Bane (13 page)

“What about my brother?” That was one of the many questions going through my mind as well.

I scooted us closer to the console and laid my cell on the desk. “I’m not sure. Let’s see what happened when he left the hotel.”

Maren leaned back against my chest. “How?”

Turning my head, her neck was opened to me and I needed to taste her. I gave it a kiss and watched her reaction. A shy smile came over her face as she turned to me. We were but a breath apart as I answered her question and gave her a quick kiss. “By hacking into their system.”

“Oh.”

I wasn’t sure what she thought as we stared into each other’s eyes, the gold flecks in the irises sparkling under the light.

She broke the connection, which I needed. When around Maren, I seemed to get lost. Cuing up the mainframe for the hotel, I typed several commands and finally was rewarded with access. If the person after us watched the hotel security, they’d figure out I was in the system. I had less than five minutes to find the file and get out before they tried to trace me.

Maren watched the screens intently. Bringing up the front door hotel footage I found, the time Frank would have been potentially leaving the hotel. Maren’s and my departure flitted across the screen as I fast forwarded the feed. Ten minutes later, Frank strolled through the lobby, head down. He had to be sporting one hell of a bruise with how I clocked him. At the thought of him holding Maren roughly, my teeth mashed together. Fucker. She rubbed my leg as she felt me tense.

I slowed the feed, watching all the surrounding feeds. The same black unmarked truck pulled up to the front lobby. Maren gasped. I saw red. The asshole sold out his sister. Frank’s visit had been planned all along. But, why?

Maren sat forward within inches of the screen. “Bane, why is Frankie getting into that vehicle?”

“I don’t know, angel.”

Someone popped out of the backseat. I froze the screen and downloaded the image to my computer. Pressing play, the man was pissed. He wrenched the door open and then slammed it after Frank was shoved into the front seat. The truck took off.

Looking at the time, I had approximately two minutes before I needed to logoff.

I put the feed on high speed again to see what happened after. Two men walked in five minutes later. They had earpieces in as they headed to the elevator. I froze and saved their faces as well. They exited on our floor and went to our hotel room. Changing screens, I kept monitoring the front camera. The truck pulled back in not twenty minutes later and parked off to the side. No doubt waiting for my return. They planned to take us up in the room.

Time was running out as the timer showed less than ten seconds left. I closed the connection.

Maren remained quiet on my lap as I mentally sorted through everything. Grabbing a secure line from the desk, I dialed the hotel I knew Frank Kincaid resided in from my research. He deserved worse after I’d seen the conditions his sister lived in.

After two rings, the hotel picked up. “Hotel Dumont. This is Claire.”

“Frank Kincaid, please.” Maren quirked a brow at my request. I nodded and mouthed,
I’ll tell you in a minute.
My phone vibrated letting me know someone entered the house. I brought the house feed up on the monitors while I was on hold. It was hard not to go and face those fuckers head on, but I had Maren to think about.

Three masked men entered and went straight for the different cameras in my house, disconnecting them with efficiency. Somehow they’d gotten a plan of my security system. Maren pushed further into me. I held on to her tightly. This was fucked up ten ways to Sunday.

Clicking sounded from the other end before Claire came back on the line. “I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Kincaid checked out this afternoon.”

“No problem. Thank you.”

The line disconnected. Frank knew the unidentified truck and now he was checked out. There was no doubt Frank Kincaid was involved, but was probably a pawn being used to get to me through Maren. He wasn’t operative material.

Why? Was the man Frank owed money to involved? Did they get to Frank after I’d booked Maren? To have him on the front side seemed unlikely. The lobby meeting was by chance and Maren wasn’t the type I normally went for. None of the facts were fitting together.

All the feeds from my house were gone, except one—a camera I’d installed within the last two months in my office. It ran independently off another battery source. Those assholes were well-informed.

Barely above a whisper, Maren said, “Do you know who these people are?”

“No.”

I studied the masked man as he entered my office. He sat at my desk and pulled up the computer. Only blank screens greeted him. He pounded the desk and slipped off his mask, but his back was to the camera.

Turn around, motherfucker.

The chair spun around and my heart stopped at the face pensively taking in my place.

Holy fucking shit.

Eric Thornhill, the Black Division assassin responsible for giving intel to the cartel, was alive.

BANE STIFFENED AGAINST me at the sight of the man looking into the camera. His breathing barely audible. Something was wrong. Well, worse than it already was. I felt nauseous and anxious all at the same time. Somehow Frankie was involved. The taste of betrayal left a bitter taste in my mouth. Trying to stay positive, I hoped that was the reason why Frankie acted so terrible to me at the hotel room.

Had he been trying to get Bane to get me out of there? I wasn’t sure.

The guy that had Bane nearly becoming mute stood and walked around looking in various cabinets and folders.

“What’s going on, Bane?”

He was frozen as he stared at the screen. As if on autopilot, he responded robotically, “Frank checked out of the hotel he lived in this afternoon. And that man is Eric Thornhill.”

“You know him?”

Bane’s mouth set as his eyes narrowed in hatred. “Yes, he’s a traitor to the country. He’s supposed to be dead.”

“It looks like he escaped somehow.” People covered up death all the time, or at least in the movies they did, which was the closest thing I had to relate to this mess.

“I saw him get a bullet to the head.”

