Read Online Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) by Carolyn Crane - Free Book Online Page A

said.
    They shut up.
    “Bring me all of the Cokes,” she said.
    The bearded man brought her five bottles, setting them where he’d set the guns. As if she were some sort of wild animal.
    “ Las abro ?” he pantomimed opening a bottle.
    “No.” She shook her head. She just didn’t want the other guys to have them. She’d need them later when she started nodding off.
    It came faster than she wanted.
    She called the bearded man back. She held up a finger, and then pointed at one of the bottles. “ Uno .”
    He opened one, handed it to her, and shrank back. She took a swig and smacked her lips as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
    A good front was half the game.
    She sometimes wore beautiful clothes to her meetings with Dax, as if she might be heading out on a date afterward. It was important to her that Dax thought she was doing all right, and that he didn’t know about how she felt inside, or about her Friar Hovde nightmares. She’d worked with Dax long enough to know how to fool him; you input false variables—and they had to be convincing false variables, surface ripples connected to nothing. It was all about surface ripples with Dax. Or the beating of a butterfly’s wings in Tanzania and how that would affect things a world away. You never wanted Dax’s laser beam of a brain focused on you.
    The guys were talking again. They discussed how much time had passed – three hours. That was about what she’d figured.
    “Hey,” she barked.
    They kept on, pushing it. She could feel Guz assessing her. He didn’t tell them to shut up. She’d known this was coming—the moment they would start testing her for real, seeing how far they could push her.
    “No talking!”
    The one kept on, talked about what they’d do to her. This conversation was scarier than the last, something she hadn’t thought possible.
    Her pulse raced as she shifted herself into the position she’d worked out in her mind, giving her the angle by which she could graze the leader’s kneecap and the bullet would sail right past and into the side of the plane, well below one of the windows. It was in the general direction of the fuel tanks, but safely away. And near the guys too, an extra bonus. Risky, but there was no choice anymore—she needed to reestablish her willingness to take them all down.
    She discreetly stuffed a bit of cardboard in each ear. The blast was going to be loud as a motherfucker.
    Another started talking, expressly against her rules.
    It was time. She let her voice go hysterical. “Stop it!”
    He kept on. She jerked up the gun, aimed, and shot. The deafening blast ripped through the little plane. The leader cried out. A flurry of papers whipped around. The roar of the engine filled the air. Men were up, shouting.
    “I’ll shoot again!”
    “ No! Para !” Guz held his knee. She’d nicked him just as she’d meant to, and pierced the side of the aircraft.
    “No more talking!” Aguilo ordered. “No more talking, no more shooting, okay?”
    It was official: she was crazy enough to shoot up the plane and shoot at the leader. The guys were already working on the hole. Through his expression, Guz calmed them and showed them he was okay.
    Good.
    Still, Zelda kept her eyes wild. Her ear canals squeezed with pain. “I’ll kill you all!”
    “No more talking, okay?” Aguilo said.
    They blocked the hole with part of a cardboard box and duct tape. She looked on, shaking like a tree. Thank goodness she’d ditched the heels.
    She sat and drank another cola, imagining her exit strategy. She’d need the leader as a hostage. She’d keep the lingerie on no matter where they landed, even if it was a major airfield. People would see her exposed like that, and even though she’d be the one holding a gun to a man’s head, she’d seem like the victim. Maybe she’d even rip off the apron. It would be a fucking Escher painting where the stairs lead up onto themselves.
    It might be enough to get her out.
    She felt