19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Soren
T he SUV's engine roars as Asher pushes the vehicle to its limits, the speedometer climbing past numbers I don't want to think about.
My fingers grip the dashboard, knuckles white as we take a corner fast enough to mark the bitumen.
In the back seat, Phoenix cradles Emma against his chest, his expression fierce and protective in the passing streetlights.
This shouldn't be happening. The safe house was secure. I personally oversaw every detail of its security system. Every guard was vetted, every protocol triple-checked. Yet here we are, running from an attack that came from inside our own perimeter.
Jones. The thought makes bile rise in my throat. We all trusted him to protect vulnerable witnesses, but this explains his sketchy behavior when we brought Emma here.
How many of our own are working against us?
“Two vehicles still on our six,” I report, checking the side mirror.
The pursuing SUVs are keeping pace, professional drivers at the wheel.
If they wanted to run us off the road, they’d be more aggressive.
Makes me think they want at least one of us alive, and I’m sure the alphas in this SUV are the expendable ones.
“Carmichael money, you think?” Phoenix speaks through gritted teeth as we take another hard turn.
“Whoever it is knows the compound and is rich enough to bribe. Pack Carmichael are rich enough, but this would implicate someone with police knowledge,” Asher finishes, his voice dark with fury.
There’s only one person with the highest level of command able to infiltrate with this number of officers. “The commissioner,” I say.
It’s a brash, desperate move especially risky for whoever’s pulling the strings.
We’ve run our own investigations, searching for any link between the Commissioner and the omega auctions, but he’s been meticulous.
There’s never been anything solid tying him to the crimes, but if he orchestrated this raid, he’s gambling everything.
It’s loud, reckless, and leaves him wide open to exposure.
“We’re not safe anywhere. If they can compromise the safe house, nowhere in the system is secure.
Every police facility, every protective custody location, are all potentially compromised,” Asher says.
“We need to go dark. Ditch the phones, avoid cameras. We can't trust anyone in the department. Not now,” I say.
We swerve around a slower vehicle. My heart clenches at the fear in Emma’s scent. Her eyes are wide, jumping everywhere. We finally got her to trust us, to feel safe, and now this.
Asher slams his fist on the wheel. “I double checked everything. Every one —”
“Don’t beat yourself up, brother.” I can talk. I’m beating myself up on the inside pretty well. “This extends much wider and bigger than we can hope to protect against.”
I don’t want to voice it out loud to add to Emma’s distress, but I’m sure if they’d secured her, we wouldn’t be breathing now.
“We need to lose these tails. Then find somewhere off-grid to regroup,” Phoenix says.
“I have an idea of where we can go, but I need to send an encrypted message. Hand me your phones first. We need to get rid of everything traceable,” I say.
I dismantle our phones and smash the sim cards before dropping them out of the window. As I move, I feel Carl Jones’s phone in my pocket. That’s going to have to go too because it definitely can be traced.
I turn the phone on, noting the coded lock screen.
My eyes catch the fingerprints smudged across the surface, and I follow the pattern.
The phone unlocks, granting me access to a message stream that could prove crucial.
Scrolling through, I find a thread that lights fireworks in my brain.
It’s a conversation with an Alpha1465, detailing the exact time and location for the “extraction.”
I have key evidence in my hand, and I know it could be pivotal in piecing together the case, however I can’t keep this phone.
Keeping it would put my omega in unnecessary danger, and I won’t risk being traced for anything.
Besides, knowing there’s an Alpha1465 without linking a true identity still gives us nothing.
After a final glance at the screen to memorize details, I quickly dismantle the phone and toss the remnants out of the window. The evidence is gone, but I have what I need in my head and I will find a way to use it to protect us both.
“What's happening?” Emma's voice is small but steady, more lucid than she's been since the shower. “Who's chasing us?”
I turn in my seat to face her, choosing my words carefully.
She’s enclosed in the fluffy blanket Phoenix swiped off her bed, but I know how vulnerable she probably feels beneath the material.
I’m happy she’s clinging to Phoenix. Her conscious mind doesn’t trust us, but deep down, her omega recognizes us as safety.
