Avenged (Hostage Rescue Team Series) (Volume 5) by Kaylea Cross Page A

password protected and whatever. And they’ll have cameras. We’ll have to hide our faces without looking suspicious.”
    “I won’t know until we’re in there, but yeah, I can get us in to pretty much anything. The hotel security systems are likely on an intranet network, so I’ll have to use special equipment to access those, which will be a red flag for anyone monitoring the site.” He licked his lips, his tension obvious as he shook his head slowly. “You and I both accepted the risks involved with this back when we joined the group, and we’re prepared to go on the run. But your father…he’s a good man. If it comes down to it, are you willing to let him go to jail for us?”
    Ayman ignored the sudden rise in his pulse and pushed aside the guilt forming inside him. “He won’t. Even if they figure out who we are and what we’re doing, they won’t have any evidence against him. Besides, you’re the best hacker The Brethren have. If anyone can find her, it’s you.” Whatever the cost, whatever they had to do, they had to find her.
    Jaleel didn’t look convinced. “All right, if you’re sure.”
    Ayman was already in too deep. He didn’t have a choice now. “We can’t back out now. You know what will happen if we do.” They’d both wind up dead, cut into pieces and dumped into the Potomac as a former member of their group had been a month before when he’d balked about an operation he’d been tasked with.
    Apparently the man had been about to go to the FBI to turn everyone in. The Brethren had sent a death squad after him. Men like Darwish, trained in militant camps throughout the Middle East and south Asian countries.
    Men Ayman never wanted coming after him.
    They were all playing a dangerous game. For Ayman, winning it was the only way out.
     
    ****
     
    As Nathan drove them down the darkened highway, he glanced over at Taya in the front passenger seat. “You doing okay?”
    She made herself nod. “Fine.” It was just the two of them, which was a relief, but her mind was spinning. She couldn’t stop thinking about Chloe, about the horrific ways she might have died at her captors’ hands after surviving so much. The possibilities turned her stomach.
    “Were you and Chloe close?” he finally asked, correctly guessing the direction of her thoughts.
    That was harder to answer than she realized. “Not close in the normal sense, no. The men kept us apart from one another as much as possible, to avoid us making escape plans. But she was so young. I remember when they first brought her in, she was terrified.” She shook her head, lost in memory for a moment, of Chloe’s blue eyes so wide with fear that the whites showed all around the irises. “When I had contact with her I did what I could to comfort her, tried to make the transition easier for her, but it wasn’t much.” A kind word here and there, a hug. Stolen minutes of whispered conversation, giving her advice that would hopefully help her avoid some beatings.
    Nathan made a growling sound in his throat and tightened his hands on the wheel, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “Fucking bastards,” he muttered under his breath.
    Yep. “The man she was given to was one of the most brutal.” Her voice hitched on the last word. “She had it way worse than I did. He got off on beating her for the slightest thing, like making eye contact with anyone, or crying. Any excuse he could find to punish her.”
    Taya hadn’t realized until later how fortunate she’d been that Hassan had chosen her. The last time she’d seen Chloe had been in one of the endless string of mountain villages they’d been moved to in an effort to escape detection by anyone searching for them. Chloe’s eyes had both been recently blackened, one swollen nearly shut. She’d walked with her head down, shoulders hunched, cowering anytime one of the men came near.
    Broken. It made Taya’s eyes sting to think of it.
    “Goddamn it,” Nathan muttered, shaking his head.