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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Brennan

“What the fuck do we do?” Boston asks as he runs a hand through his hair.

I don’t know... for once, I just don’t know. Think, Brennan, think .

We have teams in the air and on the ground, but Ziyon has just fucking vanished into thin air.

We have assembled at Olympia. Creed walks back in after dropping Jolie off at home, where we have gathered all her friends to watch over her. Colt and Khale stroll in behind him. Khale could be useful, but Colt is reckless, and I won’t have him risk my children’s lives.

“What the fuck are they doing here?” Boston snaps, clearly on the same page as I am.

“They refused to stay, and honestly, we need as many people as we can,” Creed tells him.

Trace is reviewing footage of the hospital and the surrounding areas. But where they were taken from, there is no way to get any footage. We have Marlow and Jimmie working on pulling the records from the guy who was driving the ambulance. Our man is dead, and Grace is in surgery. From what they told us, she doesn’t have a great chance of surviving.

Paul’s phone is off, both his personal and burner. Surely, he isn’t stupid enough to switch sides again when he knows we have his family.

My phone buzzes, and relief fills me that Corey is finally calling me back. Ziyon hasn’t used him for a while, and I have been blowing up his phone.

“Tell me you know something.”

“I was called to watch the lady. They just came to the house, took her, and left me behind.”

“Location, now.”

He rattles off where he is, and every single one of us runs from the building. I don’t know what we plan to do once we get there, but we will have to play this by ear. I hang up and get a team in the air to head to the location. They didn’t kill him, so that could only mean two things: Ziyon doesn’t know Corey is double crossing him, or this is the start of a cat-and-mouse game and he is leading us on a pointless chase. Since we have no other leads, we have no choice but to check it out.

We take forty-five minutes to get to the location Corey gave us, and it’s in the middle of the small seaside town of Sunset Haven. When the cars pull up to the front of the small house, we all pile out, and the locals get nosey at our arrival. We move inside quickly, searching the house for any clues. As if they knew we would find them, there is nothing. No personal belongings, and no sign anyone was even here.

“Tell me what you know,” Davis demands of Corey, his jaw clenched and his emotions getting the better of him.

“I told you already. I was blindfolded and brought here. My phone was taken, but I keep my burner in my boot. They have the property set up so that no calls can come in or out. There were two tech-looking men here, the lady, me, and another woman.”

“Did they talk about the plan or what they were doing?” Davis questions.

“No. Ziyon just turned up, told everyone to pack up, and then I was told to make my own way home. I had to walk to the end of the street to be able to get the phone to even work.”

“Yo, Brennan, we found these outside,” Marlow says, walking in holding a contraption. “It’s a very poorly designed signal jammer. Whoever he is working with is far from professional. I might be able to trace some of these parts.”

“Let’s go home and regroup,” I tell everyone. We have no leads, and we need to find a needle in a haystack. “You’re coming with us, Corey. We need you to describe what these people looked like so we can get some sketches done, to see if we can identify who was here and if we can find them.”

Corey nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and follows us as we all head outside. An older woman walks up to me, her hair in curlers and nightgown wrapped tight around her body.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

Kai pushes his way through, wraps his arm around her shoulders, and tells her a story. Not quite what is happening, but a thrilling rendition nonetheless. I really don’t know if she’ll believe he is a detective, but whatever works.

Screeching pulls my attention to the road, and Chester’s car is speeding away, smoke billowing from the tyres. Creed stands on the curb, hands clasped behind his back, and he turns to face me as I close the distance between us.

“He okay?” I ask. He and Creed are extremely close, and not because of their unusual sexual connection, if that’s even what you would call it.

“Not really. He is spiralling, and it will not end well. He was talking to Marlow and then they got into the car together. I tried to stop them, but you know how Chester is.”

“Let them go. We should get on the road.”

Creed nods and we all split up, heading to the remaining vehicles. If Marlow is with Chester, they have a lead. Even though it might be a long shot, they have something. I have to trust that they know what they’re doing and will fill us in eventually.

