Page 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Phoenix

I was equal parts glad and upset that they hadn’t encountered Adonis. I wanted this over so badly and I knew if Gabe, Shep, and Angel did confront him, together they could stop him. Now it was so much more complicated.

It all made sense. He had multiple sheds all over, and yet no one ever noticed him wandering the woods?

That was because he was underground. How had the FBI not found the door in the shed I was staying at?

Maybe they had. I’d never seen him enter through a door, but there was also a divider, so perhaps it had been there…

I shook off the thought. That wasn’t important right now.

Nick held the phone away from his ear while Carmichael tore him a new one. I hadn’t thought the FBI would take too kindly to this Rambo mission the brothers were on. But in the end, they knew where the victims were, and likely where Adonis was.

Nick ended the call and let Gabe, Shep, and Angel know that the FBI was on the way to his location.

I sat in the chair and rested my head against the cool leather. “It’s almost over.”

“I think so.” Noel kissed my cheek. “If he tries to run back to the cabin through the tunnels, he’ll have company.”

Soon, I’d be able to do those little things like go to the grocery store and hopefully have a date with Noel. That would be amazing.

Everyone’s cell phones buzzed at the same time. It wasn’t a call it; was a text. I knew they had a group chat.

Noel grabbed his phone and read the message. His eyes widened, and his face turned pale.

“How’d that happen?” JJ shouted and I looked at Nick, who was also not faring too well.

“What happened?” I went to grab Noel’s phone but he pulled it out my reach. “Noel, what’s going on?”

“Get Four on the phone,” Angel growled, which meant he too had seen the text. They all had.

Noel closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “He can’t find Hazel.”

“He…Four?” I immediately turned to the monitor where the drone was hovering over Lizzy’s place. “I never saw her leave…I looked away for a second, maybe two…oh God, can we rewind?”

Nick was clicking frantically and suddenly, on another screen, he was rewinding to fifteen minutes earlier. “There.”

Sure enough, Hazel was on the monitor. She was on the phone in Lizzy’s backyard. She was moving it around, up, to the side as if trying to find a signal. She turned to some woman and pointed to the yard. The woman nodded, and Hazel stepped off the deck and to the open area.

She kept bringing the phone to her ear, and it appeared she was trying to see if whoever was on the other end could hear her.

At the same time, I listened to Nick, who was obviously talking to Four. “Check the backyard. We see that’s where she was fifteen minutes ago.”

There was silence so I assumed that was what he was doing, but then a minute later I watched as Hazel walked to the front yard.

“Front of the house, Four.”

She was over by the mailbox, and she smiled to whomever she was on the phone with, so that must’ve worked.

No one else was out there—everyone was inside for the party, so when the black van drove down the street, no one saw.

Then he got out of the vehicle, came up behind her, and jabbed her with a needle, but again, nobody saw.

He was so fast, and under thirty seconds from the moment he’d pulled up to the house, Hazel was gone.

“Oh, my God.” I couldn’t scream—I could barely breathe. “He…Noel…he has her.”

Mason was talking but not to me. “Gabe, Amo has Hazel. He’s not in the tunnels or the sheds. He has her, but he could be bringing her to the cabin or one of the sheds. We’re informing Carmichael; stay alert.”

“Got it.”

There was chaos after that. Phone calls being made, orders being shouted. Noel wrapped me in his arms, and I pressed my nose against the curve in his neck, inhaling his amazing smell. It was my calm place.

“Why would he take her?” I asked Noel.

“Because he couldn’t get you.” It was JJ who answered. “He either is replacing you with her since you look similar, or he’s going to bargain with her for you.”

I pulled away from Noel. “That’s it. I’ll go, I’ve dealt with him before. If he gets angry with Hazel he’ll kill her like he did Jason and Brady. With me it’s a process—he won’t hurt me.”

“Absolutely fucking not!” Noel gripped my arms softly. “We’re not sacrificing one Briar for another. He’s likely going toward my brothers and the FBI; let’s wait and see.”

I didn’t want to wait. Waiting got you killed when you weren’t what he wanted, but I nodded.

“Good. I’m sure if you watch the screens, soon you’ll see Hazel appear, angry, but okay.”

I prayed he was right. I turned to the monitors, my eyes flipping from one to the other in quick succession, hoping Noel was right.

The FBI descended on the cabin in dramatic fashion. There was no way Adonis wasn’t going to see that if he drove there.

“You should move the drones,” I said.

Noel’s brow dipped. “Why?”

“Because he’s going to see the FBI and turn tail. They aren’t being inconspicuous, Noel. Move them farther away so we can spot the black van. That way if he runs, your drone can follow him.”

“Smart.” He maneuvered one of the drones to the street, getting a wide view. We’d be able to see almost a mile before the cabin.

The other drone was still on the cabin, and FBI agents were rushing in. I hoped they were able to get to all of the victims and that they were all as good as they could be.

I stared at the screen that was focused on the road, praying his car appeared, hoping they’d catch him and Hazel never woke to know the danger she was in.

We waited; I watched. The cabin was still covered with FBI agents, and we heard from Shep that they were going through the tunnels and had found a bunch of sheds.

Some were empty and others weren’t, but one was set up like a morgue with freezers and a metal table.

All of the victims would be removed and taken to the hospital, and the bodies in the freezers would be dealt with accordingly. Still, there was no Adonis or Hazel.

“Carmichael’s ordered Gabe, Angel, and me to go back to our house and said he’d meet us there. I’m taking it as a win that he didn’t arrest us, but he has his hands full right now. We’re on our way home.”

I was glad they weren’t going to spend the night in jail, but my sister was still out there and the authorities were not looking for her because they had their hands full with rescuing these victims. I didn’t fault them, but I knew I could save her and I had a feeling I knew where he was going, but I had to be sure.

“Noel?”

“Yeah?”

“Which of these tunnels led to my shed? Because if there were doors here, why didn’t they find them when I was rescued?”

He cocked his head. “Let’s ask.” He called Carmichael, who was quite agitated with the Saint brothers but answered Noel all the same.

Noel put it on speaker and asked Carmichael.

“The one that I think was Phoenix’s appears to be closed off, and he collapsed a tunnel.

We’d have to drive to the shed to see from that end, but I wasn’t on the case then.

I’ll talk to Rose. From what we’re seeing, these doors are melded into the ground really well.

When it’s closed, it looks like part of the floor.

It likely was overlooked, and when Phoenix was found he sealed it off, knowing it was compromised. ”

That was a fair assessment. “Was my shed near the cabin?”

Noel typed something and showed me. “Looking at the cabin, it seems the tunnels spiderwebbed out all around it but according to Gabe, they are all a fair distance from them. I don’t know from there which was yours. There wasn’t an address for them, just coordinates.”

I bit my lip. I knew the location was written on my report. I’d seen it once—I just had to remember those coordinates. Wait a second.

“I’ll be right back.”

Noel grabbed my arm. “Where are you going? He could show up any moment.”

I knew he wouldn’t, though. “To Hazel’s room.”

He must have thought I needed to be close to her, but in truth I knew she had a copy of the report in her nightstand, and that was going to tell me where she was.