Page 27 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Nineteen

J ax stared at the older man, a guy Dominatus had sent to tell him that his father was in trouble. To get him to go after his dad before they did. Which didn’t make sense. He wanted to end this conversation, but without more information than he had, he couldn’t do much.

“Explain how that doctor, Marcus Buzard, is in a photo and video when Kenna killed him months ago.” Jax had an idea what the answer might be, but he wanted to hear it from this man.

Four shifted his stance, impatience in his movements. “Who knows how many of him there are?”

“So they’re cloning people?”

“More like identical twins,” Four said. “They figured out how to introduce the gene for twins and fertilize one egg to split into two.” He started to stammer. “Keep the other one for later, or implant it in someone else.”

“Above your pay grade?”

“I don’t wanna be a higher-up. Kind of like you guys shouldn’t do things that get on their bad side. That’s like walking into a hornet’s nest.”

Ramon snorted under his breath.

Jax said, “I’m not even going to explain how backward that is.”

Ramon probably wanted to threaten him with what would happen to Dominatus now they were on his bad side.

Jax didn’t blame the guy. In fact, he could almost see why Kenna appreciated him.

Even if Ramon was the antithesis of everything Jax stood for—the way his life would’ve gone if he hadn’t stayed with the FBI for so long—he still respected this man.

Jax continued, “Do you know if they did that with Kenna? Is she an identical twin?”

“Sometimes babies grow up, and a couple will look like sisters or brothers, even the ones that aren’t twins. It’s hard to tell some apart.”

“So she has a double out there somewhere.” And their enemy was making it look as if Kenna was free and healthy, and that she’d simply left Jax and their marriage of her own accord. “This game they’re playing isn’t going to work.”

Four shrugged. “How would I know what they’re doing?”

“It’s above your paygrade. We get it.”

Ramon said, “’Cept you have a lot of information for a low-level guy who knows nothing.”

Over their comms, Maizie said, “Things are getting tense here. Zeyla is about to snap.”

“Am not.” But her voice was tight. “There are six of them. Two women, four guys. They look like a Spetsnaz team who left to be mercenaries. Which means already terrifying becomes significantly more terrifying.”

Jax glanced at Ramon, whose expression hardened. “Go.”

Ramon strode away.

Jax faced the older man, hand close to his gun. “Why are you threatening my family? What does Dominatus want with Kenna?”

“I can tell you where we suspect your father will go and what he’s planning to do there.”

“How is this not a distraction?” Jax asked. “Everything they do is about misdirection, or some other form of psychological warfare. There’s nothing straightforward about any of it, except when you send an operative to eliminate a loose end.

“Buzard was working on his own for years, and that was a surprise, wasn’t it? They didn’t know that the Phoenix Buzard, the one with his own research silo, was working on a plan to eliminate most of the world population.”

“He’s done, so it doesn’t matter, does it?” Four shifted away from the wall.

The guy was dead—Kenna had killed him. But that didn’t mean the threat represented was close to over. “What does ‘offshore’ mean?”

“Like a bank account?”

“You tell me.” Jax shrugged. “I asked where Kenna was, and that was the answer I got. Maybe it’s a place. For all I know, it could be anything. What I want to know is what you know.”

Four mimicked his shrug. “Unless you want the threat to materialize, I suggest you let me go.” He dug in his pocket. Hadn’t Ramon searched him?

In his ear, Maizie said, “I see Ramon. Zeyla is getting up.”

Jax palmed his gun, unwilling to be the victim here. Just in case this was another method of distraction, threatening the two women and drawing Ramon away so they could hurt Jax.

Before he could see what Four pulled out, and before he could aim his gun, someone moved behind him. Jax heard the shuffle of shoes on the floor behind him and started to turn.

The electric snap of a stun gun crackled, and the prongs’ fire slammed into him.

Electricity coursed through his body, spasming every muscle.

In the distance he heard the gun drop to the floor as his fingers shifted and flexed.

He couldn’t stand up any longer. The sensation of falling shifted over him briefly, and he hit the floor on his shoulder.

Jax couldn’t cry out. The moan pushed out between clenched teeth. He tried to fight against the voltage relentlessly traveling through him.

