Page 97 of Five Fingers of Death

“The whole killing thing won’t happen until she’s practiced on trees for at least a few weeks.”

I lunged for him, but someone grabbed me from behind, holding me back as Fox scrambled to his feet, skating out of the room as he laughed.

“Calm down. You know he’s not going to teach her to murder anyone,” Johnny muttered.

I shrugged him off, pissed that he stopped me from beating Fox’s ass. “If he lets her anywhere near a mannequin with those knives, it’s you I’ll be coming after.”

“I’d be more worried that he’ll feed her shawarma,” Patrick said, shaking his head. “You never know what he’ll put in that shit.”

Sighing, I sat back down, trying to regain control before I stormed out and decided to quit my job. I needed the protection of OPS now that I had Carli. I couldn’t rely on just myself to keep her safe. Besides, Tahlia was here, and I would never take Carli away from her.

Rae strode back into the room minutes later, smirking at me as she took her seat. “You can relax. She’s in the training room and I made sure she was fully protected before she went anywhere near knives.”

“Thank you,” I grunted, still angry, but at least a little more at ease.

“So, we’re good now?” Lock asked. “We can get back to the meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“Right, so…fuck, I don’t even remember where we were.”

“The unalived woman,” Nick reminded him.

“Right. Rae?”

She pulled up the picture again, showing us the message carved into the woman’s chest. It was a date and time, which left us very little to go on.

“So, we don’t actually know what these assholes are after?” Chase asked.

“No. We’re digging into the husband now. He’s a stockbroker, so God knows what kind of unsavory contacts he’s come across. In the meantime, I need your team to get out to him and take over for local PD,” he said, sliding the folder to Chase.

“The local LEOs don’t want him going anywhere just yet. They’re trying to gather as much intel as possible. But as soon as you get the all-clear, get her back here under our roof.”

“Will do.”

Chase’s team stood up, walking out of the room with their orders. Lock moved on to our team.

“How’s Isabelle?”

“Doing better,” I acknowledged. “And call her Izzy. She no longer likes being called Isabelle.”

He looked surprised by the information, but said nothing else. “I heard she got out and did some regular shit. That’s good, but now we’re running low on personnel. We’re going to have to keep a tighter rein on when she goes out.”

She wouldn’t like that very much. “I understand, but telling her what to do now would only set her back.”

“Would you rather she end up dead?” Lock said bluntly.

“No, but I also don’t want to see her end up in the psych ward again. Locking her up will only make things worse.”

“We’re hardly locking her up,” Lock snapped. “She’s got the whole compound to roam around on.”

“Just like the island,” Johnny surmised, making my point for me. “Look, nobody wants to see Izzy backslide.” His gaze flicked to Jack. “If Jason takes point, Jack and I can follow at a distance when she wants to go out. At least then she’ll be protected.”

“Are you okay with that?” Lock asked.

I was going to have to be. The alternative was much worse. “Yes.”

“Alright. As for the situation with Cash and Knight…We still don’t have anything more to go on. Cash hasn’t checked in and we have no information that leads us to believe that the attacks are over.” His eyes flicked to mine. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but Claire was not at the house when we tried to retrieve her. Michael got to her first. Since then, he’s been keeping her safe, but I received a message last night that I can only assume is from him. He’s asked us to keep Claire safe until he can come for her. He wants to bring her here.”

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