She deserves the truth; deserves agency in her own life after having it stripped away for so long. “We don’t know exactly who yet, sweetheart. But we’ll find out.”
She pales more than she already is in the passing streetlights, but her chin lifts slightly. “Do you think they attacked because of the hearing today?”
“I think it’s all tied up, yes. They're not willing to wait for legal channels.” I watch her process this, proud of how she's holding herself together despite everything. At least her heat scent has diminished, no longer filling my lungs with desperate pheromones the way she did in the shower.
“What are we going to do?” she asks, and the 'we' in her question makes the place where the bond will reside inside me throb.
“First, we're going dark. No phones, no cards, nothing they can trace. Then we lose our tail and ditch the car,” I say.
She nods, trust warring with fear in her expression. After everything she's been through tonight—her first experience of gentle touch followed immediately by violence—she's showing remarkable strength.
“Take us into the industrial district,” I direct Asher.
“Lose them in the warehouse maze. We know it better than they do.” My mind races through escape routes, calculating angles and timings.
This part of the city is our hunting ground.
We've run countless operations here; know every blind alley and hidden turn.
He nods, understanding my reasoning. The SUV's engine roars as he downshifts, taking a hard right that throws us against our doors.
The pursuing vehicles' headlights flash in our mirrors as they follow, their high-beams cutting through the darkness like searchlights as we race down deserted streets until we hit an area including massive buildings that are more ruin than not.
Asher weaves between the abandoned buildings, the vehicle’s heavy frame swaying as we take corners at speeds that make the tires howl in protest. Past empty loading docks, through narrow alleys. The pursuing headlights bounce and weave behind us, never quite losing us but not gaining either .
“The loading dock is ahead,” I say, spotting our chance. The old Maxwell warehouse, with its hidden access road that doesn't show on any current maps. “Go through it.”
Asher guns it toward what looks like a solid wall in the darkness.
Emma makes a small sound of fear, but Phoenix holds her steady.
At the last second, Asher cranks the wheel, sending us down a concealed ramp and into a building.
The pursuing vehicles blast past, their brake lights flaring as they realize their mistake.
“Double back through the container yard,” I direct.
We shoot past old iron pillars and emerge into a canyon of shipping containers, their metal walls creating a maze of shadows and blind corners.
Asher kills the headlights, navigating by moonlight and memory.
The SUV moves slower now, deliberate, each turn calculated to break line of sight with any pursuers.
Behind us, distant engines rev as they try to figure out where we've gone. Their searchlights sweep the area, but we're already moving deeper into the maze.
“There.” I point to a gap between containers that looks impossibly narrow. “It’s a tight squeeze, but it'll get us to the Mercy River Road and back into the city.”
The side mirrors scrape metal as Asher threads us through the gap, but that's the least of our concerns. We emerge on the other side as searchlights sweep the area we just left.
“We need to contact Cole,” I say once we're clear, the immediate tension easing slightly. “Adrian's pack is the only one we can trust right now.” We need somewhere to hole up that’s safe. Some place those who are compromised can’t find us.
“They'll be monitoring all our usual channels,” Phoenix says.
I work through ideas on how I can contact Cole without pinging any alerts.
“Asher, can you get us to an Internet café? One of those 24-hour places. I'll use a VPN, route it through multiple servers. Set up a dead drop message Cole will recognize.”
Asher nods. “First we ditch the car. They'll have traffic cams looking for us. ”
“Head downtown to Mikey’s. He owes us big and is good enough to make this car disappear and get us something clean,” Phoenix says.
Emma hasn't said a word since we started our evasive maneuvers, but I feel her eyes on me in the darkness. When I meet her gaze in the rearview mirror, I see something that gives me hope: determination. She's scared, yes, but she's not giving up.
“You should let me go,” she says softly, her voice barely audible over the engine. “Drop me somewhere. It’s clear they're after me, not you. If you...” She swallows hard, her fingers twisting in the blanket wrapped around her. “If you leave me, they won't come after you again.”
The selflessness in her offer tears at my chest. It's beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. She’s smart enough to realize she’s their target. But she will learn she’s not expendable, even if it takes a lifetime.
“Not happening. Not now or ever, Tough Girl.” Phoenix speaks for all of us.
“But—”