Trace, Boston, and Davis all jump into my car, and we drive home in silence. No radio, no small talk, just the sound of the car on the open road. Usually I enjoy the silence, but my head is full of worst-case scenarios. Jolie told us the babies are a gift from Ziyon to Melinda, so we can only hope he doesn’t have any bad intentions. I wish I knew where his head was at. It makes no sense that he would want to keep them alive when they own Olympia. It is now their company, but maybe he thinks he has a way around that, since they can’t take control until they are older.

Once we arrive home, Jimmie lets us in before we reach the top step.

“How is she?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“Not good. She is in the morgue and won’t let us look at her stitches or her head to make sure they are fine. If we try to open the door, she throws scalpels at us. So, we just knock and listen for the bang to make sure she is still in there and conscious.”

I blink a few times and scratch my face. “Okay, thanks.”

We all walk into the house, and Creed and I decide to check on Jolie. Creed leads the way—I’m sure his scalpels being thrown at him would usually make his day.

“Tenshi,” he says, knocking on the door and twisting the handle.

“Go away!” she yells, and the thunk on the door indicates she has thrown something in our direction. It hits the floor, and Creed pushes the door open the entire way.

She looks over at us and screws up her nose. “Did you bring my babies home?”

“We are working on it,” I say in a low tone. Right now, we don’t need to set her off.

She places a scalpel down, and I watch as she holds up her bloody hands. I don’t know who the man is on the table, but I’m at least eighty percent sure he was already here.

“Working on it?” she scoffs. “That’s not good enough. Bring. Me. My. Babies.”

Creed moves across the room, and her shoulders sag as he gets closer. In an unexpected flurry of motion, she snatches the scalpel and holds it out towards him. “Get away from me! You’re not making this feel better for me.”

Creed holds his hands up in the air. “Tenshi, please, we just want to check your injuries.”

“No, leave!” she screams at him.

Laughn walks through the door and takes in the scene before him. Any other time, this would be a dream come true for him.

“Bro, I think you should leave,” Laughn says, and Creed turns to look at him and nods.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“You love me?!” she snaps. “Is anyone out there looking for our children?”

“Chester and Marlow are following a lead,” I say, and she whips her head towards me.

“Good. Tell them to come see me when they get back with my babies.”

I take a small step forward every time her attention shifts.

“I just want my babies,” she sobs, stabbing the scalpel into the dead body in front of her. “I.” Stab . “Just.” Stab . “Want.” Stab . “Them.” Stab . “Back.” Stab . Stab . Stab .

She drops the scalpel, and it hits the floor with a clang. Her knees buckle and I run to her side, catching her before she falls to the ground. Cradling her to my chest, I hold her tight. Her eyes close, and she snuggles into me, grasping my shirt in a closed, bloody fist.

“I didn’t even have the chance to show them how much I love them.”

“Shhh, we will get them back. Even if it’s the last thing we do on this earth. I can promise you that,” I tell her, and I mean it. We won’t stop until we have them home.

“You promise?” she whispers into my chest.

“Angel, I will take my last breath if that means they come home safely.”

I take her upstairs to our room and gently place her on our bed. Trace brings in a first aid kit, and Case brings me a mild sedative from Chester’s stash.

I draw up the liquid, and she doesn’t even stir when I inject it into her leg. Then I move across the room so Case can check her C-section incision. It should have started to heal before she even left the hospital, though we need to be sure. He lifts her shirt, and the bandage looks like it’s been weeping.

“Should I remove it and make sure she hasn’t popped a staple?” Case asks, looking over his shoulder at me, and I nod. We would have had to check tonight, anyway. The doctor told us the staples would need to be removed once the wound had healed, and Creed would know when.

Creed pops his head in the door, and he takes a step in when he realises she is asleep. I know what happened down in the morgue will be eating at him.

“Can you check her over?” Case asks him when he gets closer. We all are trained in first aid, but Creed has more experience. He may practise on dead bodies, but it all works the same in theory.

Case scoots over, and Creed takes a seat beside Jolie. He peels back the plastic bandage, cleans off her incision, and places another bandage over it.

“It should have healed by now, but it looks like she has torn a portion of it open. I will check again tomorrow, and if it’s not healing, I will call Scarlett to bring us something from Olympia.”

I nod at Creed. “Will you stay with her, try to keep her calm so she sleeps longer? I will come and get you if we have any news or if we need to head out again.”

