Page 53

Chapter Twenty-One

Brennan

Creed and Trace leave with our brothers piled in the back of the van. The party is about to wrap up anyway, so it’s not like they’re going to miss anything important. I don’t doubt Betty knows about Team Hades. She’s a smart woman, though her entire team is nothing but brawn except Jimmie, who is smarter than all of them combined. How he ended up in their team is still a mystery to everyone. We will need to question her, but for now, I need to get back upstairs. I’m in the service lift, designated for staff use, when the lights flicker. The lift creaks to a halt and then everything goes pitch black.

I push the lift’s telephone button, but nothing happens. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I try to call Chester. When he doesn’t answer, I try again, but just like the previous time, it goes to voicemail.

Next, I try Kai, who answers on the fourth ring.

“She’s gone!” he shouts, panic lacing his tone.

“What do you mean she’s fucking gone?” I snap.

“She was feeling dizzy, so I went to get her a bottle of water.”

“You left her alone?” My pulse picks up and sweat beads along my brow at the thought of her being alone when she wasn’t feeling well. Anything could have happened to her at this point.

“Chester was watching her, and Colt was right next to her. But the lights went out and now we can’t find her anywhere.”

“Fuck,” I hiss. “I’m stuck in the lift and the others have just left. I’ll call them to come back.”

“We’ll keep searching. Shit, I need to go. Chester has Colt by the throat.”

The line drops out and I scroll down to Boston’s number. I pause for a moment. If I call them in, this will blow their cover. I know Jolie will kill me if I make the call, but Boston will kill me if I don’t.

Deciding pissing off Boston is worse, I make the call.

“What’s wrong?” Boston asks, answering on the first ring. I don’t ever call him unless it’s important.

“You need to come back. Immediately. The entire building has lost electricity. Kai and Chester can’t find Jolie. I’m stuck in the fucking lift.” I must be on speaker phone because I hear a chorus of words you couldn’t repeat to your grandmother.

“He knows we’re alive, doesn’t he?” Boston asks, but he already knows the answer to that question.

“I’m going to kill him!” Laughn booms.

“Her tracking device is turned off,” Marlow adds.

“This is bad,” Davis says. “We fucked up again.”

“That we did.” I say, ending the call.

They’ll no doubt be back within minutes, so I call the other person whose help we will need to save Jolie. We have always had an ambush plan ready in case we ever needed it. Is it a smart idea? No, because it will end in casualties. But right now, we’re left with no other choice.

“Hello,” he answers.

“Ziyon, we have a problem.”

Listening with rapt attention, Ziyon is silent as I explain everything that has happened so far. After a minute, he tells me we’ll meet at Creed’s house, as he doesn’t want to risk Melinda’s safety, and I can respect that. His plan is to gather his men, and he expects us to do the same. We have a handful of teams that would turn against Mr Z given the right incentive. Enemies are often made on the way to the top.

There is another call I can make. Jolie may have struck up a friendship with Amelie—who runs a secret society in the United Kingdom—but what she doesn’t know is Amelie’s mother, Debbie, has been part of Olympia for years. She also hates Mr Z, and at one point she didn’t have anywhere else to turn, but we had her back. Debbie also has a connection to Camilla—a damn old lady who could scare the pants off a grown man—who runs the criminal underground and is now part of The Order within Australia. Unfortunately, I’m privy to way more than I should be, and I know they work on a favour system. At this point, I don’t care what it costs me or that I’m not part of their secret society. We have things they want, and I’m willing to give them access—if that’s what it takes for their help to get Jolie back.

The lights finally flick back on, and the lift moves again; the seconds feel like hours until the doors open. Most people have left, except for Chester, Kai, Colt’s team, Summer’s team, Sinclair, and Jimmie. I rush over to where they are standing.

“Any sign of her?”

“No, we are about to sweep the entire building. The manager gave us his word that his security teams are making sure everyone leaves. I split these guys up to take sections. Now that you’re back you can join us.”

“Don’t forget about us, fuckers.” Laughn storms into the room.

“What the fuck!” Blayne shouts.

“How the fuck are you alive?” Colt questions, followed by a laugh. “Of course, you’re alive.”

“Now isn’t the time for how and why. We’re alive and that means Mr Z is out for blood. If you’re loyal to him, it’s time to run along. If you want to help us, know that you could be putting yourself in danger,” Boston states.

“I’m in,” Sinclair says, without hesitation.

“Us too,” Blayne and Colt both say in unison.

“I’m in too,” Jimmie declares.

Chester steps up to him. “If I find out your girl had anything to do with this, I’ll kill her.”

I have to give Jimmie credit, he doesn’t cower even though Chester is taller, stronger, and could kick his skinny ass.

“If she had anything to do with this, it’s not a team I want to be part of.”

“I’m in,” Summer slurs, stumbling slightly. The girl is wasted.

“Hold on,” Khale announces. “We need to think about this. Are we willing to risk Summer’s life over this?”

Summer turns to face him. “Jolie is my friend. I don’t care what you want to do, Khale, but I plan to help.”

“How about we all help. But, Khale, you can take Summer and sober her up. They can give you two a safe job—I’m sure there is surveillance to watch or something,” Leland says, before they can argue again.

