Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
“Okay!” Mohawk cries out. He’s shaking worse than Layla now, digging in his pockets, and producing four vials of ICE.
“Come now,” I say, still holding the gun at Mohawk’s groin. “That can’t be all you got. I really don’t want to see you two buck naked, but if I have to make you undress to get the rest of the ICE, that’s what we will do.”
Punker dude hands over another vial, obviously deciding he doesn’t want the Smith & Wesson giving him a visit down under, either.
“Good,” I say agreeably, pocketing the ICE. Doc Katie, the Renegade’s medical chief of staff, is going to piss her pants, or maybe go orgasmic on me over four vials of ICE. The fifth will be for Layla.
I jerk the gun hard against the guy’s crotch, and I’m rewarded with a guttural grunt in return. “Now, hand over your IDs. That way, if you say a word about this, I can hunt you down and use you for target practice.” I lift the gun and point it toward the ceiling.
It's all of five seconds for their compliance. I motion them away. “Get out of here.”
They dart away while I shove the weapon into my belt and rotate to face Layla, who’s huddled in the corner. “Stay back!” she yells, her hand pressed to her stomach.
She’s scared of me—truly scared of me. And pale as a new winter’s snow, her dark hair tangled around her face.
“Layla, honey. It’s me. Jensen. You know me. You know you can trust me.”
She hugs herself, her teeth chattering. “I don’t know anything anymore. You could be one of them.”
She’s in a drug haze, and I try to bring her back to me. “There are GTECHs. We divided into two groups. Renegades and Zodius. The Zodius are the bad guys.”
“I heard the recording of you with Julian. Fuck me into submission?! And photos of you with him.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Not this. Not now. I try to keep my voice steady and calm. We don’t have a lot of time before someone comes for us or before she drops on me. “That audio was me just trying to buy us time,” I explain. “I whispered to you about them watching. Remember?”
“What does that even do to build trust, Jensen? Nothing. You know him too well. Julian. Julian.”
“I fought by his side for the government, even after his wolves, baby. He raided the operation. He overthrew the government. I’m not with him. I’m with his brother, Caleb.” I remove a vial from my pocket, and as much as I hate the risk of giving her ICE our team hasn’t inspected first, I’m not sure I have a choice. She’s bad. Really fucking bad. There’s a fear that tainted ICE is what’s killing people, but we really don’t know. “You need to dose.”
“How do I know that doesn’t have poison in it to kill me like you killed Milton? How do I know this isn’t a setup?”
“I don’t even know a Milton, Layla. Please. Sweetheart. You need to take the ICE, and then we’ll go meet Caleb. He’ll tell you I served with Julian. We all did.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she shouts, and irrationally tries to dart past me.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her close with no intention of letting her go, breathing her in. I found her quickly, as if I was meant to find her, meant to protect her, to save her, and I’m damn well going to do it.
“Let me go!” she demands, shoving weakly against me, determined to use what energy she has left to escape me. I turn her in my arms as I had in her kitchen, her back to my chest, holding her firmly, steadily. “Damn you, Jensen.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Why won’t you just let me go?”
“Because I can’t,” I reply. “Because I don’t want to let you go again. I will never hurt you,” I add softly, and repeat it as she continues to squirm. “I will never hurt you, Layla.”
Seconds pass, and she stills in my arms, but she whispers, “Let me go, Jensen.”
I open my mouth to tell her “never,” when a tingling awareness rushes over me and wind gusts rip through the warehouse. I grab Layla’s wrist and press the vial in her palm a second before I draw a gun with each hand and rotate to block her from danger.
At the same moment, a good half-dozen Zodius soldiers materialize. “We’ll be taking the woman,” one of them declares, confirming what I’d feared. They’re here for Layla; they’re tracking her, not me.
Before I can move, the soldiers drop to the floor like sawed-off trees, just hitting the ground with hard thumps.
“What the—?” I use my weapons to scan each unmoving soldier, then above, checking the pallets for another attack. At the same time, I nudge the leg of the nearest Zodius. Nothing. Totally limp. I lean down and check for a pulse, and find one. These fuckers are sleeping. What the hell?