Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
He stared at the map. “What do you think our odds are if we attack now?”
“Perhaps fifty-fifty. If we wait until the shift change, I would increase that to seventy-five–twenty-five.”
He didn’t like either of those odds, but he wasn’t going to be happy with odds that weren’t 100 percent in favor of her getting out of that warehouse safely. “We’re not leaving her in there.”
“You’re risking a significant amount.”
“Yes. I am.” She was being hurt right this goddamn second. If he’d left her in that little bar two weeks ago, she’d be safe right now. It was his fault she had a target painted on her back, and he wasn’t going to leave her to bear the burden of it. “We’ll get her out. Now. I’ll take my men here.” He pointed to the north warehouse. Aiden was pretty damn sure that was the same one where he and Charlie had gone to play poker last week. “Halloran, you will hit this one.” He moved his hand to the south building. “Romanov, you will split your men between us.”
“We’ll talk about your giving me orders another time.”
Yeah, just like they’d talk about Romanov’s determination to make Keira his wife another time. Aiden looked up and met his gaze directly. “Tonight, we’re allies. This isn’t the timeline we’d set up, but it will serve the same purpose. Once the Eldridge threat is eliminated, we’ll get back to politicking and that other bullshit.”
“Indeed.” Romanov moved to a cabinet built into the center of the shelves and pulled out a bottle of vodka and three tumblers. “I know you Irish with your unrefined palates enjoy your whiskey, but you’ll have to make do with vodka tonight.”
“Now isn’t the time to be drinking.”
“We’re about go into battle. It’s the perfect time to be drinking.”
Aiden took the tumbler without another word and downed the entire thing. It burned his throat, and he welcomed the feeling. Two years ago, the three of them would have happily gunned each other down in the street, and yet here they stood, ready to take on a mutual enemy and trusting one another other not to fuck them over. He looked at Dmitri Romanov and James Halloran and wondered how they’d gotten to this point.
Love, you fool.
His thoughts once again turned to Charlie. He hadn’t told her he loved her, hadn’t wanted to scare her more than she already was. He regretted that now. Didn’t he know better? There were no guarantees in life—especially a life like theirs. They had to live and love and do whatever it took to keep moving forward.
He had to believe that she’d walk out of that warehouse. She’d faced down more than her fair share of shit, and Mae might be the worst yet, but Charlie was so damn strong. She’d survive. She had to.
Stay strong, bright eyes. Just stay strong.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Charlie had thought she was tough. She might not have always admitted that to herself, but it had been a deep core belief she’d needed to keep moving. Being at Mae’s mercy threatened to prove her wrong a hundred times over. Time lost meaning as Mae asked her questions over and over again. A cut here. A punch there. More questions.
To which she claimed she didn’t know. She denied. She did anything but give Mae the information she wanted.
The woman had taken a call maybe five minutes ago, which was just long enough for the hopelessness of Charlie’s situation to sink in. She shifted and winced. She definitely had a broken rib—or three—and her exposed skin was covered in blood from the shallow cuts Mae seemed to enjoy giving her. It was more blood than she should be losing, but overall she wasn’t in danger of dying. Yet.
With each minute that passed, she was less and less likely to make it out of this warehouse alive.
The door opened, and she tensed. Mae strode in, a smile on her face. “Now that that little task is off my plate, I can devote the rest of the night to you.”
There couldn’t be that much of the night left. She’d been snatched off the street around nine, and it had taken several hours to make the drive to New York from Boston, even if Mae had broken all the speed limits. It might feel like she’d been torturing her forever, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two. She didn’t know if that was comforting or if it meant that Mae planned to condense a whole lot of pain into a very short period of time.
Mae disappeared deeper into the warehouse and came back with a giant jug of water and a hand towel. Charlie stared, her entire body shaking. She wasn’t afraid of being cut or beaten. She’d experienced both before and lived to tell the tale. Being shot? It would suck, but it was a risk she’d had to come to terms with before she became a cop.