Page 36 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Twenty-Six

“ G ear up and get going?” Ramon’s jaw flexed.

“We need a boat or a small plane.”

Hollace went to the door ahead of them. “We have a helicopter that can get you to the airport. Pretty sure you already know that since we picked you up in Mexico.”

“Right.” Jax stepped into the hall, where he could hear raised voices. A man and a teenage young woman.

“Is that Maizie?” Ramon asked, walking faster.

Jax headed for the source, down the hall where a set of double doors opened into an expansive room. Computer screens covered the walls. In the center were long metal tables and white-coated technicians performing forensic testing. “You guys have your own lab?”

Hollace looked around. “Fully state-of-the-art. The largest private lab on the West Coast, actually. Preston and Mr. Jonas didn’t mess around.

We’re funded for whatever we need, and we’ve been taking cold cases, along with privately contracted investigations.

A lot of it was inspired by Kenna. She’s done an amazing job closing cases over the years, bringing down dangerous criminals and saving victims who fell through the cracks. ”

Across the far end of the room, Maizie yelled, “Don’t touch that!”

Jax strode down the aisle and saw an MSI guy facing off with her. She held her tablet to her chest.

The guy said, “You’ll get faster results if you connect to our system.”

“Give her some space, yeah?” Jax ushered the guy back, noting the tension in Maizie. Not so different than how she’d been for weeks, but the addition of what Amara had insinuated was making his head spin with implications. “Maizie?”

“I don’t have to connect to their system if I don’t want to.”

“Why would you not?” the guy said.

Hollace spoke from behind Jax, “Richards, why don’t you give us a second?”

The guy wandered off. “Whatever.”

Hollace sighed.

Jax hadn’t taken his attention from Maizie, but just then he glanced at Ramon.

His friend met his gaze, shaking his head very slightly.

Exactly. She wasn’t okay. He’d figured that had a lot to do the fact none of them were.

Kenna was gone, and they had no idea what was happening to her—which for Maizie would bring up some pretty serious memories. Maybe even flashbacks.

He wondered if she hadn’t been okay since they’d discovered Kenna was gone and she’d hidden it better than he realized.

“Maze?” he said, gently.

Her eyes remained unfocused.

“Look at me, honey.” He’d always been so cautious of not triggering her, leaving getting in her face to Kenna so he didn’t trigger any of her trauma. “I need you to look at me, Maizie.”

She sucked in a breath, but her eyes found his.

“It’s just me and Ramon.” Jax was aware more people had come in. Maybe Amara and Bruce. Preston and Earl Jonas, or Bear. He didn’t know who, but they had an audience. “Focus on me.”

“They know something is going on with you, Maze.” Bear came around and stepped between Hollace and Jax.

The move made Jax wonder if she was going to get overwhelmed with the proximity of males around her. He couldn’t help it, though. He needed her to talk to them.

Bear continued, “You’re shutting out people who care about you. But do you know what? When I didn’t want to talk to anyone, you hit me up and kept tabs on me. You didn’t let me lose myself, making me tell you where I was.”

“It was just a ping.” Her voice sounded hoarse.

“You probably saved my life. That means I owe you, and I’m choosing to repay that favor right now. You haven’t contacted me in months.”

“I’ve been busy.” She scrunched up her nose for a second. That response had been far too quick. A defensive reaction.

Jax said, “What was going on in here when we came in?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.” He needed to get moving but wanted this out in the open before he left. “Cards on the table, Maze.”

“It was nothing . I don’t have to connect my stuff to their system. They’ll be able to see everything.”

“And you’ll be able to see all of ours,” Hollace said. “Full access. Because we have nothing to hide.” The implication being that Maizie did have something to hide.

A machine at the other end of the room beeped.

“No one gets in Kenna’s system.” Maizie shook her head. “I promised her that her stuff would be secure.”

Jax caught something in what she wasn’t saying. “Did you break that promise, Maze?”

Maybe it was redundant to keep using her name, but he needed the personal connection. She needed to be the person she was with Kenna—strong and capable. The woman she was becoming, not the scared child with no power in a horrible situation.

She flinched, and her face scrunched up.

“Told you.” The words were quiet and came from somewhere behind him. Amara.

Bruce sniffed. “You and I are going to talk about how you chose to reveal that.”

Amara said, “I don’t owe you anything.”

“Guess not.” Bruce didn’t sound happy.

