Should I trust him or not? I definitely didn’t want whoever was in here to escape. “But what if they’re here to kill me? Then they won’t run.” Or they’d leave a nice little bomb for us and blow up this place before we could get out. Damn. I should’ve waited and brought my guards here with me, but I hadn’t thought anyone could plan an assassination attempt so quickly without knowing where I’d be going.

Unless they’d predicted James would help try to decode that message and they’d known where we might be able to find the papers. Still, it didn’t make sense they’d assume we’d come here. Plus, they could’ve jumped me when I got here, so what the hell? But if someone was actually here to take my life, they’d shoot at me as soon as they saw me, so maybe we needed the element of surprise here to catch them.

I nodded, and James leaned in to whisper into my ear so he could explain where I should go. It wasn’t anything overly complicated, but I had to slowly approach our target, while James would run through a few other rooms to get to the other side faster. I kicked a cabinet that was next to me, hoping this would attract the intruder’s attention, especially if he was after me, so they wouldn’t get out of the hallway too soon.

We’d also have to make sure the intruder wasn’t in one of the rooms and wait for them to get out first. Confronting them in one of the rooms wouldn’t be easy, and they could run for a window. Besides, there wasn’t much left in these rooms where we could hide, and we didn’t know how much about this house and its layout the intruder knew.

I had no idea where that hallway led, but what if the intruder was after something else and not me? Except I wasn’t sure what that would be since they’d probably known the house was empty. Or maybe they hadn’t.

My grip on my gun tightened as I advanced, glancing right and left as I passed two empty rooms. It had better be just one or two intruders, and not a whole group, but we would’ve heard them if there were more. I doubted a group would be able to move so quietly.

Not to mention my men who were patrolling this area would’ve been able to detect any suspicious activity. This house wasn’t exactly in a busy area, and any strange and suspicious-looking people would’ve been spotted really quickly. Hell, one of ours was supposed to be living on this street a few houses away now, just so he could keep an eye on the area.