Exit Strategy Read Online Free PDF Page B

them? If you’re going to kill me, hurry up and do it. But don’t expect any more explanations . I’m done talking.”
    Mason tightened his hands around his bow, weighing his options. Killing Ace was the sensible thing to do. It would buy Mason some time until he reached the cabin and got the information about Sabrina. But killing Ace only made sense if the Buchanans were right, if Sabrina was truly innocent, if EXIT was purposely falsifying EXIT orders and hadn’t just made some kind of horrible mistake with Sabrina’s order, and if Ace was in on all of this and knew about EXIT’s deceit.
    Those were a lot of “ifs” to consider when deciding whether to take a man’s life. What if the Buchanans were wrong? What if Sabrina was everything her order claimed her to be?
    Then killing Ace—­even if he deserved it for the stunt he’d pulled back on the parkway—­would be wrong, plain and simple. Mason wasn’t judge and jury. That role belonged to EXIT’s governing Council and to Cyprian. It was Mason’s job to carry out their verdict, to protect others who would pay the ultimate price if he didn’t act. The line between being a tool of justice and becoming a vigilante might sometimes be thin, but he’d always prided himself on carefully making that distinction with every action that he took. Tonight was no exception.
    But even if that weren’t the case, he couldn’t help empathizing with Ace to some degree. The man fervently believed Buchanan had betrayed him. Rumors were that Ace had loved Kelly, and that Buchanan had killed her. And even though Kelly had left Ace for someone else—­Cyprian, if the grapevine was to be believed—­Ace still had a close friendship with her and despised Buchanan for his alleged role in her death.
    His thirst for revenge had consumed him and caused him to make foolish decisions—­like shooting at the Hummer. Mason too had been driven by a similar thirst for vengeance, after the other soldiers in his unit had been massacred by the Jackal, and the army wouldn’t go after their killer because of political concerns.
    If it hadn’t been for EXIT recruiting him after he’d quit the army, he wouldn’t have survived the grief and bitterness that had sucked him into a black hole for months. His EXIT mentors and trainers had taught him that if he couldn’t have justice for his men, and himself, then at least he could seek justice for others. He was one of the lucky ones. He’d learned to redirect his frustrations and had come out the other side with a new sense of purpose. Ace was still caught in the throes of darkness.
    He lowered his crossbow to his side. “Go on. Get out of here. If you come after me again, next time I’ll do my talking with a gun.” He lifted the bow. “Or this.”
    The glare Ace gave him as he drove away left little doubt that Mason had just made a powerful enemy. As soon as the car was out of sight, Mason took off running, using his knowledge of the area and the constellations overhead to guide him on the shortest route to the cabin. He couldn’t afford to waste any time, not with Ace sniffing after them like a great white shark scenting blood in the water. And once Ace told Cyprian that Mason was working with the Buchanans, Cyprian would likely declare Mason “rogue.” Any enforcers in the area would be told to kill him on sight. This little section of the Blue Ridge Mountains had just become the most dangerous spot in the Carolinas.
    S ABRINA’S EY ES FLUTTERED open and she blinked at the dark ceiling above her bed. It looked different, somehow. Alien, not what she was used to seeing when she woke up. Was she even awake? Everything seemed . . . off.
    Her thoughts were sluggish, rolling around inside her head, bumping against each other, then floating away, unable to form a cohesive picture.
    Her tongue felt thick, her mouth dry as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The room was dark, but she could still see the lone window on the far