Page 65 of Deliverance

“Evie.” His sleep-roughened voice sharpened as he sat straight up in bed.

“I know,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m not going alone. But we have to make a plan, and we only have thirty minutes to do it.”

Facing Drake alone wasn’t a good idea; I knew that. But I also didn’t want to risk the guys and my family more than necessary. It was like the two sides of my brain were warring against each other.

By the time we all gathered in the living room, we had twenty-two minutes left on Kingfisher’s deadline. I sent out a message to Izzy, Liam, and Danny as soon as I had gotten dressed, so they were waiting on the laptop screen in the middle of the table.

I outlined the message Kingfisher had left for me. Sebastian left the room, heading towards his bedroom after I finished explaining.

“You’re not going alone,” Danny said firmly, straightening like he was gearing up for an argument.

“I know I’m not,” I said evenly. “But it has to look like I’m going alone. I won’t place you all under unnecessary risk. So how do we make it look like I’m going alone when I’m actually not?” I had a feeling this was going to be Drake’s big move. He had to be pissed from the press conference. Whatever he was planning would be big, and we needed to be ready.

Sebastian entered the room, carrying a jacket over his arm. I recognized the jacket as one of mine and frowned. Why did he have it?

“I took the liberty of borrowing one of your jackets in case this exact scenario occurred.” He announced to the room, spreading the jacket on the table.

He pointed to the three buttons on the front of the jacket. “Each of these buttons is a small camera or audio recorder. The bottom button is a tracker, and I also have a tracker sewn into the lining of the jacket.”

“What if he makes her take the jacket off?” Marcus asked, his arms folded and his face twisted in a scowl.

Sebastian held up a small bag of tiny trackers. “Thought of that. These are small enough to fit in her shoes.”

“We’re moving Archers into positions around the penthouse,” Izzy said. “We’ll have eyes on her via traffic cameras, and we’re scrambling Archers into traffic camera blind spots. We’ll be able to track her through the city.”

“What about that list of properties we found associated with Drake?” Adrian asked. “Would he take her to one of those?”

“He probably will,” Alexander agreed. “But we don’t have the manpower to cover them all.”

“Based on the trackers, we can narrow down the area,” I said. I looked at Dominic. “Call Agent Mercer. Tell him it’s going down tonight.”

Dominic nodded. Good, we would need the SID here when it all went down.

Alexander was typing on his phone. “I’m waking up some of our SDS teams.”

I ignored the uncomfortable twisting in my gut. I still hated to drag SDS into it, but we needed the manpower. Especially if Drake was planning something big.

“She can’t go unarmed,” Marcus said firmly, daring anyone to argue.

“The first thing he’ll do is search her for weapons,” Adrian retorted.

Dominic reached into his boot and pulled out a small knife sheath. He handed it to me, and I pulled the blade out of its sheath. It was a small blade, only three inches long and narrow, but it felt well balanced in my hand.

“This should fit in your boot.” He gestured at my combat boots. “My dad gave it to me.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, looking up at him. This was his dad’s, and I was sure it held sentimental value from the way he carefully held it.

“I’m sure.” He pressed a kiss on my forehead. “It’s always kept me safe. It’ll keep you safe too.”

I nodded and lifted my boot onto a chair to tuck it into the side. The black handle blended with the black leather. It wouldn’t pass a thorough search, but if they just patted me down, it should be fine.

“Eleven minutes left,” Adrian said, checking his watch.

Everyone jumped into action, getting on the phone, coordinating SDS teams with Archers Izzy and Danny had looped into the calls. The plan was coming together, but there was still a pit in my stomach. Part adrenaline, part nerves. We had Drake backed into a corner, and cornered predators always fight the fiercest. What did he have up his sleeves for me?

Alexander pulled me aside as the others coordinated. He cupped my face and looked at me for a long moment. “You come back to us,” he said softly. It wasn’t a question but a command, like he could will the universe into doing what he said.

I tilted my head and kissed his palm. “I’ll come back to you,” I promised. And I would. I refused to believe this would end any other way.