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I’m here entirely on my own, using his presumptions to keep me safe, along with a tracker app on my cell that sends half-hourly location coordinates to my work e-mail. But that security net isn’t going to be helpful until after someone realizes I’m missing. I’ll already be in a ditch somewhere, my body decomposing by the time anyone thinks to ask for permission to check my inbox.
“You want to get me alone,” I muse. “You have to understand how careless it would be if I agreed.” I scrutinize him, using everything I’ve learned over the years in an attempt to find the truth. I need to determine reality from fiction, deceit from fact. “And I’m also confused at why you would come to me for help. It’s no secret I’m not your biggest fan.”
“For starters, you came to me.”
Okay, so he’s got me there.
“But the main reason is because of the animosity you wave around like a red flag in front of a bull. You’re my toughest critic. I prefer to tackle the hardest tasks instead of wasting time building up to it.”
I may be his toughest critic, but I’m also the type of gal who doesn’t budge an inch when a man has proven to be untrustworthy. Yet, here I am, falling under his spell.
I want to believe him. The need burns inside my stomach, growing hungrier by the second.
And why wouldn’t I?
Obtaining answers about the abducted women goes above and beyond my objective for this meeting. Yes, I’d been aiming to get information to find his father, or take down Cole, but helping those women is far more important.
“So where’s this secluded, neutral place you have in mind?” I rub a hand along the back of my neck, easing the prickle of goose bumps. “How far away is it?”
His lips part, but then the limousine pulls to a stop.
He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, his mouth thins into a tight line as he juts his chin toward the window, instructing me to take a look.
My chest tightens before I even bother to comply. It’s the change in the air between us that unsettles me. Intuition has my nerves hyper-sensitive as I glance outside and become overwhelmed with a heavy sense of dread.
Stretched out before me is a private airport with a jet waiting on the other side of the fence, our names practically written all over it.