He wrapped one arm in front of her neck, holding her shoulder. To a passerby, it might’ve looked like a romantic gesture but this was nothing of the sorts.
James guided her to turn around, and as she did, she saw her by the trees.
Watching.
When Lisa shook her head, Jenna resisted the urge to scream out to her.
JAMES
“Scope the area,” James said under his breath as he walked toward the car, his arm firmly around Jenna’s shoulder.
The base of his spine tingled and he felt like he was being watched. Call it intuition, or maybe it was that he’d spent his entire life watching over his shoulder, but James knew Widow was close.
Right now, though, he needed to stick to the plan. If Widow was here, she was watching them and that would make the next part easy for him.
Until then, they had Jenna, and he had a lot of questions for her.
Deacon pulled up to the sidewalk as they approached and James guided Jenna toward the car. She got in without resisting... a pistol pressed against your back was always a good motivator, but not before James managed to pull her phone from her back pocket. He passed it to Matt who quickly removed the battery. He would know to take it to Samuel. James got into the car.
Cami was already in the backseat and handcuffed Jenna the moment she was inside the car. Cami scanned her for a tracking device, but nothing beeped.
James looked over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping the trees, bouncing from face to face but he couldn’t see Widow’s.
Reluctantly, he slid into the car. His team would search the square for him. James needed to focus on the task at hand because now that he had Jenna, he had the advantage.
Deacon veered onto the street before James’s door had fully closed.
“If you talk, I won’t hurt you,” James said, looking to Jenna.
She turned her head, her eyes on him, defiant. “Your word means nothing, you have proven that.”
James had to force himself to keep his expression impassive, which was something he’d mastered so well over the years that it was normally second nature for him, but this was a response he hadn’t been expecting. If James prided himself on anything, it was that his word counted. He didn’t make promises he didn’t keep, and he went to the ends of the earth to keep those he did make.
“Whatever propaganda you’ve been fed, I promise it’s all lies. The one thing I’m sure of is that my word means everything.”
“Wow,” she said with a hint of disgust and looked away, turning her eyes to the front.
James wasn’t insulted, but his interest was piqued in a way it hadn’t been for a long time. He said nothing else as they drove through the streets of Manhattan.
“The square is clear. No sign of her,”Matt said.
James shook his head slowly. Widow had slipped away yet again... but he didn’t need to find her. He could use Jenna now to reel her in, but first he had to find out what Jenna knew, because clearly they did not agree on a few things.
James’s eyes darted between the road and Jenna. She remained stoic, her eyes forward, her chin tilted up slightly. Whatever fear she felt, she buried deep in the pit of her stomach.
Deacon weaved through the traffic, his eyes bouncing between the road and the rearview mirror, occasionally meeting James’s. James knew without Deacon uttering a word that he was silently asking himself the same questions James was asking: what had Widow told Jenna?
They pulled into the long driveway of the Greenwich safe house. James chose this location because he wanted to be far enough away from Manhattan to make sure they weren’t followed. He needed enough time to extract the information without the distractions of uninvited guests, and he needed the isolation that house provided—located on a five-acre lot, it provided privacy from peeping eyes and straining ears.
“Times are tough,” Jenna muttered under her breath as the seven-bedroom mansion came into view.
James almost smiled at her witty banter.
“You can stay as long as you like,” he responded.
She didn’t respond and she didn’t speak another word as they pulled into the garage. When the door had lowered behind them, James opened the car door, taking her arms and guiding her out. She didn’t look like she was going to fight him—she had nowhere to run here and she knew it—nonetheless James kept his pistol pressed against her lower back as he walked her up the steps and through the house to the kitchen.
“Sit,” he said, pulling out a kitchen stool.