“What’s the range?”
“According to the specs I found on it, it has limited capabilities. Pretty much can just tell where he is, but more of a general location. Like within a few hundred feet maybe.”
“What the fuck?” My heart was racing. “He bugged my fucking cross?” I felt almost sacrilegious even saying that. The one small thing I’d had as a boy that hadn’t been tainted by my life. A nun had given it to me—one of the few teachers who’d ever given a damn about me.
Donovan dipped a hand in his pocket. “So, this Jerry could feasibly know where Ian was at all times?”
Roth nodded at Tony.
“Give or take a building if he was in the city.”
That was how he’d known where Zoe was. When I was with her, how much time I’d spent on the road. I bent at the waist, my stomach roiling.
How had my life spiraled out of control like this?
“Do you want me to disconnect it?”
“No.” Both Roth and Donovan said it at the same time.
Donovan’s face was unreadable. For that matter, Roth’s was as well, but suddenly, there was tactical glee surfacing in his. He glanced at Tony. “Do we have something that will work around this so we have the upper hand?”
Tony grinned. “I think I have just the thing. Gotta get it from my bag.”
Donovan folded his arms. “What are you thinking?” he asked when it was just the three of us.
“Use the asshole’s tracker to find him. One team on the kid with the money, another extracts Mrs. Kagan.”
I swallowed as Roth handed the chain back to me. “Is that a good thing?”
“You just became more than bait, kid. You became the whole trap.”
Five
He couldn’t be in the same room as his brother—Ian. Not his brother. His brother was sitting beside him. Ian was a piece of shit who’d brought chaos into his life and might have killed Margo.
No.
No, she was fine. They had to be. Margo and their little lemon drop.
She was strong and wouldn’t take any chances. He was the hothead, not his girl. She thought things out and knew how to deal with crazy fucking people. She loved him, after all.
Nick turned him away from the projector screen that had a video up of what Aidan and the rest of Roth Defense were doing in the war room. Or whatever the crew wanted to call the hub of technology and military-looking dudes that had three percent body fat and were five hundred percent badass.
They had been outfitting Ian with some sort of listening device when suddenly, things changed. He couldn’t get the whole story from this viewing room, but it had lasted only a moment. Then the nerd brigade had descended and Ian had been deposited on a seat in the corner of the room with Zoe at his side.
As if he should be allowed any fucking comfort.
“It should be me going.”
Nick leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. “I don’t think we have a choice on this one. If we want Margo back, we have to use—”
Simon gripped the arms of his chair. “That li
ttle shit was in on it. What if he…”
He couldn’t voice it. It would make it real.
“What if he’s still in on it?” Lila asked from the doorway. The unflappable woman they always counted on looked drawn and exhausted. Her long hair was usually pulled back and ruthlessly neat, but now it flowed over one shoulder, making her seem younger and unsure.