Exit Strategy Read Free Page A

have worked on dozens of EXIT missions with the rogue enforcer, but until tonight, Mason had never met the man. He had no shared history on which to base any trust. Still, he couldn’t stomach letting Sabrina die if there was even a chance she was a victim in all of this, so he’d agreed to play along, for now.
    “Just watch out for her,” he snapped. “She’ll reach the road before I do.” He ended the call without waiting for Devlin Buchanan’s reply.
    S ABRINA FELL OVER another log, landing hard on her hands and knees. Again. She pounded the ground in frustration and wished for the hundredth time that she’d taken an extra few seconds to find her glasses before running out of her bedroom.
    She searched the dark line of trees behind her and drew deep, gasping breaths. What had she heard right before she’d fallen? Footsteps? She heard nothing now. Even the night birds and insects had stopped singing and chirping, as if they sensed the dangerous hunter on her trail.
    If you want to kill me, Tall-­Dark-­and-­Deadly, you’ll have to earn it. I’m not going to make it easy for you.
    Bracing herself against the shooting pain in her arm and bruised knees, she shoved to her feet and took off again. An agonizing few minutes later she glimpsed a break in the trees, and something else. A road? Maybe the Blue Ridge Parkway that snaked around the protected area behind her house? Hope spurred her forward in a wobbly lope.
    She burst through the trees into the open. A dark ribbon of asphalt stretched out in the moonlight, boasting one of the familiar wooden Appalachian Trail signs a few feet away. Yes! She grabbed hold of the sign, leaning on it as she tried to catch her breath. Looking down the road, she willed someone to come along. She’d heard that tourists traveled this scenic highway at all hours.
    Please, please, please.
    Headlights flashed off to the right. A dark-­colored vehicle seemed to appear from out of nowhere, barreling up the hill. Terrified the driver might pass her by, she ran out onto the road directly in its path, waving her good arm over her head.
    Brakes squealed. The Hummer’s nose dove toward the ground as it screeched to a halt just a few feet from her.
    Sabrina ran to the driver’s door and pounded on the glass. The man behind the wheel glanced at the woman sitting beside him before lowering the window. He rested his arm on the door, the dark shape of a tattoo on his massive biceps peeking out from beneath his shirtsleeve. The dashboard lights illuminated his face, though his eyes narrowed dangerously as they dipped to the blood on her arm.
    His jaw tightened, giving him an angry, fierce expression that was so similar to the one Tall-­Dark-­and-­Deadly had worn that it sent a spike of alarm straight to Sabrina’s belly. Her would-­be savior had some kind of high-­tech binoculars on the top of his head, flipped up the way someone would wear sunglasses when not using them.
    Why would someone wear binoculars at night?
    Probably for the same reason someone would wear a Kevlar vest.
    Trap! Her mind screamed the warning. She took a quick step back. Of course she hadn’t been lucky enough to reach the road just as a vehicle came up the hill. The Hummer must have been waiting and only flipped its headlights on once she’d stumbled out of the woods. Because “luck” was never a word she associated with herself, unless she slapped the word “bad” in front of it. Could these be the same ­people who’d abducted her grandfather? And now they were after her?
    “You look like you could use some help, miss,” the man said.
    Sabrina took another step back, shaking her head. “I, ah, thought you were someone else. Sorry. Please, go on ahead. The person I’m . . . waiting for will be here soon.” She looked down the road as if expecting someone to come up the parkway any second and backed toward the side of the road.
    A car door slammed. Sabrina jerked toward the Hummer.
    The female