Ultimate Prey (Book 3 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series)

by Kristine Mason

  Ian leaned against the counter. In other words, he needed to stop treating Lola as his future stepdaughter.

  “He’s right.” Cami let out a breath. “Which is why I stuck up for her, but I shouldn’t have done it in front of John, Dante and Hudson.” She rubbed her temple. “Or Ryan. God, if my mother did that to me I’d be furious and embarrassed. She obviously likes Ryan and likes working for CORE. I don’t want him or your other men questioning her qualifications because you and I want to roll her in bubble wrap and keep her safe.”

  “I don’t, either,” he admitted, while his mind instantly flashed back to two years ago. To the fear, the guilt and worry over his own daughter. “You know Celeste is psychic.”

  “Yes, and I wish she could have predicted this.”

  “Me too.” He pushed off the counter and knelt next to her. “What you don’t know is that I made sure she was used in a case involving serial killers. Because of my decision, she was nearly killed.” Regret ate at him as he took Cami’s hand. “I know everyone thinks I’m a manipulative son of a bitch, which I am, because even after she survived what she’d gone through, I still wanted Celeste to come work for me.”

  “Why is Lola different then? I know she’s young and green around the gills, but—”

  “When I worked for the FBI, those were my favorite types of recruits. I could mold them and make them into the agent I needed, so it’s not that.”

  “Then it must be my fault. I’m the one who asked you to give her a job and to make sure her assignments were easy.”

  “It’s more than that.” He looked into Cami’s clear blue eyes. “She’s yours. You’ve entrusted her to me. And I’m selfish, because I know if something were to ever happen to Lola while she worked for CORE, you would leave me. I said many things yesterday I didn’t mean. I have no little black book filled with names of women who would love to be with me. There hasn’t been a woman in my life for more than a decade, and that didn’t last long. I don’t know many women who would put up with me the way you do.” He touched her soft cheek. “I love you, and I don’t want to be without you.”

  She took his hand and kissed his palm. “I love you, too. And, for the record, when Lola ended up with a concussion and broken ribs after she took on five men by herself, I was never angry with you. I know that’s hard to believe considering I might have gone a little crazy after I saw Lola in the hospital, but honestly, I was proud of her.”

  Cami had gone more than a little crazy. At one point during her meltdown, he had thought she might actually come at him with the kitchen knife.

  “So,” she began, “let’s make a promise to each other. Let’s not worry about what might happen, and concentrate on treating Lola as the intelligent, level-head and competent adult she is. If your men don’t see her that way, they could place themselves in danger because they’re too worried about keeping her protected and not focused enough on doing their jobs.”

  “They were the ones who said they needed her here today. And that tells me they’ve already seen what I was too afraid to admit—she’s one of them.”

  Vlad stepped back inside. “Barney pack wagon. Vlad will bring Cami bag to car, then come for Cami.”

  “Do you want me to bring the deck of cards with me?” she asked the Russian.

  The big man nodded and grinned. “Vlad have axe to grind with Cami and this game of gin,” he said, then left the room.

  She chuckled. “He finally got one saying right. You know, I really like Vlad. Have you ever seen the movie, The Blind Side?”

  “I have, but don’t get any ideas about adopting a grown Russian man.”

  “That would be odd,” she said with a grin. “But maybe Vlad could work for you.”

  He’d already been considering employment possibilities for the Russian, ones that would keep him off the books and show no ties back to CORE. Vlad was a wanted man, but he could prove valuable to him in the very near future.

  “Maybe,” he said, then helped her when she started to rise.

  As they left the kitchen and walked down the hall, Cami rested a palm on his chest. Her touch reignited the urge to scratch the rash he’d contracted after Steven had knocked him unconscious, and he’d passed out on a bed of what Barney claimed was likely stinging nettles. “What is it?” he asked, then followed her gaze to the screen door.

