Glitter and Gunfire (Shadow Agents #4)(14)
Author: Cynthia Eden

The men were wearing black ski masks again. They had guns in their hands.

One ground out, “Boss wants him, too…”

Ah, now that was news.

Cassidy tried to push in front of Cale. He pushed her right back behind him. The men needed a warning. “If you hurt her, in any way, I’ll make sure you regret it.” That was really more of a promise than a warning.

He could disarm the men. Easy enough. But…would he then be able to turn the men against their boss? Be able to get them to give him Genevieve’s whereabouts?

Cale wasn’t sure. In cases like this, some men never turned on their bosses. Death was an easier route than betrayal for them—and for the families that they would leave behind.

If this was their chance to take down the Executioner, then they had to be taken inside the killer’s lair.

The men laughed at Cale’s words. “You don’t get to give the orders.” The guy on the right pointed his gun at Cale’s head. “You aren’t the hero.”

He also wasn’t the victim. But he could play one, for now.

When the masked men told him to, Cale climbed into the van. He stayed right next to Cassidy. After all, that had been Mercer’s order—stay close to her. Every moment.

He’d take down the Executioner and he’d do his job.

The Shadow Agents didn’t let innocents die, and he wasn’t about to let the killer escape from Rio.

The van’s side door slammed closed.

And they sped away.

* * *

LOGAN QUINN WATCHED the black van race down the narrow road. The men had taken the bait. Now…

He pulled out behind the van, making sure not to tail too closely. After all, he didn’t want to spook their prey.

He and Gunner were backup for Cale, so that meant they’d follow him…any place that he went.

“Is the tracking device working?” Logan asked as he slanted a fast glance toward Gunner.

Gunner had a laptop open in front of him. The beacon was flashing on the screen. “Working like a dream. You know Sydney would never send us any equipment that was less than perfect.”

No, she wouldn’t. Sydney would never risk the lives of any of the Shadow Agents.

Every EOD agent had a small chip implanted just beneath the skin, a precaution that Mercer had insisted on after a particularly brutal mission in which they’d lost an operative.

As long as that chip was in place, they’d be able to track Cale.

Tracking Cale meant tracking the Executioner.

Like Cale, Logan was more than ready to take the man down.

* * *

THEY WERE TOSSED into a dark room, a basement holding room that was about twelve feet long and ten feet wide. The gunmen locked them in with only a small lantern left for light.

Locked them inside and walked away.

Cassidy stood completely still in the weak light of the lantern. “I didn’t mean for you to get taken with me.” Guilt whispered through her words.

Her back was to him. Cale wanted her to face him. “But you did mean to get taken yourself.”

“Yes.”

Now they were locked up, their weapons had been taken and… “What do you think will happen next? Are you going to disarm the men who come back for us? Going to take them out and make them lead you to their boss?”

Actually, that was his plan, but Cale was curious as to what Cassidy had in mind.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I planned to trade my life for Genevieve’s.”

He laughed, then realized the woman was dead serious.

Bad plan, Cassidy. Bad.

He stalked toward her, anger making his muscles clench. “That’s not happening.”

She spun to fully face him. “I’m not letting her die. I have…value that the Executioner doesn’t realize. I can make this work.”

“Because you’re an asset?” An EOD asset. Just what intel did she possess? Others had tried to take down the EOD before—those who’d been clever enough to discover the division’s existence. Agents had been targeted, killed, but the EOD had still come out on top in the end.

No one had destroyed them.

Yet.

“Yes. I have value because I’m an asset.”

And she thought to betray the agents. Men and women who were his friends. “I won’t let you compromise the EOD.”

Her hands had fisted at her sides. “Maybe there are things that are more important than the EOD!”

His fingers curled around her arms, but he made sure not to touch her bandage. He didn’t want to hurt her. Shake her, maybe, for the risks that she seemed so willing to take, but not hurt the woman. “Do you have any idea how many agents are undercover right now? If you compromised their work, they’d die. Do you want that on you? All those deaths…on you?”

She blinked away what he was pretty sure were tears. “I don’t want any deaths on me. That’s why I’m here.” Then she shoved against him. He kept forgetting how deceptively strong she was. “And why you shouldn’t be here! This is—”

The basement door opened. Light spilled inside, falling down the narrow staircase.

Cale instantly grabbed Cassidy and pushed her behind him. He couldn’t see the face of the man waiting at the top of those stairs.

But it was all too easy to see the gun in his hand.

“Cassidy Sherridan…” That voice—it was the guy from the ballroom. The boss? Or one of his flunkies? “So good to finally have you here.”

“Where’s Genevieve?” Cassidy called out. “Have you hurt her?”

The man didn’t move down the steps.

So Cale started moving toward him.

“I’ve only hurt her a little,” the man said. “Not too much—I still have to give proof of life. Can’t do that if she’s bleeding all over the place. Families doubt when there’s too much blood.”

Cale was at the bottom of the steps.

Logan and Gunner would have followed him to this location. They were probably outside, trying to figure out the best way to storm inside and take over. Cale just needed to buy them time.

“You’ve made a big mistake,” Cale told the man.

“No.” The gun lifted, pointed right at Cale’s chest. “You have. You should have left the girl alone. Just let her come to me in that ballroom. It would have saved you a world of pain if you’d stepped aside.”

He was going to fire. Cale knew it, and he moved in an instant, lunging to the right even as the bullet blasted out of the man’s gun.

Cale just didn’t move fast enough.