Queen of Wild Cards novel Chapter 281

Stella Hawthorne silently shadowed the two men. Completely oblivious, they headed straight toward the basement entrance.

She trailed them all the way to an orchard outside the villa. The pungent scent of rotting leaves hit her—the exact smell she remembered from when Gideon Kaye had first dragged her away.

It was the stench of decaying foliage blanketing the ground.

One of the men jiggled a withered tree trunk, and a hidden trapdoor in the earth automatically popped open.

So this was the entrance!

No wonder she couldn't find it. The orchard was full of dead trees; who would have guessed the door was hidden beneath this specific one?

All she had to do was wait quietly. The moment they brought the hostages out, she would strike.

So, Stella stayed put, crouching in wait by the opening.

It didn't take long for the men to resurface, dragging Cecilia Eames and the mute woman with them. Their hands were bound and their mouths tightly gagged—clearly to prevent any screaming.

They were even blindfolded. Talk about paranoid; it was the middle of the night, yet they still felt the need to cover their eyes.

Stella waited for the men to seal the trapdoor. Moving like a ghost, she delivered two swift, brutal chops to the backs of their necks, and they crumpled to the ground instantly.

They never saw it coming—the classic case of the hunter becoming the hunted.

Stella untied the blindfolds first. Meeting their terrified gazes, she whispered, "I'm going to take your gags off, but you can't make a sound. Understand?"

Once their vision cleared and they realized it was Stella, they nodded frantically, tears of relief welling in their eyes.

Satisfied, she removed their gags and quickly undid the ropes binding their wrists.

One of them couldn't even speak—gagging her was just overkill.

The men's heads bounced against the ground. Stella figured they wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, and when they did, they'd have a hell of a concussion.

Good thing they were on soft dirt. If this were concrete, it would have been severe brain trauma.

Just as they finished tossing the men into the brush like sacks of garbage, the piercing wail of police sirens cut through the night.

The feds were here.

Julius must have arrived too. He was probably tearing the place apart looking for her.

However, she also heard heavy footsteps heading straight for the orchard.

Unsure if it was friend or foe, she ushered Cecilia and the mute woman back into the woods where they had just hidden the bodies, immediately clicking off the flashlight.

Her instincts were right. Julius had arrived five minutes before the authorities and was already infiltrating the villa to find her.