“If anything happens to her between now and the time you do the drop, I will fucking gut you. Do you understand? I will string you up and make you beg for me to put you out of your misery. Is that clear?”
His muscles tensed, and he reached for his pocket. But before he had a chance to pull his gun on me, Mikhail stepped between us.
“You have my word. We’ll make sure she arrives at the drop point unscathed. After that…” He tilted his head back, pointing toward the ceiling. “He’s in charge.”
He probably said it to make me feel better. So I’d put my faith in a higher power.
It didn’t.
Because once that van drove off into the night, Ariana would be beyond my reach.
And for the first time since I’d rescued her, protecting her would depend on someone other than me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Henry
My leg bounced as I sat in my SUV in the parking lot of a rest stop along Alligator Alley, my gaze focused on my laptop.
At the red dot.
As Blake promised, the tracker’s signal remained strong, even as the miles between Ariana and me increased. I’d spent the past hour watching as Mikhail and Tattoo drove her across the state. I’d left my house shortly after they did, stopping at the rest stop approximately thirty miles from the drop location. It was a risk to be here at all, but I couldn’t stay home. I needed to be as close to Ariana as possible. The time it would take me to get to her could have meant the difference between life and death.
So I parked at the rest stop, watching the red dot get farther and farther away. But it stopped moving over twenty minutes ago when Mikhail left her at the drop location.
And the more time that passed, the more concerned I was becoming that something had gone wrong.
“Something isn’t right,” I muttered.
“It’s okay,” Blake’s voice came over the line.
As much as I would have loved to have him here, he still wasn’t a hundred percent. He didn’t want to become a liability or do anything that might interfere with my ability to get to Ariana in time. Plus, it was good to have him at my house. Or the command center, as he referred to it. That way, once Ariana arrived wherever she was being taken, Blake would be able to pull up building schematics, aerial footage, and property information. Anything and everything that could prove useful.
“The drop location is in the middle of a bunch of farmland. This guy obviously doesn’t want anyone to know who he is. He’s probably making sure the coast is clear.”
“For nearly a half-hour?” I shot back, my frustration growing with every damn second. I dug my fingers into my hair, tugging at the ends as my mind spun with dozens of different scenarios, each one worse than the last.
“What if he found the tracker and killed her? What if that’s why she’s not moving?” I struggled to swallow through the tightness in my throat at the mere thought. “What if she’s already dead?”
“She’s not,” Blake assured me. “You can’t think like that. I get this is probably the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do. But you need to stay positive. For Ariana’s sake.”
I closed my eyes, trying to do exactly as Blake encouraged me to do. But it was so fucking hard.
“I should go,” I announced
“What do you mean?”
“To the drop point.”
“Give it a few more minutes. Like we’ve said repeatedly. This may be your one and only chance to bring Sarah home.”
“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I just… I fucking hate this.”
“Just… Five more minutes.”
I parted my lips to argue that I didn’t think I had five more minutes in me when the dot started moving.
“We’ve got movement,” Blake announced excitedly.