Page 35 of Duality (The Archers #1)

His tone softened, the authority in his voice giving way to something gentler.

“The only way to handle that weight is to share it. To trust the people around you. Lean on them. Let them carry some of it with you. That’s why we’re here.

Not just as your allies, but as people who care about you. A lot.”

Alexander paused, his expression earnest. “You don’t have to do this alone, Evelyn. You’re not alone anymore.”

“He’s right, my darling.” Sebastian nuzzled the back of my neck as he rubbed my shoulders. “You have us now. You don’t have to go through this alone. You can lean on us.”

“We won’t let you fall,” Adrian rumbled, his chest vibrating under my ear.

I closed my eyes and tried to let their words soak into my brain.

I had been doing this all alone for so long.

Even with the help of my lieutenants, the weight of the responsibility had always been mine.

And for the most part, I didn’t mind it.

I liked being able to take care of people.

But the weight had felt heavier and heavier the last few years, and I was crumbling under it.

What they were offering felt like a dream, but they felt very real against me.

Sebastian plucked the phone out of my hand and redialed it again as I soaked in their comfort. Maybe they were right, maybe I didn’t have to do it all alone. Fuck, sharing the responsibility sounded so good.

“What?” Carter’s voice barked through the phone, cutting through the sweet moment we were having and jerking me back into reality. I scrambled upright on Adrian’s lap and plucked the phone from Sebastian’s hand.

“When did Finch join your team?” I jumped right into it.

“Why is my team a concern of yours?” Carter and I had a friendly relationship, but there were lines we kept drawn.

He clearly thought that this was one of those lines, and maybe it was, but that was before one of his team kidnapped one of mine.

And Marcus was one of mine. Even if his grumpy ass may deny it.

“It’s my concern when one of yours kidnapped one of mine,” I snapped.

Carter cursed. “Fuck me.”

“So I’ll ask again, when did Finch join your team? Did you know he worked for Citadel?” I pressed again, keeping Carter off guard.

“Motherfucking fucker! Samson!” he yelled. “Tell me what you know,” he directed in a lower volume.

“Marcus went to meet Finch four hours ago after Finch texted him that he had information on me that affected his brothers. Marcus never returned home. We found something in Citadel’s files that indicated he was employed by Citadel when he first got out of the army.

Citadel scrubbed him from the records, and our working theory is he joined your group so he, and therefore Citadel, could get insider information on the Archers. ”

“That explains why Finch and Rico are AWOL.” Samson’s voice came through the phone. “How sure are you?”

“Very,” I said. “Outside of the Archers, the only group that knows the location of our safe houses is your group. More specifically, the location that was compromised was the one where Lily stayed.”

Carter cursed again. “What do you need from us?”

“A list of locations he may use to keep Marcus,” I said. “Quickly.”

“Samson is getting Keys on it now,” Carter said, talking about their tech guy. “We’ll call back in ten.”

“Make it five. Liam can help cross reference the locations once we have them.”

“Roger.” Carter hung up.

“I got a hold of Danny,” Liam said. “He’s calling everyone and putting them on high alert.”

“We should evacuate the safe houses that the Ghosts have helped with,” I said, rubbing my face.

Sebastian rubbed my back as Adrian tightened his grip, and my body relaxed slightly.

“Just in case. I think that’s Clay and Yarlton, which we haven’t really been using, but we should at least scrub them down again and make sure there’s nothing that can be traced to us. ”

“I’ll let Izzy and Grace know,” Liam said. “Maya’s still at lunch with their dad. Do you want me to tell them anything?”

I rubbed my temples. “Tell them to call as soon as they’re done. Fill them in and ask them to accelerate the timeline on the media campaign. We have to be ready to hit Citadel at the gala.”

The sooner we exposed Citadel, the sooner this whole mess could be put to bed.

Over the last week, we had put together enough information about Citadel’s deeds to bury them, but we needed the publicity of the gala to make sure Citadel couldn’t sweep it under the rug.

Captain Patel was clean, but that didn’t mean everyone in his precinct was.

My phone rang. Carter. “What have you got for me?”

“Keys is sending Glitch the locations,” Carter said, using Liam’s hacker handle. “He’ll coordinate with Glitch on vetting. But we have other problems.”

“Hold on.” I put the phone on speaker, then gestured at the guys to listen in. “Go ahead.”

“Keys went through Finch’s laptop. There were some hardcore protections on there, but he cracked it. Citadel has the locations of all of the Archers safe houses.”

