Page 43 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I drove faster than I had before, which I hated. I wasn’t afraid of driving or being in vehicles, understanding I probably wouldn’t die from an accident, but I didn’t like getting into them. I’d dealt with too many serious injuries and accidents to enjoy risking another.

But Carey was in Houston, so I needed to be there, and for her, I was willing to take every risk. If I had to run into hell itself and piss off every dark underworld god the religions had ever spoken of to get her back, I would.

This old, dead witch has no idea who she’s fucking with. If she thinks dying to Hasan was painful, I hope she’s ready for what I’ll do to her for this.

Thirty minutes into the drive, my phone started ringing, and I answered with the hands-free, needing to control my vehicle more than I needed to hold my phone.

“Jacky, can you hear me? I’m setting up a conference call for everyone,” Davor said. “We’re all in different vehicles right now, so this is what we’ve got.”

“I can hear you,” I answered. “How do I sound?”

“Hands-free,” he said. “Now, let me get everyone else.”

I waited and heard the call-outs as they happened.

“Heath?”

“Here. I have Landon with me.”

“Dirk?”

“I’m on. With Niko and Ranger. Ranger’s going to be helping me with communications in Houston.”

“Perfect. I have Subira, Hasan, and Zuri. Zuri is driving. Jacky, you still there?”

“Still here,” I confirmed.

“Perfect. We’re the team meeting with the rest of the werewolves in Houston.

Heath already got them ready in the Tribunal earlier tonight, and once we’re there, we’re going to talk attack plans.

Here’s what’s happened for everyone to catch up since I know some here were just pulled into driving without an explanation.

” Davor took a deep breath, easily picked up by whatever mic was there.

He was talking so fast. Once he started talking again, his words were slower, calmer, better understood.

“Dirk has a suspicion that the BSA was hiding information, wanting to beat us to rescuing Carey. Jacky confirmed it. We know the BSA will either fail, and a lot of people will die, or they will successfully capture witches, who could then start exposing a lot of supernatural secrets to create more chaos. The risk is always there, so we can’t let them beat us.

I made a plan with Jacky to have her go to the BSA and get me a chance to hack them quickly, so I could at least give us a better jump into this. Jacky…”

“Yeah, I went to talk to them, and they were very clear about the situation. They weren’t going to let me get what I needed and leave.

Luckily, the werewolves were starting to knock on witch doors around the country, and the BSA noticed that, even if the rest of the world hasn’t.

They went into a bit of a crisis mode, which further kept them distracted.

Once Davor told me he finished hacking them, I left.

No idea how they feel right now… and don’t really care.

Probably burned some useful bridges, but they crossed a line. ”

“Who was the one who made the call to play with information about Carey?”

“Director Rhodes,” I snapped angrily, not at Heath, who asked the question, but in my own anger with the human who tried to play the games with me.

“Doesn’t matter right now,” Hasan said. “Davor? Houston?”

“Yeah, they found the SUVs and where they were dumped, along with personal items of Carey’s and the werewolves. Cell phones, wallets, and the like. Not their clothing or anything that could be clothing, which was noted in their notes…”

“None of them Changed, and they weren’t forced to strip as far as we can tell by that point,” Landon said, growling softly.

“A good, albeit small win. These witches are scaring the moon cursed to cast and hold the control spells,” Subira reminded us. “They probably aren’t trying to cast those spells tonight. They probably take time that the witches weren’t planning on spending in the country.”

“Well, beyond that, they were able to get information about the trailer with the werewolves. What my thought is, and it lines up with the BSA’s thoughts, the witches initially tried the airport, but private flights were already being canceled and grounded by the time they got to Houston.

They couldn’t leave, so they went to a secondary location, maybe where they initially planned this mission, and used it as a hub, or they’re squatting somewhere.

It doesn’t really matter. They dumped the SUVs and the personal items before heading to a secondary location.

The BSA had already had a local team pull the footage and tracked them to a block in an industrial area.

I believe they were hoping to narrow it down further before acting. ”

“They can’t get warrants on an entire block of a city,” Heath said, almost understanding, but without his expression, he sounded mostly cold, focused on the goal.

“Fair enough. We don’t need warrants. We just need a safe plan to get us in there to find out which building it is without someone dying in the process.

” Davor hummed to himself for a second. “But that’s it.

The semi was seen going into that area, and everyone lost track of it on the cameras after that.

It never came out, either. With it being the middle of the night, it’s been hard trying to find the owners and managers of the different buildings, and the BSA probably hasn’t wanted to risk sending any humans in the area without their own plan in case someone gets hurt. ”

“Where are we meeting the werewolves?” I asked, needing to type it into my GPS. It wasn’t what I really wanted, though.

“I’ll text it to everyone once we hang up.

I’m going to email out all this information as well.

Everyone is going to want to review it and collect their thoughts.

Jacky, I know you don’t want to stop driving, but please take ten minutes to read through it when you get the chance.

We need everyone here as informed as possible before we start trying to make our plans. ”

“I’ll pull over once I get the email,” I said, hating that it would cost me some time, but understanding why he wanted it. I was the only person without someone to read it out to me.

But it wasn’t what I wanted .

“Drive safe, everyone. See you in Houston,” Davor said, then killed the conference call.

My phone buzzed a few seconds later, and I braked, pulling over onto the shoulder.

I hit my warning lights, just in case, and looked at the email, ignoring the text with the address to meet the werewolves entirely.

Most of it was just slightly more detailed versions of what he’d said, pictures from the SUVs, and the one I ripped the door off lingered in my mind.

There was now blood all over the back seats that BSA made sure to picture as evidence.

The blood made my stomach churn as I found it difficult to look away, moving on to the next. My breathing grew heavy as it lingered in my mind, knowing it was probably not one of the witch’s.

I kept going and saw what I wanted.

The BSA had gotten a satellite image of the area where the truck had gone. Davor included a list of addresses the BSA had already preprepared warrants for, all in that area, all potentially holding Carey.

The hand holding the phone began to shake. It didn’t feel like mine anymore.

A list.

She could be there. She has to be there.

My ears started ringing as I fought the increasingly dangerous urge to just do what I wanted.

I dropped the phone for a moment and tried to curl my hands to fight the claws beginning to show. I took several deep breaths, but they didn’t help this time.

I’d go to hell for her. If it meant staying there while she walked free, I would.

Her screaming and fighting not to be taken. My fury and pain as I watched it happen. Her lying off the side of the road. Her soft voice. The blood in the SUV, vivid enough that I could imagine the smell.

I growled, hitting my steering wheel hard enough to bend it.

I could go get her. I could just go get her.

My worry. My love for her. It was all working against me now.

I have to know she’s okay.

The urge grew unbearable.

I just need to get to her.

I’m going to get to her.

With that thought, letting the claws out, I reached something else beyond panic.

A terrible sense of clarity.

I didn’t need control . I just needed to know she was okay. I needed to know she was alive.

Without thinking, I punched an address into my GPS. I turned off my phone.

I started driving.

I understood how werecats could start wars without thinking over the wrong person close to being killed, having threatened the same thing myself.

I understood the madness of Hasan’s grief over losing Liza as I considered what I was going to do to the witches who took Carey.

With clarity, I understood the fatal flaw of the werecats.

I knew I was no longer making sane decisions.

And to save her, I embraced the insanity.

Even if I lost myself in the process.