.”
“Brannon and Danes?” Braden asked, having a hard time believing that two people currently in Congress would be involved in something like this.
John nodded. “To a lesser degree than Thorn, but yes, they’re involved. It’s why Ivy and Landon went to Maine in the first place. To check into a possible new hybrid research lab that Thorn found. A lab probably being funded by Brannon or Danes.”
Braden narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. Ivy and Landon were investigating a lab for Thorn?”
“It would take hours to explain everything to you and Dreya, but suffice it to say, Ivy and Landon have done more to stop these hybrid labs than anyone,” John said. “They’ve also been able to insert themselves into Thorn’s inner circle in the hopes of getting enough evidence to send him to jail for a long, long time. Thorn wanted them to go up to the Stillwater facility in Old Town to see if they could find any useful research he’d be able to use to jump-start his own hybrid efforts. Unfortunately, it seems that Frasier followed them and may have exposed the fact that they’ve been playing Thorn all along.”
Dreya leaned forward. “Do you think Frasier is going to try and kill Ivy and Landon like he did Rory?”
John nodded. “That and more. Trevor is in danger, too, as well as a teenage girl who seems to be in the psychiatric facility for no other reason than because the people watching over her family’s estate won’t be in control of the money if she ever gets out. If the situation weren’t complicated enough, there’s also a hybrid who recently escaped from the facility and is now running around the woods of Old Town.”
Dreya looked horrified. “You expect us to hunt down and kill a hybrid?”
“No. I expect you to earn his trust and save his life,” John told her. “There will likely come a time when you run into hybrids so wild that you have no choice but to kill them, but that isn’t the case here. If what Ivy says is true, the hybrid is staying in the area because he’s concerned about the girl I told you about. Any hybrid willing to risk his life for another person is worth saving, as you’ll learn when you get a chance to meet the other hybrids that we have here at the DCO.”
Braden could tell that Dreya wanted to ask more questions—so did he, for that matter—but John was already looking at his watch. “There aren’t very many people in this organization I can trust on a mission like this. I would have sent Clayne and Danica, but they left this morning with my only other trusted team to investigate a string of brutal murders in Chile that might involve a trio of rogue shifters. There isn’t anyone else I can send.”
“What about Lucy?” Dreya asked.
John shook his head. “I trust her, but this isn’t her kind of work.”
Well, that was cryptic as hell. Braden waited for John to elaborate, but instead, he looked at them expectantly.
“What’s it going to be?” he asked.
Braden exchanged looks with Dreya. If this wasn’t Lucy’s kind of work, Braden doubted it was Dreya’s either, but he could tell from the look on her face that she’d already decided to go and had assumed he would go with her.
Well, it was his fault for falling in love with such a tough, stubborn, tenacious woman.
“We’ll do it,” Braden told John, praying to God he didn’t regret this.
John scooped all the pictures into the folder and handed it to them. “There’s a car waiting outside the door. It will take you to the airport where a private charter will fly you straight to Bangor. You’ll be there in less than an hour and a half after takeoff. A vehicle will be waiting for you on the ground with the Stillwater facility loaded in its GPS. It’s a short twenty miles from the airport to the facility. Get in contact with Ivy and Landon as soon as you land. You’ll find all the information on how to do that on the plane, as well as weapons, ammo, and tactical gear. Only take what you’re comfortable using. We haven’t trained you on everything yet, so if you don’t know how to use it, don’t bother with it. Braden, trust Dreya’s eyes, nose, and instincts. Dreya, trust Braden to cover your back. This is just like Miami—times a hundred.”
Before John could hurry them out, Dreya stopped him. “Don’t worry. We’ll get Ivy, Landon, and Trevor back here in one piece. The hybrid and his girlfriend, too.”
Braden couldn’t help but be moved by the conviction in her voice and think his earlier concerns about Dreya had been an overreaction. She wasn’t the same woman she’d been. He knew that now.