I had nothing to respond with. Seeing someone shot … in the head … did put a finality to it. The hairs on my arms stood as I stared at the man who was supposed to be dead. This brought things to a new level of scary. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. What the fuck is going on?” Bane typed furiously on the keyboard as a million different screens flitted across the screen. He sat back. “None of this makes sense. None of it.” Bane stood and gently sat me back in the chair as he paced with his hand rubbing his neck. Ten steps to the left, turn, ten steps to the right, turn, repeat.

Stopping on a dime in the middle of his paces to the right, Bane jogged to the beat-up Land Cruiser. The sides were crunched in with the paint missing. It brought home the fact how we narrowly escaped. Taking my backpack and purse out of the car, Bane walked over to another counter across the room. He held a black wand thing over my bag. Nothing happened. Then he held it over my purse and a squealing noise occurred. I sat back in my chair, further fearing what that meant. Dumping out the contents, nothing else squealed except the purse.

Quickly Bane went back to the car, retrieving the bag he’d brought out of Security Branch. His bag was silent. Grabbing another stick, he pressed a button while holding it over my purse and I wasn’t sure what happened. Only silence followed. My heart hammered in my chest as I waited to see what this meant. Putting all of his belongings and mine in the two backpacks, Bane came over to me where he unplugged a computer and smashed his cell phone. I jumped as the pieces splintered in every direction.

From a drawer he grabbed a filled duffel bag.

“We need to go. Now! I’ll explain.”

I stood, without question, on high alert. Bane may be dangerous, but I trusted him. If he wanted to do something to me, he would’ve left me to those crazy people or hurt me himself. All I wanted to do was escape somewhere to have a few minutes to process everything.

Carrying both backpacks and the duffel bag, Bane grabbed my hand and pulled me along. I had to run to keep up with him as we made our way past the metal bed and metal shelves. Bane stopped, released my hand and grabbed a larger duffel bag.

“Keep up with me, Maren. We need to get out of here now.”

The fear from earlier returned, but I pushed myself to stay next to him. Whispering in case someone could hear us, I said, “I thought this place was safe.”

“It’s not.”

Bane jogged through a door at the far end that led to a larger garage. Another black SUV that looked like it was hyped up on steroids sat shining.

“Get in.”

Without hesitation, I got in the car, feeling like I was going to be sick at any moment. I fumbled nervously with the buckle as Bane cranked the car after throwing the bags in the back seat. The garage came open and we rapidly left. Casually, Bane drove, but scanned the area. I felt cold as I kept glancing out the window, waiting for someone to chase us again. Two blocks turned into five, which turned into eight. I wanted Bane to drive fast, but he kept with the speed limit. I hugged myself to keep from shaking.

Glancing back in the rearview mirror, Bane thundered, “Fuck!”

I jumped at the tone of his voice, feeling ice flood my veins. Daring a glance back to see what type of scene unfolded, the building was surrounded in black vehicles as men got out wearing what looked like bullet-proof vests. We’d been traced through my purse. The mysterious black truck pulled up. I glanced to Bane, whose knuckles were gripping the steering wheel to the point where one or the other was going to snap.

“Will you get my new cell out of the bag I grabbed from the desk?”

“Yes.”

We were going within the speed limit. Leaning over the console I unzipped the bag with shaky fingers. It was hard controlling the fear. Bane obviously had years of practice with his overall ability to internalize his feelings. Within the bag, electronics and money were neatly stored. I took the cell and came upright into my seat.

I handed him the black phone. “Here you go.”

Bane took it. “Thanks.” With one hand, he hit a few buttons.

Re-fastening my seatbelt, I was ready to be somewhere safe. “What are you doing?”

“Burning the place down.” Those ominous words spoken, without an ounce of emotion, were dreadful. I sunk back into my chair.

Knowing death and destruction were bound to happen at some point, I still hated the fact of anyone losing a loved one. “Do you think there were any men in there?”

He shrugged. “Maren, this isn’t a negotiation with them. If they found us, I’d be dead and who knows what the hell they would have done to you. I’m not letting anything happen to you. If that makes me a sadistic bastard for not caring about if someone died back there, so be it. They knew what they were coming against when they came on the mission to get me.”

Merging onto the interstate, Bane sped up to the limit. “What made you think to check my purse?”

The blinker sounded as he maneuvered around a vehicle going under the limit. “Things were timed too perfectly when we arrived back at the hotel. They had to have a tracker on us. It would be too risky to put one on me. If I took you with me anywhere, your purse would be the one thing you’d grab.”

All of this made my head hurt. It was like conspiracy theory times one-hundred. The constant calculating, planning, plotting was exhausting. “Where are we going?”

“To the train station. I’ll book us tickets after a bit. We’ll be able to get you on without showing an ID since I haven’t had time to make you a false identity. They’ll be monitoring all ticket purchases made within the first two hours. The first initial reaction for anyone is to flee.”

I massaged the temples at my head. The one thing I knew was that I was safest with Bane. “Won’t whoever is after us think the same thing?”

“They may. I’m not leaving from a station. We’re going to North Carolina. Plus, running isn’t my normal mode of operation.”

“What is?”

“Bringing the fight to them.” The sun set as the orange rays cast magnificently across the sky. I turned on the seat heater to chase away the chill that resided bone deep. Bane touched my leg. “Maren, I’m sorry I got you involved in whatever this is. I will keep you safe.”