Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
“I’m not coming for you,” I promise him. “I’ve learned my lesson. Look at all the shit that’s happened to me since I came near you.”
It’s been two days, not counting these post-raid days. I was in the House of Vitali for two days. That should not be enough to change anything, but it feels like it has changed absolutely everything.
Bobby’s phone rings.
It’s the lawyer. I can’t hear the conversation this time, but I know who it was because the second he disconnects the call, he’s trying to get things moving.
“Can you get up? Just slow. Don’t fuck the stitches. The sooner we get you swapped, the sooner you can get to a Fed doctor and Angelo can come home.”
“Can’t wait to get rid of me, huh?” I try to smile through cracked lips. I’ve hardly had to move at all while Bobby’s been looking after me. I assume I can move. I also assume it will hurt. As it turns out when I try, I am right on both assumptions.
“Don’t worry,” I tell Bobby. “I won’t say anything they’ll find useful. Not after this.”
“I don’t know if you’re going back as hero or a suspect,” he says honestly. “But you’re going back.”
I can’t expect Angelo or Bobby to choose me over themselves. That would be madness. But there’s still a pang deep in the pit of my stomach, right where I’m wounded. It makes me wish I was part of them enough that they wanted to keep me.
My guess is they’ve tried to get Angelo on kidnapping charges, but the whole thing has gotten messy. My next guess is that when I get back, they’re going to not only squeeze me for intel, but try to bolster those potential charges.
Bobby shakes a wheelchair open, one of the ones that can fold up all nice and tidy out of the way. It has the name of a local hospital stenciled on the back. Obviously stolen.
Bobby takes me to a basketball court, wheels me into the center of the pitch, drops a quick kiss on the top of my head, and leaves. He can’t risk staying. I know the plan is that he’ll call the agency and let them know where I am.
I hear sirens and see lights about five minutes later. Big black vehicles pull up around the court and agents come leaping out. Ambulances and a couple of cop cars follow in their wake. I feel a sudden bolt of fear at the sight of them and the memory of the last time a plethora of agents came at me like this.
It’s different this time, of course. Amid the swarm of dark armored people, Angelo Vitali’s tall and elegant frame emerges from the back of a vehicle. He is cuffed, but those cuffs are removed almost immediately. They’re satisfied that I’ve been brought, and now Angelo walks free again.
“We’ve got you, agent!” The excited tones of someone I don’t know come breathily in my ear as lawful hands take control of my chair and my life.
Angelo walks right past me as I am wheeled toward the waiting ambulance. Time seems to slow as he passes me, his tall, powerful figure seemingly unaffected by captivity. I know they would have been rough on him. No tenderness is spared on a man like Angelo. Professional detachment goes out the window when law enforcement handles a target they have long suspected of causing the deaths of many of their number.
His dark eyes meet what I now realize is a hopeful gaze. There is just the barest nod, a slight flicker of acknowledgement, and then he is behind me and I am being taken into the embrace of my colleagues.
9
“I’ve told you everything.”
I’ve told them everything at least a dozen times.
I am sitting in an interrogation room with an IV drip feeding me fluids and a touch of pain relief and whatever else they’ve decided to prescribe. I’ve been in the hospital for several days, mostly under observation, but being assessed for what happened to me in the Vitali field hospital. The news is not good.
The agency doesn’t really care, because I’m alive.
I’ve been discharged for the purposes of being what they’re calling debriefing, and what I know is interrogation.
Kurt is sitting in front of me, across the table. I’ve been on his side of it a thousand times, and I know he’s the best interrogator we have. His presence, as congenial as it appears, means I am being treated effectively like a suspect.
“I know this is tiresome. We’re just trying to get all the information you have before you start to forget. Tell me what happened. From the top.”
“I was observing the location and I was discovered. Angelo Vitali kidnapped me and took me back to the house.”
“And you were in the house until we rescued you, or rather until you were exchanged.”