Page 37 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Hugo

T his was where madness lay. Right here, not knowing where she was. For ten years, I had watched, and known she was safe. But for several agonizing hours, when the threat was at its highest, she fucking disappeared from my sight.

So did the boys.

Chloe said that the boys had left with their father, and she had no way to stop them. Leo searched the grounds for them and tracked CCTV.

“What the Hell bullshit Security Company are we if we cannot even keep anyone safe?” I shouted, throwing the full coffee maker across the room.

They had evacuated me and Rose to a nearby building, taking us out of the custody of police and paramedics. The She-Bear had gone, but not before she told me that she would, indeed, point a finger at Richard.

How? I wasn’t quite sure, and I didn't care because I could not find Calissandra.

Rose got a call that Richard had her, and the hunt began. Alastair joined us, flying the helicopter from Strathlachlan, with Philippa and our other partners, Callum MacLachlan and Geordie Campbell in tow. Within an hour, we had scrambled a hasty headquarters, but it wasn’t fast enough.

I felt no satisfaction as the coffeemaker splintered against the far wall, the brown liquid crawling down the white wall like dark blood.

“Now that you got that out of the way,” Alastair was about to get a punch in the fucking face. “Chloe just paged me into a call. Would you care to listen?”

I didn’t answer before he put his phone on speaker.

“I remember how you used to read that book,” Chloe’s disembodied voice echoed in the room. “You used to tell me that I had to be good, always. And if that wasn’t possible, then I had to do the least harm.”

“Yes, I… I remember.” That was Calissandra’s voice. I almost leapt onto Alastair’s phone.

“I became a doctor because that was the oath. Except it was more than that. It was to do no harm.” Chloe was rambling, and I didn’t get the fucking point. “I thought that maybe you’d care about me more if I exceeded your expectations, you see?”

I saw what Alastair was doing. He was tracing the signal from Chloe’s phone, and had narrowed it down to a county. A few more minutes, and he could get an address. Was that why Chloe was blabbering on and on?

“Hurry up!” A voice that sounded more distant to the microphone came through, barely audible. Dick Davenport.

I thought I heard the faint sound of a metal click. A gun. I would bet my salary that he had a gun pointed right at Ma Petite Granate .

“Chloe, I need you to transfer those shares now. I need you to verbally send that information to the office, and ask for…”

“I know how to do it but… I need to know why. They’ll ask me for a reason.

” Chloe’s unsteady voice frightened me. She was giving too much away.

And I had a suspicion that Cali was on speakerphone.

That bastard wouldn't let her have a conversation without his supervision. “Give me a reason that’s good enough for me to give up my inheritance, and Asa’s inheritance? ”

She was stalling. She must have been. In all the years I had known Chloe, she had never given a shit about her shares in Laurent Media. She was a doctor. I was almost certain that her Will stipulated that those shares would go back to the company so that she would not burden her child with it.

The shares only mattered to Calissandra.

“Tell them that we’re consolidating,” Calissandra said, slowly.

“That we think it’s best that the man in charge of the media controls the shares.

After all, what do you and I really know about running a company?

I’m a boots on the ground journalist. You’re a doctor.

We have no idea how to run a board room. ”

Those weren’t her words. Those were the words of the man who had a gun to her head. I hoped that was just a metaphor, but it was likely very, very real.

“Fine. You have always been a self-absorbed, selfish creature. You and your husband both.” Chloe’s voice was riddled with blunted malice.

I wanted to reach through Alastair’s phone and choke her ungrateful throat.

These could be her last words to her sister, and this is what she chose?

“But…” the word hung in the air, as she bought us a few more seconds.

“Romulus is a good boy. And I think Asa likes Remus. So if they ever want to come to Switzerland, then… they could come stay with us.”

She was speaking unnaturally slow. So slow that it was almost annoying.

“I’ll talk to Asa about the loss of his inheritance, then I will call the Laurent offices–”

“No!” Calissandra said, terror in her voice apparent, even through her even tone. “Call them now. Then they’ll call me, and I will be able to give Richard my voting shares.”

Calissandra was in a rush. The boys were probably in immediate danger. Chloe’s gamble wasn’t panning out.

“We’ll be waiting for their call, and… Chloe?”

“Yes? What is it? What…” Chloe was trying to extend the conversation. More time meant that our systems could narrow down further on Cali’s signal.

More time. More time. We needed more time.

“Unleash Hades.” The line went dead.

“ Putain !” Chloe screamed.

“ Merde !” I echoed after, and followed up with a slew of French curse words.

Unleash Hades. She was calling me. I was her last line of defense, and I could do nothing. I had sworn to her that I would be there. That I would save her. I said I would protect her! What the hell had I done?

“Was that long enough, Alastair? Can you find out where she is?” Chloe stayed on the line, and I could hear that she was on the brink of tears.

“No,” Alastair said. “We narrowed them down to a county, but there’s still a ten-mile radius that they could be in. It’s somewhere in Bedford. Seem familiar to you?”

“No,” Chloe’s voice was riddled with guilt and pain. “But she’s scared. I think he might hurt her.”

“It will take us hours to search that large of an area. We need more specifics,” Callum said, cool as a cucumber. Probably because it wasn’t his woman on the line.

Chloe took a deep breath before she continued and we waited, not wanting to interrupt something that might be important.

“Pippa,” Chloe began. “Is the tracker still active in my watch? My St. Michael’s Rolex?”

Pippa straightened. “Well, yes. Yes it is. Why?”

“Calissandra is wearing it,” she blurted out. “I made her put it on, because I thought that maybe… well…”

“Brilliant, Cabbage!” Pippa said, as she got on her computer and began typing. “I’ll get my men on it, and they’ll ping the location. They’ll head to the signal as soon as we get it. Otherwise, make the call to the Laurent lawyers.”

“That’s a good idea,” Alastair said when she halted in her speech. “We can always reverse the decision later, if she lives.”

“You think he’ll kill her?” Chloe’s despair matched my own.

“You did well, Cabbage,” Pippa said, taking the phone from Alastair’s desk and speaking closer to the speaker. “We’ll take care of it from here. Make the call. We’ve got it, now.”

“Okay,” Chloe said. “Please find her. Please. I can’t let that be the last thing I said to her.”

When Chloe got off the phone, I stayed still, unsure, unthinking, unable to understand how we got here. How did this happen?

“What do we do?” I asked, quietly.

But I might as well have shouted the words, since Alastair, Rose, and Pippa stilled, their heads snapping towards me, eyes wide in shock.

“Jesus,” Callum said under his breath. “I don’t think I've ever heard you ask a question unless it was sarcastic…”

“Are you a’right man?” Geordie said.

Alastair came and clamped a hand on my shoulder. “You, me and Callum are getting on a helicopter and going to that town. If we have to kick down the door of every house in that eight mile radius, we will.”

That was something. If we could fight, we could win.

I was going to give Richard the fight I had wanted to give him ten fucking years ago.

Pippa stopped her typing, and looked up to us.

“One of my agents is nearby where Chloe’s watch is,” Pippa said. “He’s on his way.”

“He? One man?”

“Yes,” Pippa said with a raise of her brow. “One of my men is worth a dozen of anyone else’s.”