Chapter Forty

There was little traffic on the road, which was a damn good thing. Angus Force wasn’t happy. Not one inch of him felt good. Or even decent. His brain still pounded against his skull, his liver seemed to be having difficulty working with his kidneys, and his left leg had gone numb days ago. But none of that, not one bit of it, compared to the rage in his chest that Nari had been left helpless in the mud and two of his own taken. Dana was working with the team, so that made her his, too.

They’d been gone for more than two hours. Two whole fucking hours.

Worse yet. He’d read through every one of the reports Brigid had filed about the Deep Ops team, and every single one was positive. She’d betrayed nothing, and he hadn’t had the chance to tell the rest of the team that she was clean. One of them to the end.

And either somebody had hit Nari in the head, or she’d struck a rock on the ground, because all she could remember was that Dana was the target. That the mysterious guy she couldn’t remember had wanted the reporter.

He followed the directions to Dana’s apartment that Wolfe had left for him after arriving in DC via the private plane, bleeding like a stuck pig and then disappearing and refusing to answer his damn phone. Finally finding the sprawling apartment building that housed a myriad of urban professionals who worked in DC and the outlying areas, Angus parked and eased himself from the vehicle, careful of his numb leg.

Ducking his head against the rain, he hustled up the stairs to apartment 3A, where he knocked loudly.

“It’s open,” Wolfe called out.

Okay. So the guy was alive. Angus shoved open the door to a modern-style living room with cut glass, hardwood floors, and comfortable furnishings. “You couldn’t answer your damn phone?” he snapped.

Wolfe looked up from a white plush sofa, a remote control in his hand. Dana Mullberry’s face was frozen on the screen. “She was on camera for years, and her last interview was just a month ago. She does both print and live podcasts.”

Angus studied him as he would an injured animal. “You’re bleeding on her white sofa.”

“I have it bandaged.” Wolfe returned his attention to the screen, his clothes a wild mess and bristle along his hard jaw. “I’ve been going through all of her recent interviews, research, podcasts, and stories. Nothing stands out as suspicious.”

Angus looked at the smiling blonde on the screen. Intelligence shone in her moss-green eyes, and her facial structure looked fragile. “She’s smart, and so is Brigid. They’ll be all right, Wolfe.” But would they? As far as he knew, neither of the two knew how to fight.