My stomach dropped. Fuck! All of them?

“It gets worse.”

I dropped my head and barely held in a groan. Sebastian’s hand trailed up and rubbed the back of my neck. “Of course it does. What?”

“Citadel is gearing up to take them all out. Tonight.”

“Take them out, as in?” Alexander questioned.

“Destroy the safe houses and whoever is in them,” Carter said flatly. “We’ve been keeping an eye on them and found out through one of our sources. They’ve authorized collateral damages.”

Meaning they didn’t care who they killed.

We had people in those houses. Those houses were a critical part of our organization.

There was no point in getting people out of bad situations if you didn’t have a safe place for them to stay.

If Citadel took them all out, it would cripple the Archers.

We would have to start over completely, and there would be so many people we weren’t able to help.

How were we going to protect them? The Archers barely had enough people and resources to manage the network we had, and Citadel was sure to bring an army.

And we still needed to find Finch and rescue Marcus, and we had no idea where they were.

I felt like I was being pulled in a million different directions.

I took a deep breath and lifted my head.

Alexander’s eyes locked with mine, calm and reassurance radiated from his gaze, and I took a deep breath.

The Archers didn’t have to do it alone. I didn’t have to do it alone. I had help.

“Carter, if we pull everyone back to a few safe houses, can your team help protect them?”

“Yes. I’ll send Samson to your HQ to rendezvous with Danny and Grace. He’ll dispatch the rest of the team to the safe houses and recommend which ones are most defensible.”

“Ashford, Langston, and Everton are probably the most defensible,” I said, thinking about each of the safe houses.

Those three were warehouses and had the most space.

They were also less likely to have collateral damage from surrounding houses.

Just because Citadel didn’t care about collateral damages, that didn’t mean I didn’t.

“We’ll take care of it,” Liam promised.

I looked at Alexander. “Can SDS help?”

He smiled gently at me like he was happy I asked him for help. “Always. We’ll dispatch the Alpha and Beta teams to those locations. They can help protect the people you’ll move there. We can send Charlie and Delta teams to the other locations to try to minimize the damage.”

“How many people are we talking about evacuating? We can host them at an SDS safe house instead,” Adrian offered.

I closed my eyes, trying to think about the latest numbers. “I think we have close to forty people among the eight locations.”

“Shit, my darling, that’s a lot of people.”

I shrugged. It actually wasn’t the most we ever had, but we had been forced to scale back for the last few weeks. “There’s a lot of rot in this city.”

Alexander’s eyes were sad, but he nodded. “We could accommodate that many across a few safe houses, but we’ll have to be careful with our movements. We don’t want Citadel tipped off that we know, or they may strike early.”

“Yarlton and Clay don’t have anyone there, since they were compromised. Briar was…” I swallowed hard. “Briar was also compromised.”

Adrian rubbed my back gently. “So those are three we don’t have to worry about. What about the other three you mentioned?”

“They’re warehouses we’ve converted into multiple rooms. Most of our moms and their kids live there until we can move them. They have more security in general, but they aren’t perfect.”

“Between SDS’s Alpha and Beta teams and us, we should be able to defend them,” Carter said. “SDS is no slouch.”

Sebastian grinned. “Aww, thank you.”

Carter continued as if he hadn’t heard Sebastian. “I’m coming to you. We will find Finch, Rico, and your man, Marcus.”

“I’m assuming you don’t need the address?” I grinned at the phone wryly.

“Who do you think helped Glitch scrub it from the records?” Carter replied before hanging up.

Alexander frowned, his brow furrowed. “What did he mean?”

“He meant that Keys helped me scrub this place from having any connection to Evelyn or the Archers,” Liam said from the end of the table. His gaze never left his computer as he continued to sort through the locations Keys had sent over.

I nodded when Alexander looked at me. Liam had asked me before he’d engaged Keys, and I figured Keys didn’t keep it from Carter. Hopefully, Carter kept it from the rest of his team, though.

Alexander’s phone rang, and he answered it. “Hello? Yes, this is him.”

His face darkened, and I sat straighter. I didn’t like the look on his face.

“Yes, I understand. No, it’ll take time. Three hours? I don’t know if I can get it in that—Okay, I’ll get it. I understand. Can I talk to him?”

Whoever was on the other line hung up, and Alexander lowered the phone, his face pale. “That was Finch. He has Marcus.”

“What does he want?” Sebastian asked. The dark glint in his eyes was back. Heaven help Finch if he hurt Marcus.

“It was a ransom call.”