Henri Beck & the Hidden Library | 📖

24

Monet tasked Sergei and a few masked mercenaries with searching the jet before they yanked Henri, Thea, and Malik out like plugs in the wall. Henri didn't have time to properly conceal the journal he'd obtained in London before the gunmen ripped it from his hands. However, he was able to slip the map of the tunnels into his shoe. As long as they didn't make him take them off, they wouldn't find it.

Once the trio had been frisked to Monet's liking, they were stuffed into the back of a Jeep and sent on their way out of the airfield. Arkangel's CEO and her Serbian lackey took a ride in a separate vehicle.

Henri grimaced as Thea's elbow dug into his ribs. The mercenaries might've been rolling around in armored trucks, but they did little to mask the bumps in Alexandria's roads. Every shift and turn gave him a mouthful of Malik's shoulder and a sharp jab from Thea's elbow. With him being the smallest of the three, the mercenaries decided he'd be the one punished with sitting in the middle of the backseat.

"Hey, watch it," he hissed between his teeth as his sister's elbow dug into his ribs.

"Suck it up, you big baby," she shot back.

"Quiet back there!" shouted the goon sitting in the passenger's seat.

"Why don't you make me?!" Thea snapped.

The mercenary spat a curse at her in a foreign language. Had there not been a metal cage separating them from the front two seats, Henri was certain the two would've come to blows. With the kind of dreams Thea had on a nightly basis, some idiot with a gun couldn't scare her. They wouldn't touch her anyways. They'd been given clear orders not to.

If Henri and the others were to be afraid of anyone, it should've been Monet Delacroix. She was far more intimidating than any of these mercenaries without a gun on her hip.

"Where are you taking us?" Thea questioned. Her narrowed eyes were trying their best to get a glimpse out of their darkened windows.

"How many times do we have to tell you to shut up?" the driver grumbled.

"When are you going to start answering our questions?"

Thea and the mercenary hit a stalemate. The former grinned triumphantly.

All Malik could do was chuckle. Henri lifted an incredulous brow at him. What could possibly be funny right now? They'd been stuffed into the back of a truck and carted away to God knows where.

He almost wanted to cry.

To keep himself from doing so, he peered out the front windshield—which wasn't completely blacked out like the other windows. It was the only perk of being sat in the middle seat.

They were speeding down a dirt road infested with pebbles and boulders bordering the coast. A thick fog rolled over the dark waves; Henri could faintly hear the tide hitting the bottom of the cliffs over the sound of the truck's noisy engine. Night was still upon them. Moonlight cascaded down from the heavens and illuminated the occasional building built alongside the road. There wasn't much else to see outside of sandy hills, palm trees, and rocks.

Henri settled back into his seat.

On the bright side of things, they had yet to be murdered. Monet surely would've had them killed a long time ago if it was in her plans to have them eliminated. That gave him a little hope that the woman wasn't as heartless as she appeared to be. But her apparent mercy only got his brain thinking again. If she wasn't going to kill them, what was her plan?

Dread pooled at the base of his stomach. He struggled to dislodge the lump in his throat.

This was going to be a long ride.