  Ryan and Lola worked side-by-side, talking and smiling, their shoulders brushing. Ryan had also proven his worth and, with his background as a Navy SEAL, would make an excellent addition to CORE.

  “I know I said I would concentrate on treating Lola as an adult, but I do worry she’s taken to Ryan a little too quickly,” Cami said with a sigh.

  He put an arm around her, and hugged her to his side. “I draw the line at getting involved in anyone’s love life.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m lucky if I can handle my own.”

  “True.” She grinned. “But maybe you can offer a job to Ryan, too.”

  “If I need a company recruiter, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, don’t quit your day job.”

  “Cami,” Vlad said, his tone filled with irritation. “Vlad say no walk.” He gave Ian a dirty look, handed him Cami’s bag, then lifted her in his arms.

  The Russian carried her to the wagon, where Barney and Harrison waited. After Vlad gently set Cami in the backseat, Ian leaned in and gave her a kiss and hug. Once he said his good-byes to the others, Barney started the wagon, then backed out of the driveway.

  He turned and faced the house. Ryan and Lola continued to work on the porch, while John and Hudson periodically stepped out from the bushes lining the yard. They would be prepared for Steven, but would it be enough?

  It had to be.

  Steven could not survive this. Barney was right. Steven was like the Komodo dragon. If they didn’t stop him now, he would keep coming for them, keep infecting them with fear and following them around until he made sure they were dead. And Ian refused to live in fear. He also refused to involve the authorities. While his connections would help wipe away the criminal acts his men had done in order to help save him and Cami, neither the Feds nor the police, would do for them what he planned to do to Steven.

  Yes, he was going to end this his way.

  He was nobody’s fucking prey.

  Chapter 18

  Everglade City, Florida

  Friday, 8:37 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

  STEVEN STOPPED ZACK when they reached the mangroves near Ian’s rental house, then pulled the night vision monocular from his pack.

  “Are we close?” Zack set the half-empty five-gallon gas can he’d stolen from a boat dock onto the ground.

  Steven looked through the monocular and saw nothing but skeletal tree roots and the demon eyes of raccoons. After having hiked through this area, only to wait in the dark for Ian and Cami to fall asleep, he remembered it well. He lowered the monocular, then checked his compass. “The house is beyond the mangroves to the west. Should take us another ten minutes.” He raised the monocular and looked at Zack’s legs. “Can you make it?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if I can walk the two and a half miles back to town.”

  “You might not have to. If Ian’s at the house, I guarantee he didn’t walk there. We’ll steal his car and then look for your boat. If we can’t find it, we can drive to Siesta Key.”

  “That works, but, damn, I really want my boat back.”

  He’d prefer the boat, as well, only there were too many boat docks and slips, either clustered or scattered along the shore and in the varying channels throughout Everglade City. Ian could have docked Zack’s boat anywhere.

  After stumbling onto shore this morning, and listening to Zack’s plans for the future—plans that had included him—he’d considered taking their partnership seriously. And why not? If he didn’t like the direction Zack was taking, or his boss, Smitty, he’d go his own way once Smitty’s doctor fixed his arm. As for the boat… While he’d make an effort to find it, he wouldn’t waste too much ti
me. He didn’t want to chance being forced to hide in the Everglades, should anyone discover what they’d done to Ian and his agents. He’d had enough of that bitch.

  “We’ll do what we can to find it,” he said, looking through the monocular again. “Let’s go.”

  “Can I use the flashlight?”

  “No. I don’t want to give away our location. Hang onto my pack and stay with me.”

  Energized after sleeping the day away, and ready to finish the hunt, he walked into the mangrove forest. Since the trees here weren’t as dense and bunched together like a few of the forests he’d hiked through yesterday, they were able to move through the shallow water, rather than be forced to climb the roots. Although his arm ached more now than it had earlier, he could have handled the roots. Zack couldn’t, though. And for what he had planned, he needed the man for this last leg of the hunt.

