With that, he strode from the room, leaving me with Zandie and Elizabeth, with invisible shackles binding my ankles and praying it didn’t have to be like this.
Chapter Twenty
Avery
“Can’t you drive any fucking faster?” I growled, gripping the dash. I hadn’t slept in over thirty hours and being hopped-up on energy drinks and adrenaline was ruining my tolerance.
Tiffany raised the alarm as soon as she witnessed Hallie be taken two days ago, and the team was wheels up and jetting to Cape Town barely an hour later.
“Do you want to fucking drive?” Ty snapped, jaw tight and fingers wringing the van’s steering wheel while trying to work in and out of foreign traffic.
“I’ll drive,” Lexa piped up from the backseat, making Claire and Jackie snort.
Behind us, another car, driven by Mac with Kellie and Nevada as passengers, tailgated us through Cape Town on our urgent way to find Hallie.
In one hundred meters, turn right.
The nav-woman’s robotic voice was doing my head in and pushed me closer to wit’s end.
In three hundred meters, turn left.
I growled with impatience.
You are arriving at your destination.
You have arrived at your destination.
“Thank fuck for that,” I grumbled, flinging open the front passenger door and jumping out of the van.
Ty and the girls also exited while the second carload of girls continued to their rendezvous point on next block over. Mac and her team intended to work their way onto the estate from the rear.
Claire, Ty, Lexa, and I were set to enter the property from the street, while Jackie was to remain at the van on observation in case we needed the vehicle in a hurry. The overall plan was to disarm and remove threats with non-lethal force as we moved through the grounds and house, in search of not only Hallie, but also Trudy—her mother.
Once we had confirmation that Mac and her team were in place and ready to roll, we pushed forward to the van Staden estate.
Entering via the gate wasn’t an option, so Ty boosted me onto the wall and did the same for both girls, then scrambled up using my arm as leverage. The four of us jumped into the garden on the other side, then fanned out in formation.
Ty and Lexa split left, while Claire and I headed right, surging toward the house while knowing the girls were doing the same at the rear.
Claire and I avoided the large entrance yard and headed for the west wing of the manor; Ty and Lexa took the east.
An immediate oddity stood out, contrasting with the house’s otherwise immaculate appearance; one boarded-up window on the second floor caught my attention. Claire, also having noticed it, gave me a sharp nod when we arrived at a side entrance door at the end of the wing.
On high alert and senses acute, we pushed our way into the manor and rushed silently along the ground floor corridor.
While hurrying past room after room, I noted that each one stood eerily vacant. For such a large residence, it seemed oddly empty. Claire and I shared a fleeting look—her expression told me the situation didn’t sit right with her either. We emerged into a large sitting room with leather couches and luxury finishes. Also vacant.
Satisfied that we’d cleared our half of the ground floor, Claire indicated it was time to take the stairs to the second. I ran across the expansive tiled lobby with my rifle readied, then took to the staircase. Claire arrived at my side when I paused at the top.
She indicated for me to clear the left rooms, while she’d take the right ones.
Our advance was halted when Mac’s urgent call came through our earpieces.
“Papa Team One urgently needed in the south annex. Papa One to the south annex immediately!”
I cursed under my breath, about-faced, and rushed back down the stairs with Claire sticking to my flank.
We hooked a hard right at the base of the stairs and came to a tiled foyer that stunk of bleach and harsh cleaning solvents. Large glass doors led to an outdoor entertainment area and were already opened wide, and Claire and I hurried along the exterior wall of the annex until we found a nook to tuck into.