“All right, that’s enough.” Four crouched, a needle in his hand. “Let’s do this quick before the other guy comes back.”

“Should’ve just stunned both of them.”

Jax wasn’t sure if he recognized that voice. He couldn’t turn and look at the guy. He could only lie there while they wrapped a strip of rubber around his bicep and tied it tightly.

“How much do we need to take?”

Four said, “I’ve got three vials.”

“We could just kill him,” the companion muttered. “They can get a genetic profile from a dead guy.”

Four shoved Jax’s shoulder, and he flopped to his back, the prongs of the stun gun still embedded in his back. Fire of a different kind burned in his shoulder. Jax winced in his mind. He didn’t know what happened to his face but was pretty sure he had zero control over his features.

At least he hadn’t blacked out.

Four inserted a needle in Jax’s arm and started taking his blood. Genetic profile. That’s what the guy had said.

As soon as they’d zapped him, the comms channel likely went dead. Maizie and Ramon would know something was wrong, and they’d come over here as soon as they could.

Four pulled the vial out and replaced it to fill another, lifting it and looking at Jax’s red blood contained in that small tube.

The other man moved into view above him.

Jax had seen the guy before, at the retirement home.

This one was Five. At least one of them had murdered Two when he’d been about to defect and tell Kenna everything.

Just a few months ago, and yet it seemed like a lifetime.

Back when he had her with him and their lives were good.

“Geez, you see this? The guy is crying.” Five huffed. “That’s worse than when they fight back.”

Four said, “Shut up. Let’s just get this finished.” He switched out the tube again.

Five ignored the order. “Once we get dad here’s blood back to the rendezvous, we can get a new assignment. I’m thinking Florida.”

“Sure, that always works.”

“Actually, Florida is way too hot this time of year. Maybe somewhere north is better.”

Four shot him a dangerous look Jax didn’t miss.

“Come on. I feel bad for the guy. He’s missing his wife, missing all those pregnancy things that saps like him want to be around for.”

“Not like me and how I didn’t see any of that with Dana?”

Five said, “I didn’t mean that. You did the best you could with her, and when it didn’t work out, you ended it peacefully. She’s in a better place and all that.”

Jax’s stomach clenched, and his arm moved. Both men reacted immediately.

“Hold him down,” Four said. “And don’t let him bite you.”

“Give…ideas.” Jax managed to get the words out. If they gave him the chance, he might be inclined to bite one of these men. Then he would smash the vials of blood so that Dominatus couldn’t have his genetic profile. They had already taken far too much from him.

His thoughts stuttered. What if Kenna was hurt? What if there was something wrong with the baby? What if…?

Four pulled out the last vial, then extracted the needle from Jax’s arm.

Jax gritted his teeth and swung out with his hand. He grabbed Four’s wrist.

The other guy swore, but Jax refused to let go—now that he had a good grip on the guy and was regaining his ability to control his own body.

Jax managed to bite out the words, “Where…is…she?”

“Tough, this one. Kind of like her,” the other guy said. “Want me to hit him again with the stun gun?”

Four didn’t take his attention from Jax. The vial of blood in his hand, Jax grasping his wrist. “We need this so we can help her,” Four said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why are you talking to him?” The other guy reached for the blood and took the vials. “Cut your losses and let’s go before the crazy one comes back.”

Jax snapped the wrist toward him, pulling the other man down in a jerky move. The older man’s head swung forward and cracked into Jax’s forehead with as much force as if Jax had slammed his head into Four’s. The older man fell back, swearing a blue streak.

The other guy snatched up the stun gun, and Jax heard him messing with a new cartridge. Getting ready to hit Jax again with another round of electricity.

Jax swung around and slammed his elbow into the man’s chest, and he fell back. Jax found the room to scramble across the floor to where his gun had landed close to a flash drive. He snatched up the gun, rolled onto his back, and saw the two men already running down the hall.

He squeezed off three shots, his aim all over the place so that he fired wildly at the hallway walls and the ceiling. The men ducked as they ran and disappeared around a corner.

All Jax could do was slump back onto the floor, breathing hard. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, and realized he could hear someone headed this way from the other direction. He managed to roll again, lying on his stomach and aiming at the man who rounded the corner.

Ramon lifted his hands. “Whoa, just me. Us.”