  The plastic gas can banged against a tree, then splashed into the water. Steven turned, just as Zack quickly retrieved it. “Did anything spill?” he asked.

  “No. The cover is still over the nozzle,” Zack said, then began hobbling again. “About the gas…if we set the house on fire, someone will notice and call the fire department. When they find the bodies, they’re—”

  “I’ve done this before. No one is going to come to the house.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Have you ever been duck hunting?” Steven asked instead.

  “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

  “Aside from duck jerky?”

  “Sounds gross.”

  Not the way his dad had taught him to prepare the jerky. Before he allowed himself to travel down that road, he said, “When you duck hunt, most times you might set up lifelike duck decoys in and around the pond, then you sit in your blind and wait, preferably in tall grasses. You could be there for an hour, sometimes three or more, before a formation flies near the pond. And when that happens, you have to wait for just the right moment before you call to the duck.”

  “Call to the duck?”

  “It’s a little device, and when you blow into it a certain way, the flock hears you and will change direction. As soon as that happens, and the birds fly overhead, that’s when you rise up from the tall grasses and fire.” He instantly pictured those duck hunting days with his dad, and how their old Lab, Stella, would rush to the pond and retrieve the fallen ducks.

  “Look, I’ve never been hunting and it’s obviously something you like to do… No offense, but what you described is like shooting fish in a barrel, except it’s a bunch of birds in the sky.” Zack tugged the pack as he stumbled slightly. “And maybe I’m missing something, but what does duck hunting have to do with the gas can I’m carrying?”

  Steven grinned. “Remember the device I mentioned, the one that calls to the flock and tricks them into changing directions? That’s what the gas is for.” After they’d slept, he had used Zack’s bloodstained pants, along with several long thick sticks to create a torch. “We’re going to smoke them out, not burn the place down.” He slowed his pace as the edge of the mangrove forest came into view. “And then I’m going to pick them off, one by one.”

  “How many do you think might be in the house?”

  “It’s hard to say. Based on the tracks I found by your trailer, there’s at least two agents.”

  “Plus the old man and his bitch. Totally doable.”

  Abso—fucking—lutely.

  “I see the house,” Zack said, and let go of Steven’s pack, then leaned against a tree and shook his head. “We’re screwed. We walked all this way and they’re not even here.”

  Steven stared at the rental house. His stomach tightened with that familiar sensation he’d always experienced just before a hunt would commence. Only this time, apprehension tugged at him. From his position, a single light glowed from the kitchen. He thought back to how he’d left the rental, and remembered leaving the lantern on top of the kitchen stove. Could Ian and the assholes have already left for Chicago? Or maybe they had rented a different house?

  Worried Zack might be right, he raised the monocular, then swept it over the backyard. He then adjusted the lens and zoomed in on the house, and immediately noticed the back door’s glass pane had been replaced. “Interesting,” he said, even though the fixed window meant he’d have to change his plan.

  “What’s that?”

  “I told you these men work for a criminal investigation agency.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I kidnapped the man and woman from this house. There should be crime scene tape all around it.”

  Zack rubbed his chin with the back of his knuckle. “You didn’t tell me anything about a kidnapping.”

  “Is it a problem?”

  “I…not exactly.”

  “Say what’s on your mind,” Steven demanded, anxious to make a move and sneak closer to the house. “If you want out, I’ll handle the job myself.” He’d slit Zack’s throat with the machete if the man backed out on him now. Zack knew too much and Steven couldn’t afford having him as a liability.

  “If you kidnapped them from here,” Zack began, “then how did they end up in the Glades?”

  “I put them there.”

  “Why?”

  “To hunt them.”

  Zack released a low chuckle. “Steven, you’re one twisted motherfucker. Okay, so you’re saying they didn’t call the cops, which means what to me?”

  “It means they’re going to shoot to kill,” he said, peering through the monocular again, this time aiming it toward the carport. Ian’s Range Rover was there, which also meant the mistake he’d made with the SUV’s GPS locator had likely helped them discover where he’d started his hunt.

