Chapter 79

Through the lensof his rifle’s scope, Mason Wade watched Special Agent Blackwell’s hands remain at his side while Kayla plucked the notes from the two bitches’ heads.

Relief poured through him, and he released a heavy breath.

If Blackwell had intended to play it by the book, he would never have allowed Kayla to tamper with crime scene evidence.

Mason experienced a twinge of guilt at Kayla being exposed to the brutal deaths of two women who’d played an important role in her life, but elimination had been the only option. The actions of a couple of rogue actors shouldn’t be allowed to take down an important organization like HCVS.

With Elsie and Sybil out of the picture, Kayla, Jillian, and other Service members could continue moving the world in a more positive direction. One where his daughter could be anyone she wanted, including the president of the United States.

Thankfully, stick-in-the-mud Blackwell hadn’t screwed up his plan.

Thoughts of Jozi made his eyes burn. From the age of eleven years old, when she met her hero, Jane Goodall, she’d been working hard to prepare herself for entrance into Duke. And his little girl had done it. Last month, she’d received her admittance letter from the university. Now Mason had to figure out how to pay for it. Tuition was fucking expensive.

Which had aided in his decision to take on the contract to assassinate the governor. But mostly, he’d wanted to protect Kayla. Make sure she didn’t get caught in the crosshairs of an unknown shooter who wasn’t bothered by human collateral damage.

In the end, he hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. Not because he had any moral issues with killing such a high-ranking public figure. Politicians were like cockroaches. Smash one and another would crawl over its carcass to feast on the available power, licking its feet on the other side.

No, the reason he hadn’t been able to follow through was the joy he’d witnessed on Kayla’s face when she strolled into the gazebo. He understood the pain of watching someone you cared about die before your eyes. Had witnessed it more than once on the battlefield. Had watched his wife, Naomi, struggle to survive for days in the hospital before she finally succumbed to her injuries. He’d refused to put Kayla through that kind of mental torture.

But Sybil had had a backup plan. A brilliant one, as it turned out. Who the hell took a serial killer with a signature to an assassination? Someone establishing a masterful decoy, that’s who.

He hadn’t known about Grimball’s jewelry fetish the night of the fundraiser. All he’d been focused on was preventing the assassin from taking the second shot, the one intended for Kayla. If Grimball’s weapon hadn’t jammed, giving Mason time to locate the convict and smash his face before the bastard slipped his grasp but not before his knife slashed across Mason’s forearm, the night would’ve had an even deadlier ending.

There were other targets, other ways to get the money for his daughter’s tuition.

From the moment Jozi bellowed her way into the world, he and Naomi had put every extra cent into a college fund for their daughter. But his wife’s medical bills had ripped through their savings, and Mason had joined the millions of Americans mired in devastating medical debt.

Once he’d clawed his way out, he started building Jozi’s college fund again. He’d done what he could on a single salary, and Jozi received a few grants from essays she’d written, but they had only managed to cover the first two years of her undergrad degree.

Now, he was without a steady job and had only a short time to come up with the money for her junior and senior years. Once he got her settled into her dorm, he’d have the freedom to take higher paying contract jobs overseas.

Mason pushed away from the boulder and retrieved the bag of bullet casings he’d picked up in the forest and around the burning guest house, dropping them into his rucksack.

Once the ruck was situated on his back, he shouldered his rifle, grabbed a shovel from the toolshed, and slipped back into the shadows.