Page 39 of Unlocking Hope

Zoey narrowed her eyes. “Would’ve been nice if you gave me a heads-up. Furthermore, why did your dad leave the phone, but not help?”

“He thinks he is helping, but he didn’t, and when I make it out of here, I’m going to kill them both. Doesn’t matter he tried. The things he’s done in the past couple months are unforgivable. A bullet to the head would be too nice of a way to kill him. I’m going to make him pay.” His words were filled with hatred.

“First, we have to make it out of here and figure out how to remove the bomb attached to my body,” Zoey reminded Nathan. “Let me try to grab the phone and stick it through the window and see if we can get a signal.”

Nathan nodded again.

She ran to the phone lying on the floor and froze.Fuck.Cole’s phone number was programmed into hers, and she didn’t remember the number. Then it dawned on her—she didn’t know Cole’s number, but Jessica had made her memorize Brock’s. She quickly dialed the number in the phone and went back to the barred window.

Nathan raised a fire poker from the fireplace. “Stand back.”

He shoved it between the bars over the window and shattered the window. They heard footsteps in the house, running toward the door. They hadn’t accounted for more people in the house. Knowing her time was close to being up, she hit Send and placed the phone on speaker before putting her arm between the bars.

“Zo… ey… Zo?” Brock’s voice was breaking up, and she didn’t know if he would hear anything she said.

“Bomb. Cole’s parent’s vacation house. Thirty minutes.”

“Zo…”

She screamed the same thing over and over until someone hit her arm from the outside with so much force, it cracked between the bars. She dropped the phone, and it clattered to the ground. She fell back to the floor, holding her arm across her body, and cried.We’re not going to make it out of this alive.

Cole

Cole sat nextto Bryson in the helicopter, watching out the window. Ian sat across from him, his arms crossed. Cole was afraid they were going to be too late. He’d thought he understood what Ian was going through when Bella had been kidnapped, but he’d had no clue. His heart was beating a mile a minute. He just hoped she was alive.

The helicopter slowly descended. They were a mile from the house. Cole knew Bryson wanted their parents dead, but saving Zoey was more critical at the moment. They would figure out the rest later. When the helicopter took off, Cole’s phone vibrated.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Get to that house now. You have thirty minutes.”

Cole took off running at a dead sprint. He heard Ian and Bryson running behind him. He should have been more worried about cover, but he needed to get to Zoey. Brock was still talking when he hung up the phone. He would call his friend back when he made it closer.

It was the quickest mile Cole had run in years, and he was surprised the two men behind him were keeping up. He was close to the house when he came to a stop. Ian hunched over next to him, catching his breath. Behind the house, he saw a man dressed in black, an assault rifle in his hands. The window above him was broken, and a phone lay on the ground.

Cole watched and waited as the guy passed back and forth. Bryson motioned to the shrubs on the other side. His brother was going to distract the guard. Two minutes later, Bryson was in position and rustled the shrub. The guard took notice and walked toward the noise. Cole used that opportunity to wrap one arm around his neck and the other hand over his mouth. The guard struggled in Cole’s arms as he slowly fell asleep. It wasn’t their goal to kill anyone. Cole dropped him to the ground, and Ian went to disarm him and zip tie his legs and hands.

Cole quickly looked around for another guard and didn’t see anyone. He rushed to the window, and his heart broke when he heard Zoey whimpering inside. “Zoey?”

The sound stopped immediately, and it was quiet.

“Zoey?” he said a little louder.

“Cole, is that you?” Nathan asked.

“Yes, are you guys alone?”

“There might be others in the house, but I heard another car leave not too long ago. We only have twenty minutes before the bomb goes off.”

Cole’s stomach dropped. Sniping someone from a thousand feet away, he could do. He could kill someone with his own bare hands. But disarm a bomb—he’d never learned that. Luckily, his long-time friend was a bomb expert.

“Ian.” Cole yelled for him to come to his side and leave Bryson to finish up taking care of the guard. “I need you to walk Nathan through disarming a bomb.”

“It’s not that simple,” he answered, running his hand through his hair. “That’s not something I can teach someone in minutes.”

“I don’t know how to open the room.”

“Come,” Bryson yelled as he headed for the door to the house. “I know how to disengage the lock to the room.”

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