Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
I couldn’t do it. Now that the moment had arrived, I couldn’t simply stand by and not know what was going on. “I’ll meet you there in a few,” I said before bolting toward the house. Levi called after me, but I knew he wouldn’t chase me. He was way more concerned for Marissa’s safety than mine.
I stopped at the catering trucks to remind them to stay put until it was time for the reception. They knew the house was completely off-limits.
Instead of going to the front door, I snuck in the side door to the mudroom and considered how close I could get without interfering with the op. I didn’t want to mess up Champ’s plan, but the man I loved was downstairs with his asshole ex. I wanted to be close by so I could help out if things went sideways. More than that, I wanted to be ready to hear all about it as soon as Vince was safely away from here.
When someone grabbed my arm roughly from the doorway behind me, I realized how stupid my idea had been.
I belatedly realized Champ’s text hadn’t specified whether Vince was actually in the house yet.
It turned out, he wasn’t. Maybe he’d gone to search that outbuilding first the way I’d suggested. I wanted to kick myself for being an idiot in more ways than one.
“You’re going to keep your mouth shut and do exactly as I say,” Vince said in a low voice. There was a distinct thread of nerves in his tone, which only scared me more.
I nodded fervently, my heart slamming against my chest.
Champ was right. A wedding planner was not a security operative.
24
CHAMP
My team, together with Tommy and Rod, waited in the nearby guest room, watching the surveillance video on the monitors Hux had set up. We’d watched Vince park his car alongside the wedding guests, duck behind a barn, and emerge a moment later wearing a white jacket so he could blend in with the waitstaff. Hux had quietly announced over comms that he’d lost visual, as expected, once Vince passed beneath the trees toward the back of the house, but his tracker placed Vince near the mudroom, just where we’d thought he’d enter, and for one happy second, I marveled that this whole operation was going to run perfectly smoothly from start to finish…
And then Vince walked into Tommy’s office with a gun to Quinn’s head, and every muscle in my body seized like I’d been juiced by a live wire.
“Tell me I’m not seeing that!” I demanded to my team as I scrambled around the giant bed in the middle of the room to get to the door. My brain scrambled to make sense of the image.
How the hell had Vince gotten a hold of Quinn?
And Jesus fuck, why?
Over the past week, every revelation about the man I’d once been involved with made me realize how little I’d ever really known him, but the idea that he would take an innocent man hostage and literally hold a gun to his head? That was a factor I hadn’t considered when planning out this op. Vince was a thousand times more dangerous than I’d let myself believe.
He wasn’t just playing fast and loose with the law in order to get a promotion or financial gain from the cartel; he was actually putting a civilian’s life at risk. There was no shred left in him of the guy I’d once tried to love.
And I would have no remorse about ending him if necessary.
I slammed my headset on the desk and strode out of the spare room. My team called after me to be cautious and make a plan, but I was too angry to be sensible. There was no way in hell I was allowing Vince Parler to threaten Quinn. Not for one second longer than necessary.
I pulled my weapon and stormed into the office. “Let him go right fucking now.”
Vince’s smile was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, and it made my blood run cold. “That’s not happening. Put down your weapon, Percy.”
“That’s also not happening. Vincent.”
Quinn’s eyes were wide and his breathing shallow. I tried to send him a reassuring look, but he seemed too scared to even process what was happening. My whole body was on fire with the need to rip him away from Vince and hold him safe and secure in my arms—and then to shake him for daring to put his life in danger when I fucking needed him like I needed oxygen. Letting my training take over to keep my emotions contained and my brain alert was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
“I’m here for the Horn,” Vince said. “You’re going to get it for me, Percy, or your sweetheart’s going to die.”
Jesus Christ. The man was talking like the mustache-twirling James Bond baddie.