Jax glanced over his shoulder and tipped his head for them to get out of the room.

Bruce shook his head. “I’m not leaving Maizie until I know she’s okay. Amara can go.”

The older woman stomped out, past Zeyla, who stood at the door looking unsure of what to do.

“I’m fine.” Maizie shook her head, lifting her chin. Trying to convince them.

It didn’t work.

“We know you aren’t, and you haven’t been since Kenna was taken.” Jax had to swallow against the lump in his throat. “I know that because none of us are okay.”

“No one’s getting on anyone else’s case. Just mine,” she said. “Because I’m ‘poor Maizie’ who can’t function like a normal person. Who gets—” She caught herself and stopped talking.

“What?”

Ramon said, “Tell us what’s going on.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m dealing with it just like Amara did.”

Jax frowned. “Either it doesn’t matter, or you’re dealing with it. Not sure it can be both. But either way, we want to know what it is. We need you to let us in, Maizie.”

“Or what? You’ll force yourself in.” She stared at him, defiance in her eyes. “Been there. Done that.”

Someone gasped, and he thought it might’ve been Zeyla, but didn’t look.

“You know the kind of men we are,” Jax said. “You know you’re safe with us.”

“Then leave me alone.”

“Plug your iPad into their system.” Jax wasn’t backing down. “And your computer.” Because that was what had started all this.

“No.”

“Why not? What don’t you want anyone to see?” He took a step toward her, knowing she understood how he would act in her personal space but not touching her. “Maizie, why does Dominatus seem to not care about you at all?”

“You don’t know that,” she snapped.

“Tell me.”

“It isn’t a big deal. We’re not even at the FBI anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”

Jax lifted his brows. “The worm in their system?”

She sniffed, glancing away.

“You put it there so that Dominatus had access to the Bureau’s computer system, likely giving them access to other systems and national databases in the process.”

She didn’t deny it.

Jax’s mind spun with the implications. It had been her. “So they’ve infiltrated the government because of your choices.” He folded his arms. “Which means the president’s taskforce might have been burned because of you.”

Her features flashed with anger. “You don’t know that.”

“I know that Samuel and Sandra, and now Elliot, are dead because our enemy can track your every movement. And if you plug your stuff into the system here, MSI gets hacked by the people they’re trying to stop.”

“We need to destroy her system.” Hollace took a step toward her.

Maizie backed up.

“Why did you give them access, Maizie?”

Ramon took a step forward. “ Hermanita ?”

She whipped around to look at Ramon. “Don’t.”

He lifted his hands.

“What did they send you?” Jax asked. “Pictures of Kenna, or something else?”

She scrunched up her nose.

He took another step toward her. “Pictures of you?”

“I got rid of them all.” She gasped. “I wrote a program that went through every website, whether it’s indexed or not. Even the deep web. I took down every terabyte of data that had to do with me. I got rid of all of it. But they had—” Her breath caught in her throat.

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t want to tell her that it was unlikely she’d have ever been able to delete electronic pictures or video of the time she’d been held and abused. “I’m so sorry, Maze.”

“They said they’d publish it online and tell everyone I work for Kenna, and all kinds of?—”

“They were going to ruin all of us?”

She nodded sharply. “And they sent me this.” She tapped the screen of her iPad and turned it so he could see the screen. Audio kicked on, and he heard a heartbeat.

The sound of an ultrasound machine reading the heartbeat of a baby.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

Faster than he’d have thought it would be. Stronger. He stared at the image of his baby, kicking and shifting in the womb. The baby’s head, and the little prominence of the nose. He could see the limbs and a couple of places where it looked translucent.

Jax sucked in a sharp breath.

Ramon squeezed his shoulder. “Did they threaten the baby?”

Jax stared at the video, unable to speak. They’d sent this to Maizie and not him. Because this life was a weapon they could use against people who cared about Kenna and wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her and her unborn child.

Maizie probably nodded, because Ramon squeezed Jax’s shoulder.

Pain roiled through him, but for the first time it wasn’t something he thought about getting rid of with the right substance.

He thought about Kenna and what she must be going through alone, and how he had their friends—their family—around him.

He wasn’t going to give up, because he wasn’t alone. He was part of a team.

“They can’t know I told you.” Maizie backed up and slumped into a chair. “They’ll kill her.”

