“That’s straight-up righteous,” Terrence rumbled out.
Diego, Decker and Alton all nodded their agreement.
Grace shook off Rio’s hands but kept hold of one, lowering it to her lap. It was comforting. Just being able to touch him calmed her more than she could have imagined.
“I’m scared,” she admitted. “Not just scared. Terrified. For the last year, I’ve lived my life day to day, never looking ahead, never knowing if I had a tomorrow. But now…I look to the future. It’s a future I want more than I can express in words. And I’m scared to death to trade someone’s life for that bright shiny future I now dream about.”
”Diego stared at her for a long moment. “If you hadn’t already won my respect and admiration, you would have just now. It’s an unselfish person who can acknowledge that they value someone’s life over their own dreams. But here’s the thing, and maybe you already know this. Nobody made us take this mission. Rio is our leader, yeah, and we follow him. But we do it because we want to. We can walk away anytime. No one owns us. We don’t give our loyalty blindly. It’s earned, and he and KGI have earned ours. And now so have you. So while it’s admirable that you don’t want one of us to sacrifice anything for you, we’d prefer you just shut up and deal with it because we aren’t backing down from this.”
Decker grinned and Alton slapped Diego on the back. Even Terrence laughed.
“You know, Diego doesn’t always have a whole lot to say, but when he does, it’s usually something epic,” Alton said with a laugh.
Rio was smiling when Grace turned back to him, completely befuddled by their reaction.
“See?” he said. “You’re one of us, Grace. We wouldn’t leave any one of us to fight alone and we’re damn sure not going to bail on you. So get used to it. You’re not getting rid of us, and you sure as hell aren’t getting rid of me.”
Relief, light and bubbly, flooded her heart and soul. She smiled, her smile growing bigger and bigger as she glanced around to all of Rio’s men sitting at the bar.
“So when do we leave?” she asked.
RIO made the call to Sam that afternoon. He wanted to give Grace more time to rest, and he put her to bed to ensure she did just that. But his gut was screaming that they needed to move now. They didn’t have a few days to wait for Grace to rebound totally.
She’d made it out of the mountains by sheer grit and determination. She’d basically been a walking corpse. If she could do that, then she could handle what was ahead.
“Here’s the plan,” Sam said. “We’ll rendezvous at the airstrip in Virginia. We’ll take both jets to Kodiak and then boat over to Afognak Island. If they show, we’ll know. We’ll fight on our terms, our turf.”
“And your family?” Rio asked gruffly.
“I’m stashing them at Fort Campbell under heavy guard. No one in their right mind would stage an attack at a U.S. military base. It’s the safest place I can think of for them to be. Shea will be staying behind too. You may want to consider sending Grace to her.”
As much as it went against his every principle to trust Grace’s safety to anyone but himself, he also knew that it was, in fact, the safest, securest place for her to be. She wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t give her a choice in the matter. Plus, he’d dangle a reunion with her sister in front of her, and she would have a much harder time arguing with him then.
“We have to make this look good then,” Rio said. “If we’re going to lure Titan to Afognak Island, then we have to make damn sure they think Grace is with us. Otherwise this is a pointless endeavor—they’ll sit back and bide their time and strike when we’ve relaxed our guard.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve already thought of that. We’re going to make P.J. be a stand-in for Grace. She has a similar build, similar coloring. It’ll kill her to have to get out of her combat boots and lose her weapons, but she’ll do her job.”
“And how do you plan to get Grace from Virginia to Fort Cnia to Fampbell safely?” Rio asked.
“I’ll call in a favor and have a pilot from Fort Campbell accompany us so he can fly Grace back to the base to meet Shea.”
“That’s not enough,” Rio said bluntly. “This isn’t a simple escort. One army pilot won’t be enough if they run into Titan.”
Sam paused for a moment. “What do you want then?”
“I want at least two other men with her. Not cops either. I’m already down a man, but if Steele’s team and the rest of KGI are going, then I can spare two of my team to go with Grace. They’re the only ones I’ll trust her with apart from myself. Terrence and Diego will go with her. They’d die before allowing anything to happen to her.”
“All right,” Sam said. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Can you make it to Virginia by sixteen hundred hours tomorrow?”
“We’ll be there,” Rio said grimly.
ADAM Resnick never knew anyone was in his house until he felt the cold slide of a knife against his neck. His hands froze on the keyboard of his computer and he went utterly still, not wanting to do anything to make the blade sink farther into his flesh.
Already blood welled and trickled down his skin. He could smell it.
He was disciplined enough not to shake, but that didn’t mean his pulse wasn’t about to explode inside his head.