Behind him were Zeyla and Maizie. Jax moved his finger off the trigger and laid his forehead on the ground. Breathing hard, trying not to throw up.

“Jax.” Maizie touched his shoulder.

He turned his shoulder first and rolled to his back with his eyes closed. “They took my blood. Said they needed my genetic profile. For the baby.”

Maizie touched Jax’s chest, and he reached up to lay his hand on hers. “I found her medical information in the computer system here. It looked like they deleted all the files, but nothing is ever really gone, so I recovered it. I think it’s her, and if it is, then she’s definitely pregnant.”

Jax opened his eyes. “She was here?”

Maizie nodded. “A few days after she was taken, they checked her in here.”

Ramon said, “You can have this conversation on the move. I’m driving.”

Zeyla nodded. “That team will be right behind us.”

Jax shifted and sat up, but there was no strength in him. “You’ll have to help me.”

Ramon hauled him up, Jax’s arm across his shoulders.

“This is ridiculous,” Jax said.

“Deal with it.” Ramon led him back to the breezeway between buildings.

“They’ll know we came this way.”

Zeyla stepped around him and Ramon. “We’ll deal. You just worry about walking.” She opened the door at the far end and checked on the other side. “It’s clear.” She frowned. “Why is it clear?”

“They didn’t follow us,” Maizie replied.

“Maybe they left with Four and Five.” Jax could carry a little of his own weight now but was still shaky.

Leaning on these people, and Ramon specifically, wasn’t somewhere he’d ever thought he’d be. At least not without Kenna. Jax didn’t even want to think about the fact his wife was pregnant.

He needed their help to find Kenna now more than ever.

“Maizie.” He couldn’t see her, but she’d hear him. “Can you hack the surveillance? Find out where Four and Five went. We need to follow them back to the source.”

“They might lead us to Kenna?”

“We have to try.” They needed to know where Dominatus had their hideouts. Uncover every one until they found where she was being kept.

Zeyla hit the button for the front entrance to ease open, which it always did far too slowly.

“Careful,” Ramon said.

“Why hasn’t that team come at us yet? They were right here, and they followed us to the other wing.” Zeyla shook her head. “Maybe they went with Four and Five to protect them from us? Or they’re watching to see where we go.”

Maizie grasped a handful of the back of his shirt, holding on tight.

They moved as a unit to the car, where Zeyla said, “Don’t leave until you see me. I’ll follow you.”

Ramon nodded. “Be fast.”

She sprinted away, presumably to grab her own car.

Jax slid into the back seat. “Maizie, take the front. Find where they went.”

“If you can,” Ramon added.

Jax caught the man’s gaze in the rearview and nodded. They were all feeling the pressure of this one. Maizie most of all.

“This was on the floor beside where you were lying.” Maizie held up a flash drive.

“I think Four was going to give it to me. Even despite his mission.”

“I’ll look at it after I check the cameras. But we can’t go too far away from the building, or I’ll lose access to their system.”

“Do what you can, then we get out of here.” Ramon turned the airflow up and the radio to a different channel. As long as he didn’t change Jax’s preset stations, they would be fine.

Jax watched Maizie race through command line after command line, typing at a frantic pace until she said, “They don’t have surveillance in or around the Edward Russell Jaxton wing.” She sounded frustrated. “There aren’t any cameras inside. Which makes sense for an ambush like that.”

Jax tried to get his head to stop swimming. He didn’t like being useless—he’d rather be at full strength to face whatever came next.

Finding his father and discovering what he knew about Dominatus. What was the bad deal his dad had made? Maybe all that had been a false lead designed to send him in circles.

The fact Dominatus wanted Kenna—and presumably the baby—healthy and alive was a good thing. But it wasn’t as if he was about to find peace leaving them in the enemy’s hands.

It seemed as if that enemy didn’t want a war with Jax. They wanted him distracted, or convinced he’d never get her back. They didn’t want him looking for her. Jax was supposed to find his father before they sent someone to kill him, apparently. Or so Four said.

If he did that, they’d have leverage over him. A way to use his father to make his life miserable, just like they were doing with Amara…and maybe others.

Jax wasn’t going to be their pawn.

He also wasn’t going to leave his dad to face a trained killer.