Chapter 673 Chapter 673
Someone ran up behind her. She turned, ready to attack. A man stood there with a gun in his hand.
He held up his hands. “Whoa, I’m Jett.” He wiped his hand over his shirtless chest and glanced over at Taggart.
Deva stepped back.
Jett pulled his phone out of his run pack and tapped the screen. “We’re all good. What’s the plan?” He nodded.
She looked over at Taggart. He still stood on the man’s chest.
“Got it.”
Turning back, she watched Jett put an earbud in and point to the owl. “Lars, you, me, and Slater will be escorting this bunch and the losers from the island to the barn. We have to go meet them to pick up the ones on the yacht.” He looked at Deva. “Just as soon as you take the boat back to them.”
The owl flew over the truck and landed beside Taggart. Only then did he get off the man.
Jett touched the earpiece. “Right. Amari is bringing your clothes, Deva so that you can head back to the boat.” He turned and looked at Taggart. “You too.”
Deva turned and gave her mate a long appraisal. He didn’t look like her clan. He was furrier and larger than the lynx males she was used to seeing. She hissed at him and then took off across the road and up the incline to where she’d left her clothes.
If she weren’t needed back on the yacht, she would have gladly run for a few hours. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing, but honestly, Taggart jumping off the boat and rushing to take on five armed men—no one should be doing things like that. She spotted Amari before she reached the top and felt disappointed that she wouldn’t get to run further.
She reached her less than a minute later.
“That looked like fun.” Amari sat on a boulder and rested the rifle across her legs.
Deva looked back down the hill and then decided she would go behind something to shift and get dressed. Amari motioned behind her.
“I doubt anyone is watching right now. This day has been something, huh?”
Deva shifted quickly and then grabbed her clothes. “There’s been a few surprises.” That was the understatement of the century.
“I can’t believe Calum found his mother.” Amari scoffed. “What are the chances that she survived this long?”
Pulling her shirt over her head, Deva sat on the boulder behind her. “I like to think most of them are still alive somewhere out there.”
“Yeah. Except the ones that aren’t.”
Pulling her boot on, she glanced over her shoulder. “We still did something amazing today.”
Amari grinned. “No more island. Or camp.”
Picking up the other boot, Deva nodded. “Now it’s going to be harder for them to hide them.”
“How many places have we shut down? You’d think they would run out of locations by now.” She picked up the rifle and looked through the scope.
“If Konner’s meeting yields routes, we can shut those down too.” She shrugged. “Or the people doing it.”
Amari lowered the rifle and stood up. “I’m not missing the snow.”
Deva looked up at the sun. “Yeah, that’s a plus.” They started walking down the way that Deva had come up.
“Tripp has your rifle.” She smiled at her. “I was pleasantly surprised when you took off like that.”
Deva blew out a breath. “Stupid man. Doing something like that.”
Amari laughed. “At least you know he’s not a marshmallow.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Her uncle was a yes-man, and it was annoying. “Even though we’ve done so much good today, I can’t digest Zain missing.”
“He’s not a traitor.” Amari slid a few feet on the loose stone and then stopped and looked back at her. “He’s not.”
“I agree.” Deva stumbled a step over the rocks. “Something’s going on, and it must be important if he won’t talk to anyone.”
“Right. That’s what I said to Tripp.” She gave her a bored look. “Zain isn’t his favorite because he always sent me gummies, but he still thinks something’s up.” She leaned closer. “What Illias said, do you know anything about that?”
Deva shook her head. “No. When we get a chance, we should call Jesse and ask him.”
“We have a long boat ride ahead today. Tripp says we won’t reach where we’re docking until tonight at the earliest.”
Deva hadn’t known that. Tripp was walking toward them. “I’ll fill Asher and Calla in. Come find me when we’re calling him.”
~
Deva watched the boat coming back. Of course, Taggart was on it. He’d gotten off of it and then right back on to help take the men from the island to the shore where Jett was waiting. It annoyed her that he’d done that. Not that he was making sure there were no issues with transporting them, but that he’d put himself out there again. It made her wonder if he understood that as part of a team, there were many to get things done, and it wasn’t all on one person. She understood that he and his men had been doing things essentially alone for years—but now he didn’t have to.
Sometime between her getting dressed and coming back to the yacht and the men going over, they had gotten a cargo van. That distracted her from being irritated with the dark, dangerous man and made her realize how much organization went into their ops, supplying the teams and just making sure everyone had what they needed wherever they were. This epiphany brought her back to thinking about Zain. Where was he? Why had he taken off? Was he okay? Her mind was a mess, and she needed to get it right somehow.
Calla was in the front of the boat. Her task of following to watch their back had been abandoned. Slater was needed with Jett. Sucking in a breath, she nodded to herself. It was good she was. No one should be alone right now. Gone were the times when they were off driving for a week at a time without having to have someone ride shotgun. Soon it would be literal that the one not driving would be holding a shotgun, ready for anything.