Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“I already forgot he can’t. Throwing shade is only fun if you can say it to their face.”
Another car arrives, followed closely by a third. The latter two block our exit while the first rolls right up opposite us.
I swallow a relieved breath when it’s Walker who steps out of that car. I can’t let it show that we’ve got everything riding on this.
“Expecting someone else?” He lifts his chin and is joined by Rowling’s son, who gets out of the driver’s-side door.
I act unfazed. It comes easily when this was our plan all along. “Nope.”
“Figured as much. You don’t think I can sense a trap when it’s laid out for me that easily?”
My gaze narrows. “If you suspected it was a trap, why did you come?”
“How conceited are you? You want to know how I knew it was a trap?” He steps closer, and I instinctually reach behind me and grip the handle of my gun. He stops. “Because I’m the man who hired you to tail Councilman Rowling.”
Okay, that was not what I was expecting. “You’re …”
“I’m Gary Price.”
Fucking, fuck, fuck.
We set ourselves up.
“How—”
“When Jon’s dear father caught on to what I was doing, he wanted nothing more than to take me down. So I hired you to get dirt on my old best friend.”
Rowling has never been corrupt.
“When that didn’t work, I did something I didn’t want to do but felt I had to.”
What an asshole. “You brought your godson into it so Rowling wouldn’t turn you in. He’s protecting his son.”
“Still, I was hopeful you’d find something for me so I could get Jon out. Then he got in too deep.”
“Yeah, I’d say killing one of his dealers point-blank is getting in too deep.”
The kid in question gives me the finger and opens his mouth to talk, but Walker stops him by glaring at him.
“We’re in this because of you. Don’t say a word.” Walker turns back to me. “Now, where’s Dylan Rodriguez?”
“Right where you expect him to be,” I say.
“Not here.” Walker cocks his head. “That’s not him outside the fence? Or not one of the two people hiding in that building?” Walker points to the warehouse where Angel and Proxy are and then to the other where Atlas and Zeus are.
Jon Rowling is holding a device that looks like a remote control for—
A buzzing sound hits my ears, and it gets louder and louder until a drone flies over our heads.
Walker is even more prepared than I thought, which complicates things but doesn’t fuck it up completely. He’s two steps ahead of us, and I hate it when assholes get the jump on me, but not all is lost yet.
“Seems this has been a waste of both our times, then,” I say.
I don’t want to let him go, and it would be easy for me to take out each and every one of these guys and get rid of them, but where will that get me? That doesn’t clear Dylan’s name.
“Not really,” Walker says. “Not when you have most of your men here and poor Dylan is holed up in Monrovia.”
At that, my blood runs cold.
“How did you—”
“You might have found the bug my guy planted in your place, but you didn’t find the trackers on your cars, did you?”
Motherfucker.
Domino was at HQ when he found the bug, and then he came straight to me, and we took his car thinking it wouldn’t be recognized.
Walker has known where we’ve been all along.
And now he’s going after Dylan.
I go to hit the receiver in my ear when I remember the signal jammer in effect. I take out my phone, and it’s got as much reception as a fucking brick. Which also means our plan to document and record this whole interaction has hit a bump in the road.
I have state-of-the-art equipment that regular citizens don’t have access to, and we went this route to gather all the evidence in the highest-quality possible, but state of the art doesn’t mean shit if Walker’s blocking the signal.
He stands across from me, smirking, and I’m prepared to wipe it off his goddamn face with my fist.
He has us trapped with no way to contact anyone on the outside.
Dylan’s in trouble.
And we need to move to a backup plan.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dylan
When the comms go silent immediately after the guys said the other cars were approaching, I know something’s wrong.
“What happened?” I ask.
“The feed is gone.” Saint checks all the cables to his computer, but he won’t find anything.
Walker went in prepared.
“They’re in trouble,” I say.
Saint types away at his computer and then holds the earpiece of his headset. “I can’t get a hold of Trav. Iris, see if you can get anyone else on the line.”
“On it.” Iris takes out his phone.
“What can I do?” I ask.
“Stand there and don’t worry. We’ve got this.”