Jax tore his gaze from looking at the baby. “They won’t kill her. They need Kenna alive. That’s why they’re working so hard to divide us to keep us from finding her.”

Maizie’s gaze widened. “I meant they’ll kill her .” She pointed at the iPad.

Jax stared at the young woman.

Ramon said, “It’s a girl?”

Maizie nodded. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you, or Elizabeth, or someone. But they said they’d destroy everything. They said Amara couldn’t be trusted and that your father was one of them.” She swallowed. “They said I would destroy everything.”

“Their goal is to divide us. To get us to doubt each other’s loyalty, split us up, and keep us from working together. Because they know that if we act as a team, we’ll find her.” Tears burned in his eyes. “We won’t stop until we find her.”

Maizie looked around, nervousness in her stiff movements.

Jax took the iPad and went to a chair so he could watch the video again.

He found the Share icon and sent it to himself as well.

The fact everyone else had information about his wife and he’d been sent nothing wasn’t lost on him.

It made him want to rage that they’d been keeping all this from him, knowing he would want to see it.

That the life of his wife and child were being threatened and he had no idea.

His stomach clenched.

They’re alive. Dominatus wants them alive.

He had to remember that, or it would kill him wondering if, when he found her, it would be too late.

Hollace and Bear came over, dragging stools to sit. It put them at eye level with Maizie and made them less imposing so they weren’t towering over her.

Hollace said, “I understand why you don’t want us to access your system.

Thank you for protecting MSI from a cyberattack.

But if you let us, we might be able to connect your laptop to an independent system that’s air gapped from our network.

We can watch what Dominatus looks at. We might be able to feed them incorrect information or even trace back their location. Find the source.”

Maizie stared at him. “I couldn’t do that because they would’ve seen me. But I wanted to.”

“I know,” Hollace said. “And thanks to you, they won’t see us coming.”

“They’ll find out. They’ll hurt Kenna’s baby.” Maizie sniffed.

“I need you to trust me. This could help us find her. It could help us take them down. For good.” Hollace kept his voice steady, his tone even. “We know what we’re doing.”

Jax looked at her. “Maizie, I’m asking you to let them do this.”

She pressed her lips together for a long moment, then finally said, “Okay.”

Jax set the tablet aside and started for the door. Ramon walked with him. They were in the hall when she called out, “Jax!”

He turned back and saw Maizie in the doorway, Zeyla beside her.

“Ramon and I need to go check something out.” He needed to fill her in on some of it, though. “Amara doesn’t take you anywhere. No one does. You stay here and you don’t leave without me coming back first. Got it?”

Her lip quivered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

“I know they threatened her and you felt like you had no choice. I understand that.”

She stared at him.

Jax didn’t like the cold feeling inside him, but what else could he do? She’d made her choice and didn’t allow him to be part of it. Thinking that would keep him safe.

“You hate me.”

Jax unclenched his jaw. “Thank you for telling us the truth.”

She sniffed. “You do. You hate me.”

He shook his head, but there weren’t words to reassure her when it was all too close, too raw. “I just want to find Kenna.”

But the bottom line was, she hadn’t trusted him and she’d lied to him.

Yes, she’d been scared and coerced. That was why he wasn’t fuming at her.

Their enemy knew who to manipulate and how.

Which meant Amara cared about Kenna enough to do what it took to keep her alive—because that was what they’d threatened her with.

They’d used Maizie to infiltrate government servers and undermine efforts at the highest level to take them down.

Dismantling the fight against them the way they’d dismantled Kenna’s team.

“We’ll be back soon, I hope,” he added. “We need to check something out.”

“Okay.”

Jax gave her a hug, because she needed it. “See you when we’re back.” He looked at Zeyla. “She doesn’t leave. Not for anything.”

Zeyla nodded. “Understood.”

Jax strode away, around the bend in the hall to the elevator. Bear passed him, handing over a watch identical to the one Jax wore. He took off his own and traded with the other man.

Bear started to speak, but Jax turned away. He jabbed the button for the elevator, feeling the anger in him release. Pain echoed through his shoulder.

He planted his palm high on the wall and tried to breathe through it, but the anger rose in him, and he pulled his arm back. Swung his fist and punched a hole in the drywall.

Ramon’s arm snaked around his waist and pulled him back. “That’s enough. You save that for Dominatus . Because they deserve it.”

Jax shoved him away as the elevator doors opened.

Ramon said, “Let’s go get your girls.”