“Done. Chances are they have left the building, but I want to do a sweep just to make sure.”

Everyone nods and breaks off into their teams, who then get straight into searching.

Half an hour later, Jolie is nowhere to be seen, which is what we expected. We all pile into our cars and head back to the house. We need to wait on Ziyon, and I have some calls to make.

Twenty-four hours have passed since Jolie disappeared from the party. We haven’t heard anything from Mr Z and that worries us immensely. Jolie could be experiencing any horror at this point in retribution for the lies we told. He knows how important she is to us and wouldn’t blink at the prospect of taking her away as punishment. While he would have to know we would come for him, it takes time to rally together the people we need to pull this rescue off. We never wanted to hurt anyone else, but he has left us no choice.

Camilla was more than happy to go to war, especially after she spoke to her granddaughter Amelie. I’ll owe them, and every team they send in to help us, a favour. I’m more than okay with that if we bring Jolie home and take Mr Z down.

Her people started arriving minutes ago, and Ziyon is running everyone over the plan. Olympia is under heavy surveillance using state-of-the-art equipment. It’s so heavily secured that Marlow hasn’t been able to hack into its system yet, though he can disable the gates and the electric fence. But once we are inside, if he can get to the security basement, then he can control the cameras.

We have an air strike ready, and bombs have been strategically placed in the underground tunnels just outside of the Olympia walls. Everything is ready to go.

Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I walk back inside the house to find Marlow and Jimmie talking about the best strategy to get to the basement. Jimmie is a computer nerd and knows his way around a basic computer hack. He came up with an idea to sidetrack the Olympia team with a fake attack on their system. They’ll be busy fixing that and hopefully that will buy us a few minutes to get in. Marlow hands him a laptop and Jimmie sets himself up at the kitchen bench; he will start once we’re all in place.

It was decided at the last minute that Sinclair and Blayne would run surveillance with Summer, as we need eyes watching and listening to us. They’re in the office where all our screens have been tuned to watch the Olympia grounds. Blayne wasn’t happy about it, but no one was willing to risk their women in this fight. We know we’ll lose people, but it’s better for it to be us than the girls.

Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention and I turn and watch as Chester, Creed, and Laughn strap themselves with weapons. This is a suicide mission for them. They’ll walk in, guns drawn, and start shooting anyone who moves, and I’m powerless to stop it.

The Order has come through and sent us twenty men and women, each scarier than the next. Camilla made it clear that The Order doesn’t generally work with non-members, but her board held a vote, deciding to make an exception when I gave them a list of useful things that our teams are especially good at achieving. Anything they could want from us doesn’t worry me; it’s nothing we wouldn’t have done before. And there’s nothing we wouldn’t do to get Jolie back.

Mr Z knows we’re coming—this isn’t a secret attack. We head outside and get into our vehicles, all except Chester, Creed, and Laughn. They climb into a chopper that just landed, along with a team that Camilla promises specialises in air attacks.

He may know we’re coming, but I hope he’s not ready for the force we have behind us. I tried to reason with everyone that, if possible, we should capture him alive. This isn’t a shoot-to-kill mission.

The line of cars drive at speeds well beyond the limit as the sound of the choppers radiates from above. Boston, Kai, Trace, and Davis are packed into my car; we’ve tried to reduce it down to as few vehicles as we can. Kai is in charge of setting off the bombs once we are all in place.

Boston’s knee bounces as we get closer to Olympia.

“If anything has happened to her,” he seethes, not really talking to anyone in particular.

“I doubt he would hurt his own daughter,” Davis says, but we all know that’s a lie.

He is out to benefit himself, and luring us in is killing two birds with one stone. It’s no secret that he wants us dead. Unbeknownst to him, this has been Plan B for a long time, and we won’t be leaving without Jolie and having dealt with him.

We all split off at the fork in the road that leads around the Olympia grounds. Kai confirms with Creed that they’re in place and ready to go before he opens a burner phone and presses some buttons. We watch as explosions illuminate the sky, one after another.

Boston talks to Marlow through an earpiece; it’s one that we all have, so we can hear everything they say. Jimmie has already started hacking into the Olympia system while Marlow shuts down the gates and electric fences. Once he gives the okay, people rappel from the chopper and Ziyon’s men storm the outside of the building.

We head towards an underground tunnel, one that leads into the basement. Marlow and Case catch up and join us.

Case leads the way, moving us through the pitch black with Kai hot on his heels. There is one more door we need to get through, and we pray Kai can see what’s on the other side.

Once we get there, Kai moves to the front, and gives us the all clear. Case pulls out a few small tools and crouches to pick the lock. There has never been a lock he can’t open, but his hands tremble as he works, making it harder than usual. Once the door cracks open, we all know what we have to do, even if we don’t make it. I stop Boston and pull him into my arms. I know it’s stupid, but he has to know that I care.

“Whatever it takes,” he says.

“Whatever it takes,” I repeat as we break apart.

I looked over the blueprints last night, and I now know my way around with my eyes closed. I’m coming for you, Angel. Just hold on for a little longer.