Both were possibilities, but neither was an acceptable reason in Jesse’s mind.
Before Jesse could say more, the door clicked and swung open. Behind an armed guard stood Carter and Gray, but they remained in the hall.
Griffin and Oliver joined Jesse and Jack on their feet.
“You’re free to go,” the guard stated as if that was just fucking that.
“Wait, what?” Jack broke the silence first as the four of them filtered from the room, and when Jesse looked left and right, he was able to confirm they were on the first floor of a house. Nails and empty picture hooks were still on the wall from when a family had once lived there.
“Where’s Ella, the others?” Jesse looked to Gray and Carter for answers, not prepared to move another foot without them.
“They were released not too long ago.” The guard’s vague answer had Jesse wanting to slap an actual number from him, but he resisted. With the women gone, they needed to get on the move.
“Who picked them up? Where are they?” Griffin beat Jesse to the questions.
“That billionaire, Rochella, picked them up.” At least he’d given them a real answer this time, but Jesse wasn’t sure what to make of the news.
“What in the hell is going on?” Jesse murmured as a man with a receding hairline and thick, black-framed glasses that sat too low on his nose approached them.
The suited Frenchman motioned for the guys to follow him, and they walked past a kitchen toward the foyer by the front door. “You’ll find all of your belongings from Mr. Dominick’s plane packed into the three trunks of the Suburbans outside.”
“All?” Jack leaned closer to the suited guy as if he were speaking Urdu instead.
“Well, pretty much everything. Your weapons and clothes are there,” the man said, tone rushed and insistent.
“I’m sorry, what? You’re just sending us on our merry little way with our RPGs and blacked-out rifles in your city?” Jack opened his palm, swiping it through the air. “No interrogations. No cavity searches.” He waved his hand again, making the shoo-gesture. “Just off ya go.”
Jesse was either still stunned from having been tased, or just shocked by the news that Ella was somewhere in the city of love with the charming billionaire and possibly in danger without him to have her six, that he remained quiet.
“Oui, we’re letting you go.” The Frenchman copied Jack’s shoo-motion, then he opened the front door and stepped back.
Jack peered at Gray, then over at Jesse, shooting him an incredulous, Are you kidding me look.
Same page, brother. Same page. But at this point, all that mattered to Jesse was getting to Ella. And they’d need Henry Rochella’s address and phone number ASAP. Also, Jesse’s cell phone better be in one of those SUVs so he could call and confirm she was okay.
“You called your father while they had you, right?” Oliver asked Gray once they stepped outside the home to discover the three SUVs lined up, trunks already open, as promised.
They only had the front lights of the one-story house to work with out there, but it was enough to see their gear in the trunks.
“They wouldn’t let me call him,” Gray grumbled. “They kept me holed up alone. No idea why.”
“You didn’t need to call him for help,” the Frenchman, obviously aware of who Gray’s father was, spoke up. “Out of respect for your father and his relationship to your president, you were kept in a nicer holding room.” He checked his watch like he had to be somewhere important ten minutes ago, which gave Jesse heart palpitations.
A bad sign. He was about to demand answers when Griffin bit out, “So, this really is about Carter, isn’t it?”
“And yet, Mr. Dominick’s going free.” The cryptic bullshit from the man was going to earn him a punch to the face but Jesse couldn’t afford to get locked back up when Ella was out in the city, and Zoran possibly coming for her.
“We need to step on it,” Jesse hissed, his gut guiding him in the only direction he knew to go. The worst-case scenario. Which was that Ella and the others were in danger.
He felt it in his fucking bones, and the Frenchman’s rushed words and glances at his watch were signs that he was right.
The Frenchman tossed Carter a few sets of keys, and Griffin surprised Jesse by lunging toward the guy as if he’d just drawn the same conclusion as Jesse.
Griffin was able to grab a fistful of the guy’s shirt before Gray and Jack reined him in and stopped him from pummeling the man. “If something happens to them—”
“We gotta go,” Gray urged, at which Griffin hesitantly released his hold on the man.
“Your interests and ours align. We appreciate the listening devices and cameras you installed at Aleksa Stanković’s estate, but we’ll be handling Aleksa from here on. You have something more critical to help us out with,” the Frenchman said while brushing his hands down his now rumpled shirt. “Au revoir. We wish you the best of luck on your mission.” His tone was suddenly somber, and Jesse had the feeling that something crucial was being left out or lost in translation—maybe both—despite the fact they were speaking English, not French.
“We need to gear up before we get to Henry’s. This forced pit stop was to separate us from the women,” Carter said, confirming Jesse’s fears.
But if Thatcher had made the DGSE and MI6 aware of why Jesse and his team were really in Paris, why the dramatics? Why not just let Jesse and his team carry out the job they’d set out to do as planned?
Carter handed Jesse one of the disposable phones they’d brought. “See if they pick up. I have Rochella’s address, it’s less than five minutes away.”
“Wait, what? Five minutes away?” Jesse went still at the news. “We’re that close to his place?”
“Exactly,” was all Carter said, and Jesse got the message. Something was seriously off about this whole damn thing.
“Give me a phone too. I need to talk to Savanna.” Griffin dug into the bag without waiting as Jesse brought the phone to his ear.
“She’s not answering,” Jesse said after three attempts. “Nothing for you either?”
Griffin shook his head and called again. “Nothing.”
This was that shoe dropping. Ella and Savanna were in danger. They were with Sydney, but . . .
“Sydney’s not answering either,” Gray told them, and Jesse was surprised Gray hadn’t been tasered as well when Sydney was pulled away from them that morning. Jesse had noticed that the man had a soft spot for her, and assumed it was from their time together years ago at West Point.
“You think someone at DGSE is feeding Zoran intel to draw him out on their own timetable?” Griffin speculated in a rough voice, mirroring Jesse’s thoughts as he hurriedly holstered a weapon at his back and strapped another to his thigh. “Otherwise, how would Zoran know we were coming to France unless he had someone planted in Bama keeping tabs on Jesse, and they learned about the wedding and Ella’s job offer?”
“And what, the French detained us long enough for word to travel to Zoran and give him time to get to Rochella’s?” Oliver sounded surprised by the idea, but sadly, Jesse wasn’t shocked. This was par for the course when it came to the CIA. “Why not just take Zoran down themselves if they expect him to go after the women? None of this makes sense.”