“On it,” he says, stripping down to his underwear and slipping under the covers with her. Hopefully, she’ll stay asleep until the morning with Creed by her side. Case and I leave the room and shut the door behind us just as Jimmie is walking up the stairs.

“Is she okay?” he asks, worry etched across his face.

“She is sleeping now, and hopefully she stays that way,” I say. Case claps me on the shoulder and heads back downstairs.

“I’m just going to Marlow’s computer room, and Trace is coming up in a minute. Here are the sketches of the men who were there,” Jimmie says, holding them out to me. I don’t recognise them, so I hand them back.

Now that I have seen their faces, I won’t ever be able to forget them. It’s how my brain works; it catalogues every memory, down to the second. Give me a date and time, and I can tell you exactly what I was doing. It’s a pain in the ass most of the time, but I have trained myself to lock them away, so it’s not a constant reel of memories back to back all day, every day.

“Let me know if you have any hits on them,” I tell him. He nods solemnly, and I make my way down to the kitchen where everyone else has gathered. Petra is cooking, while Sinclair, Blayne, and Summer are balanced on the bar stools, and all the guys are sitting around the table. They all pause what they were doing, looking up as I enter.

I take a seat beside Kai. “Any news from Chester yet?” I ask.

“We don’t expect him to contact anyone. Maybe Creed or Jolie. But Marlow sent some files to Jimmie. I’m about to look at the pictures, but I just wanted him to run them first to see if he gets any hits,” Trace says.

I know it’s a lot for him to run faces; it will use every ounce of his energy. If he does this and we get a hit, he won’t be able to come with us—he will need to sleep—and I know he wants to be there when we find them.

“So what the fuck do we do now?” Laughn asks.

I turn to face him. His hair is unkempt, and he hasn’t bothered with contacts. For Laughn, that is a sign he isn’t coping. I don’t think any of us are. We are all useless right now, and there is nothing we can do about it. We should have pulled Paul in and given him a damn tracking device, but we were all so caught up with Jolie having the babies that it didn’t seem like a priority.

Hindsight is a fucking nuisance—as Jolie would say, coulda, shoulda, woulda. Didn’t.

“We wait for Jimmie to run the faces and go over Chester’s information.”

“Fuck Jimmie,” Boston growls. “Trace needs to get his ass up and use his gift to help our children.”

“Don’t you think I want to fucking help?!” Trace snaps, and Boston stands from his chair.

A glass flies over our heads and smashes against the wall. Small shards of glass ricochet and land on the table. “Will you two fucking stop?! Your fighting and bickering won’t bring those precious babies back, so you all need to stick your big-girl panties on and shut the fuck up. If you can’t work together, then get out of this damn house. That poor girl upstairs has just had her heart ripped out. This is every mother’s worst nightmare come true. So sit down and eat some food and figure it out because god knows you’re all way too intelligent for your own good,” Petra spits vehemently.

Half of us have our mouths hanging open, completely stunned by her declaration. I know she may be our housekeeper, but she is so much more than that to us.

“You tell them, girl,” Blayne says, pumping her fist in the air. Petra gives her a pointed look which has her closing her mouth.

“Same goes for you, girls. Eat, and then go upstairs to Laughn’s old wing and get some sleep or go home. You have babies that need looking after too. I don’t want to hear any arguments from anyone else. Also, your parents are on a flight back home as we speak, and Grandma Betty will be here in the morning. I convinced her there was nothing she could do right now. I also notified everyone, minus the she-bitch, because she doesn’t have the babies’ best interests at heart.”

“Hold on a second. I knew she wasn’t happy about the babies, but is there more to it?” I ask Petra.

“It’s possible. She has been talking about how bad this is for business, leaving Olympia to kids and a girl who is practically a stranger. It’s only hearsay between us staff. But her own maid told me she had a call with someone and she mentioned the babies more than once, and how she wished they would disappear. I just put it down to jealousy and shit talk to anyone who would listen,” Petra says.

“Do you think you could describe the woman who was at the house?” I ask Corey. He nods, and Kai pushes his chair back and stands to retrieve his sketch pad from the kitchen bench. Both he and Corey move into the living room.

For her sake, let’s just pray it isn’t Elizabeth in that sketch because Chester won’t care if it’s his own mother. He will end her quicker than she can blink.