  He smiled. Those arrogant bastards. They’d had ample opportunities to call the police. Had they figured out that he was behind the kidnapping and hunt? Had they gone to his dad’s and Elaine’s and found the messages he’d left for them? Had they looked up Jordan’s license plate and paid the former agent a visit?

  Had they hidden the evidence?

  His hand shook as raw fury overwhelmed him with hatred. “They hid the fucking evidence to save their asses, but not mine.”

  “What evidence?” Zack asked. “What are you talking about?”

  For the past six years he’d kept to his own company. Rage had him momentarily forgetting Zack even existed, let alone stood next to him. “It doesn’t matter.” Not anymore. The righteous hypocrites would soon be dead.

  He gave Zack the monocular. “Look at the house. When I left it, the glass on the back door was broken. I was going to have you toss the torch through the smashed window, but since it’s fixed, there’s no way the stick will break the glass now.”

  Zack glanced at him. “Sounds like I was going to be the duck decoy,” he said, his voice laced with betrayal as he returned the monocular to him.

  Maybe Zack wasn’t a complete dumbass after all. “No. I was going to kill them before they could get to you.” Which was the truth. But if Zack had been shot, he wouldn’t have lost sleep over his death.

  “Shit, man. I have a bullet in one leg and a knife wound in the other. I couldn’t outrun them…or was that your plan all along?” He shook his head and chuckled. “You’re using me, aren’t you? You have no intention of—”

  “You sound like a whiny bitch.”

  “I’m nobody’s bitch,” Zack said, his tone threatening.

  A quick image of Moody emerged. “Neither am I.” He pulled the compression rifle from his pack, along with the Browning. “Here,” he said, handing Zack the pistol.

  Zack stared at the gun for a few seconds before taking it. “You weren’t using me as a decoy?”

  He’d had every intention of using Zack, but the man had proven himself useful. Except if Zack showed the slightest sign of hesitation or he dared to turn the gun on him, he would end his life.

  And not swiftly.

  “No, you’re not my bitch or my decoy.” He couldn’t bring himself to call Z
ack his partner. He’d made the mistake of trusting Ian and his agents, and they’d betrayed him. Zack could, too. Still. “We’re going to do this together, then take the car and either find your boat or drive to Siesta Key. Clear?”

  Zack nodded. “Got it. Do I still need these?” he asked, and held up the torches.

  “Yes. Soak them in gas. I have an idea of how we could still use them,” he said, pocketing the monocular. “There’s four of them, but I’m not worried about the woman.”

  “She didn’t stab you or hit you with a tackle box.”

  “Even if she has a weapon, she’s not trained,” Steven continued. “If they’re expecting me, they’ll expect me to be alone. We’re going to split up and circle the house.”

  “And do what? Shoot out the windows, then toss the torches inside?”

  Ian was a rich son of a bitch, who demanded nothing but the best. And, if he remembered correctly, proper etiquette. “No. We’re going to be polite and ring the doorbell.”

  *

  “Bored?”

  Lola turned toward the door, just as Ryan’s dark silhouette filled the doorway. “A little,” she said, then covered her mouth and yawned. “When I was training, I sat on a couple of stakeouts with Dante, which were just as boring, but at least I had someone to talk to.”

  He knelt next to the folding chair she’d set near the sliding door leading to the deck. “With no TV or cell phones to distract you, it’s easy to get in your head when you’re just sitting and waiting.”

  “You have a thing for that line.”

  “I don’t have a line,” he said, sounding a little offended.

  “I’m not talking about a ‘hey, baby, what’s you sign’ kind of line.”

  He quietly chuckled. “For the record, I’ve never asked a woman that. But, since you brought it up… Hey, baby, what’s your—”

  Grinning, she gave him a slight jab with her elbow. “I’m a Libra. You?”

  “Leo. Is there a Chinese year of the bear?”