Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
And yet she forced herself to stay behind Ten Smith. She wanted to run, to find a place to hide, but she wasn’t going to do that. Her sister was out there. Her sister needed her to remain calm.
It was odd how steady she became, that veil of awareness slipping over her. It was as though the world around her had become more vibrant and clear while it slowed down, allowing her to assess.
To her left she saw a group of tourists. No threat.
A couple holding hands walked by. No threat.
Single man wearing a bathrobe. Her sense heightened as he reached inside but she saw the top of a pack of cigarettes.
No threat.
“Kay, that’s the bungalow. Are you sure you want to go inside?” Ten asked.
And that was how she knew something had gone very wrong. She didn’t have a small communications device in her ear. She couldn’t hear what the woman on the other end of the line was saying, their handler. She couldn’t hear what Bishop was saying. Yet there was no need for the words because it was there in Smith’s body language. Something had gone wrong.
“I want to continue.”
He took her hand and led her inside.
The coppery smell of blood assaulted her as she walked into complete chaos. Furniture had been turned over, vases smashed against the tile, and glass marking the place where someone had smashed in through the big bay window. What should be serene and perfect had been marred with blood and destruction.
So much blood.
“Phoebe, I’m going to need you to pull all the security footage from around the grounds,” Ten was saying, his hand on his ear.
John Bishop stepped out of the bedroom. There was blood on his hands, but somehow it looked right on him. As though it belonged there. Ten’s brows shot up.
Bishop shook his head. “Not me. I had nothing to do with this. They had a hell of a fight. She managed to gut him, but not before he got his shot in. She’s in the bedroom. Had no idea who he was. Says he attacked her roughly ten minutes ago. She’s got maybe two minutes left if you want to get something out of her.”
Ten stopped, his hand going to his ear again.
“If she’s got a bead on him, you go, Tennessee,” Bishop ordered.
Ten’s eyes went wide, not an expression she normally saw on the man’s face. He was surprised. “You want me to take him down?”
Bishop’s whole body tensed. “I want the option. If he gets away and reports back, I won’t have that option. Take him out. That’s an order.”
Ten cursed under his breath, but took off out of the bungalow, his long legs eating up the distance between him and his prey.
Kayla started toward the bedroom Bishop had walked out of. What had happened to her sister? The panic was tamped down by the training she’d received. Panic solved nothing and would cost her team so much. Her team. When had she started thinking in those terms? When had she let go of the college girl she’d been and become an operative?
Bishop stood in her way. “I don’t know that you should see that.”
“Get out of my way,” she replied, the words colder than anything she’d ever said before.
His expression didn’t change at all, but he stepped aside.
Kayla entered and there was her sister. She was slumped against the bed as though she’d managed to drag herself this far, but couldn’t manage another inch. Her cell phone was close, mere inches out of reach. There was a hole in her chest, the white T-shirt she wore a mangled and bloody mess.
So odd. It was surreal to look into her own face. They were dressed exactly alike, wearing black skirts and white T-shirts Smith had bought for them. Everything was the same from the ponytails they wore to the Kate Spade flip-flops on their feet.
Everything was the same except that hole in her sister’s chest.
Ten minutes. If they’d been ten minutes faster, this wouldn’t have happened.
“Don’t,” her sister said, eyes fluttering open. Her English was damn near perfect, with barely the hint of an accent. “If you’d been here, he would have changed his plans and likely found a way to kill us all.”
“How?” She shook her head. It didn’t matter how she’d known what she was thinking.
“I’m your twin,” she said with the barest hint of a smile. “Older sister. I know everything. Damn, I wish…”
It didn’t take a mind reader to know what her sister wished for. More time. More life. A few moments to get to know the family that had been denied to her.
A world where none of this was necessary and they could have been two college students talking about boys and classes and relying on each other the way sisters did.