Page 135 of Kai
“My coffee?” His saccharine-sweet voice contradicted the command that hardened his stare.
“Of course.” I flashed him a benign smile. “Here you go.”
With a flick of my wrist, I tipped the mug and dumped the coffee over his head.
Kai was by my side even before Levine could react.
“Fuck!” the man raged, trying to kick my shins, even though I sidestepped his clumsy attempts easily. “Bitch! What did you do?”
“You wanted coffee?” I taunted the merc with my best smirk. “I gave it to you.”
“You burned me!” he accused.
“Oh, poor baby.” I feigned a sad face. “With all that cold milk, it wasn’t even hot anymore. Sticky? Maybe.” I looked at Kai. “I can’t take any more of this stinking asshole.”
Kai bobbed his head. He understood I needed to get my hands on the box the merc had tried to find at Astor House. I was about to go find the box when the screens on Kai’s navigation center went ballistic. Red frames flashed around the monitors, and several alarms blared. My heart shot up to my throat and got wedged there.
“What’s happening?” I asked over the ruckus.
Kai stalked to his navigation station and hit the keys with lithe, fast fingers. He met my eyes. The grim expression carving the frown on his face was all I needed to know. “We’ve got incoming.”
Chapter Forty-three
Kai
Three fast boats headed straight for the island. I could see them on the radar. The satellite homed in on an image from above. The trio of hulls splashed white water as they crashed against the surf.
Fuck. We’d been so close to getting away and I’d been so careful. How the hell had they figured out our location?
My thoughts raced. This had to do with Levine. It wasn’t until now that they’d been able to track him and launch. My glare fell on the merc.
“It’s not me.” His bulging eyes showed a lot of white, bouncing between me and Cece. “I fucking swear it! I carved the damn tracker out of my hand myself!”
The Tak had confirmed this, and Cece had verified the merc had told us the truth. The only chance we had to get the hell out of here alive was to figure out how they’d tracked Levine to us, and fast. Given the NWO’s extensive capabilities, trying to outrun our attackers with a tracker onboard made no sense.
This took me back to the Cessna. The merc and I had both theorized someone had hidden the tracker on the plane. It had crashed miles away and sunk to the seabed. The mercs were not on a course to the crash location. They were coming for us.
What had I missed?
“Gun on him,” I ordered Cece as I tucked my Glock in the back of my shorts. “I’ll need my knife.” I grabbed my Ka-Bar from her. “Don’t let the fucker out of your sight.”
“I won’t,” she said, aiming her Sig Sauer at the merc.
I stepped out on the deck. Levine’s torn clothes piled upnext to the table, where we’d first searched him for evidence of a tracker. I was a thorough operator. There had been no tracker on him, on his clothes. Where then?
My stare fell on the cut-up pieces of the life jacket in the far corner of the deck.
Fuck me.I clanked down on my teeth.Could it be?
Ignoring the wound throbbing in my chest, I snatched the pieces and felt them out. When that didn’t work, I ripped the foam apart with my Ka-Bar. That’s when I saw it. Top right, by the light beacon on the shoulder. The mechanism had a small chip entwined with it.
“Fuck the gods,” I muttered, unable to contain my frustration.
Cece’s head popped out of the sliders. “What is it?”
“I missed it.” I held up the piece with the tracker. “It’s embedded in the fucking life jacket. I should’ve known.”
“Because you’re a mind reader?” She tossed my words back at me. “What do we do now?”
