Licensed to Kill

Chapter 14

I felt sick recalling the details of Bellucci's capture. I remembered the sadistic look on his face when we locked eyes for mere seconds while A.R.T. backup agents were dragging me away from Dallas. Bellucci had been glaring at me with a grin so wicked, Cruella De Vil would've been jealous.

I could still feel the way his expression made my skin crawl as Matt and two other men escorted him out of the warehouse in handcuffs. I hadn't forgotten his face after all this time. I still remembered it like it was yesterday. No criminal had ever looked at me in that way before, and I'd never been able to erase the sickening image from my mind. I'd always assumed Bellucci was grinning because his twisted mind thought it was funny that I'd accidentally shot the man I loved. How despicable could someone be?

I could hear Dallas talking to the guard again, but I wasn't paying attention to the conversation. My head was in a fog over the unwelcome memories. I remembered seeing Bellucci again once I returned to A.R.T. headquarters for questioning. We'd passed in the hall as he was on his way to interrogation as well. His stare was cold and dark, full of cruel intentions. I shuddered at the thought and tried to push the memory away. I didn't want to think about that night anymore.

"Ist das Camilla Dietrich?" Dallas held up the photo of Diana Lindsey to the guard again, asking if the woman in the photo was Camilla Dietrich.

"Ja," the man nodded.

While Dallas proceeded to quiz him on where Camilla Dietrich had taken Enrique Bellucci, it occurred to me that the other guard who had been acting peculiar had sneaked off through a door to the side.

I asked the third guard who was simply standing there, observing, what was on the other side of that door.

"Das ist ein Büro," he told me it was an office.

Maybe I was overthinking things. Maybe he'd simply gone back to his office since we weren't specifically questioning him. I tried to tell myself I was just reading too much into nothing, but the way he'd been watching us and the strange look in his eyes was really nagging at me. It reminded me of the treacherous look on the face of the man who had followed me through the streets of Berlin the day before.

While the head of security went to put away the logbook, I pulled Dallas aside where only he and I could hear the conversation.

"The other guard disappeared." I gestured toward the door. "Did you notice the way he was eyeing us? I think-"

"He knows something," Dallas nodded. "I can tell he's hiding something. He's got deception written all over his body language."

"But it almost looked like he recognized me. But I've never seen him before... Should we question him?"

He shook his head, keeping an eye on the other two men. "I've got a pretty good idea of what's going on here. I think we've overstayed our welcome."

I started to ask why he thought that, but Dallas flashed me a serious look and casually tapped his fingers against his thigh where his phone was shoved deep in his pocket. He was assuming the other guard had stepped away to make a phone call, and I was pretty sure I knew who he was calling – likely the same person the man at the shitty hotel had called upon my exit.

Dallas quickly wrapped up our visit, telling the men that we'd gotten all the information we needed, and we walked briskly back to his car.

Out of habit, I eyed the backseat before climbing inside.

"You think he's letting someone know we're here?" I raised my brows to Dallas as he backed out of the parking space.

He gave a curt nod. "And probably sending someone after us."

We drove back to the main gate where we'd entered and waited for the guard at the checkpoint to open it so we could leave. The windows of the guard shack were tinted so dark, we couldn't tell if anyone was inside, but the gate was not moving.

"Is he still in there?" I asked, thinking maybe Dallas had a better vantage point from his side of the vehicle.

He shook his head. "Can't tell."

"Maybe there's like a button or something you can press to leave."

Dallas's attention was redirected to his rearview mirror and I turned in my seat to see a black SUV with blackened windows pull up behind us, blocking us in between the gate and them.

"Who is that? Prison security?" I frowned, trying to make out a face through the tinted windshield.

"I don't think they're friendlies," he muttered lowly, squinting at the reflection in the mirror. "I think coming here just waved a red flag in their faces and labeled a target on our backs."

"Well, if they think they're going to win, they've got another thing coming," I said matter-of-factly and looked knowingly at Dallas.

That familiar cocky smirk rose to his lips. "Yeah. They don't know who they're fucking with."

I knew that if anyone could get us out of this, it was Dallas. He'd outrun hundreds of enemies, many of those times with me alongside him. I used to tease him that he'd missed his calling and he should've been a stunt driver.

"Hold on to your ass," he said in a determined voice when the two front doors of the SUV opened.

Dallas waited for the two men to close the doors and then he quickly shifted gears, slamming the accelerator and backing our car into theirs with a tremendous bang. Both men drew their weapons and moved to take cover on either side of their SUV. A bullet whizzed by and shattered my side view mirror. Dallas changed gears again, spinning the wheels for a second before letting the vehicle fly forward and crash through the gate. The chain link gate hung on to the front of the car as we passed the guard shack, but it quickly flew off and we were clear to get away, zooming down the one lane road we'd arrived on.

I kept a hand on my pistol, ready to fire out the window, but no one was coming after us. Dallas and I both kept checking the mirrors, expecting to see the SUV blasting up behind us, but there was nothing but the dust from the gravel road in the rearview.

"What the fuck was that?" I finally blurted out, still watching the road behind us. "Why aren't they coming after us?"

Dallas, calm as he always was in dire situations, released a sigh and laid his pistol down on his lap.

"I'd assume they figured out that our I.D.'s are fake," he said. "They probably called the feds direct to double check."

I looked at him, confused. "So why aren't they following us?"

"Oh, they'll send someone looking for us. I'm sure. But prison security can't very well go chasing us all over creation since they're not the regular police," Dallas told me, taking a right at the fork in the road – the opposite direction from where we'd originally come. "They'll notify the police and have them looking for us. We'll just have to keep an eye out for the cops, too."

That explained why the guard who'd been staring at us strange had left the room.

I told myself to relax and re-holstered my gun, pulling out my phone. I'd mapped out a path to each of the five locations we'd decided to investigate.

"Where to next?" Dallas asked, leaning in to glance at my screen.

I pointed to the next cell tower ping we'd marked. "This post office in Wiesenburg."