Page 118 of It's Always Been You

“Wh—what?”

“Caitlin, I haven’t made up my mind whether to kill Travis or not, but one thing’s for sure. If you don’t make headway in that file within the next hour, I’ll have my men start breaking every bone in Blake’s body until there’s nothing left to break,” Porter’s voice dripped with malevolent intent. “Do you really want to test me?”

Caitlin shook her head and concentrated on her task. Shedidn’t want to see Travis hurt, even for a single second. And with renewed determination, she broke into the Carpathian file.

“There,” she said quietly. A three dimensional map with the geographic coordinates of the plutonium cache opened on screen. “What next?”

“Now we wait and verify,” Porter said as he flicked through his phone. “Belov, get ready to send the file to Dmitry.”

“When will my wife get the money?” Milekhin asked belligerently.

“Patience, Milekhin,” Belov murmured, his fingers were flying over the keyboard to transmit the information to their associate in Germany.

Porter stood up and sauntered to the far corner of the room, waiting for his contact to answer the phone.

“Dmitry? . . . We’re sending you the information. As expected, it’s the Ukraine region. You can recall your men standing by in Romania . . . Good . . . Good . . . Yes, the file includes the transponder frequency . . . Two hours? . . . We’ll stand by.”

Porter stared at Caitlin, his expression stoic. “Two hours, Ms. Kincaid.”

Two hours before Pavlo Milekhin ended her life.

Travis crouched beside Nate.It had taken forever to get out of that neighborhood in Silver Springs, Maryland. Not familiar with the area, using his abductor’s beat-up car, with no GPS and only burner phones on him, he had to navigate the old fashioned way—ask for directions. When he finally found himself back on the Beltway, Shephard informed them of their meet-up point—a gas station in McLean.

Nate had tracked the black sedan to a craftsman stylehouse in an older development. Overgrown shrubs and grass indicated the house hadn’t been occupied for a while. They ran the property information. It belonged to one Benjamin Porter.

The fucker.

“How many people did you see?” Travis asked.

“I saw Porter, Caitlin, and one other guy.”

“Was the other guy about five-ten, hundred-ninety pounds, brown hair in a buzz cut?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“He was the one who tranq’d me at BSI.” Travis clenched his jaw. So, what was Porter going to do after Caitlin gave him the files, and he found out that Travis had escaped? Travis was going to nail Porter’s ass for this deception.

“Sorry, man,” Nate whispered.

“For what?”

“Not keeping your girl safe for you.”

It was easy to blame someone else, but blame wasn’t going to get his woman back. Travis thanked his lucky stars for Nate’s timely appearance at his house. There was no one better for tailing someone than Nate. His years in the CIA had trained him to be inconspicuous.

“Not your fault, Nate. I was the dumbass that wanted to go to Virginia Beach, got myself abducted, and used to blackmail Caitlin.”

“We’ll get her back.”

Travis nodded, unable to speak. Uneasiness roiled his gut. The day was going to get worse.

An hour later,Porter’s phone rang. Caitlin watched the admiral’s mouth crack into a faint smile. The minuscule movement lit his face, indicating he’d received good news. She triedher best to remain calm. Maybe if she acted so pathetically helpless, Milekhin would spare her.

She looked at her would-be executioner. His eyes were shooting daggers of hatred at her.

Wishful thinking.

“We’ve got confirmation,” Porter said as he pocketed his phone. “Transfer the money, Belov.”

---