Epilogue #2
“That’s good.” My father’s eyes meet mine. They announce that he isn’t here for a visit. He’s here for Macy and the operation, and perhaps to call me out as a big fat liar. “You should be back in time to help the bureau mop up the mess of a recent mafia takeover bid.”
“When?” Macy’s one word, though clipped, is full of impact.
Ravenshoe is our home because it is secure from threats such as mafia wars and takeovers. We never expected anything like this to happen here.
I curse under my breath when my father answers, “Last night.”
“How many casualties?” Macy queries as I approach my makeshift command center, where I lower the surveillance feed tracking her movements and bring up the reports I ignored since her safety was my utmost priority.
Things get even more complicated when I speed-read the reports. Besides multiple casualties, the man Macy needs to bring her sister home knows the leading players well.
“There are multiple casualties,” I answer on my father’s behalf.
“Nikolai and Justine Popov are missing, and Dimitri Petretti is under guard at a local hospital. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds.” Returning to the foyer, I take my father’s phone from him.
“Do you want to bring someone in to help brief Maddox on the situation?”
“No, no, I’ll tell him.”
“Are you sure, freckles?” My voice is pleading.
I trust her. She is as smart as she is beautiful, but the last time someone taunted Maddox, he ended their conversation by inflicting fourteen stab wounds to a man’s stomach.
Since that man was Arrow Moses, I don’t believe Maddox is dangerous, but there’s no harm in being cautious.
“I’m sure.” Honesty is the only thing present in Macy’s tone. “We’ve developed a weird bond over the past four years.”
It kills me, but I can’t say I trust her and not display that. “Okay. But stay in touch. If anything feels wrong, leave immediately.” I imagine her nodding when a whoosh sounds down the line. “I love you, freckles. Do what needs to be done, and then come home to us, safely.”
She exhales deeply before she replies, “I love you too. Always. Bye.”
The line goes quiet, and I stare at my father’s phone while silently praying for the takeover bid not to interfere with Macy’s mission.
My dad takes it a step beyond prayer. “From now on, we do things my way. Understood?”
Crew eyeballs my father through the monitor of the live feed before he sheepishly nods. What else can he do? He’s an intelligence officer, but the CIA has no law enforcement powers. They focus on the gathering of intelligence overseas. Their powers are restricted stateside.
Well, they were until my father jumped ship.
Now I do not doubt Macy’s safety. My father outranks everyone on Crew’s team, both in terms of seniority and experience. He will bring Macy home. I’m just praying like fuck Kendall returns with her.
MACY
After some hiccups from telling Maddox about the attempted coup of his sister’s fiancé’s sanction, I’m back on track. I can feel it in my bones. The atmosphere is charged with possibilities, and every step I take feels like it’s leading me toward something magical.
The bureaucratic snags and double-crosses are behind me now. I’m moving forward, and I am not alone. Grayson’s and his father’s confidence boosts mine, and their combined experience guides me through the endless mazes of the past twelve hours.
The scent of charred wood and dirty secrets fill my senses when I arrive at a compound with a team of twelve agents. It’s nothing but a skeleton now. Blackened beams and concrete pillars jut into the sky, while ash litters the ground.
The underworld’s murky fingerprints are all over this place, but tonight, it’s mine for the taking.
Grayson’s timber cracks through my team’s earpieces. “Watch your footing. Vladimir was infamous for booby-trapping his compounds.”
Nodding, I scan the perimeter, my flashlight slicing through the darkness. I send four agents to each exit, then join the front group.
“It’s quiet,’’ I murmur, the eerie setting off-putting. “Too quiet.”
Grayson’s hum of agreement sends a trill of electricity rolling down my spine, but his father’s commanding timbre keeps me focused. “An agent should be inside. He’s undercover. Make contact, but keep your guard up. Wraith’s stats are iffy.”
“Rogue?”
Grayson’s teeth crunching together bellow out of my earpiece.
It is extremely telling.
As my team enters the ruins, our boots crunch on debris. My heart pounds, but not in fear. It’s anticipation. I’m close. I can feel it. The answers I’ve been chasing for fourteen years are within touching distance. I just need to reach out and grab them.
Once inside the building and past any frequency blocks, I tune my radio to the undercover agent frequency. “Wraith, do you copy?”
Static.
I try again, my voice a whisper. “Agent, respond.”
Nothing.
A chill creeps up my spine this time. It isn’t the good type.
Has he gone dark? Or is he rogue as accused?
I’ve seen it happen too many times since leaving the academy.
Good people get pushed too far, and then they get swallowed by the darkness.
If you’re not strong enough to fight against it, it can occur in a matter of weeks.
Mercifully, it only took Grayson days to climb out of the rubble Cameron tried to toss on him.
She thought a handful of tears and a sob story about being forced to be Diego’s scapegoat would have Grayson pulling strings to free her from charges.
She even used my words against him, but Grayson saw through her lies as a skilled agent would.
Walking away from her while she was screaming like she did the night she was kidnapped must have been painful for Grayson, but not as much as the families’ reactions when they came forward to give victim impact statements at her trial.
Cameron didn’t take part in fetal abductions because of coercion. Years of infertility led her to seek a morally corrupt option to start a family. After selling her unwanted “miracle” for a tidy profit after one month of sleepless nights, greed set in, and she pushed the agenda with Diego.
Her unethical behavior resulted in her spending the rest of her life in jail, but her punishment isn’t harsh enough for what she put her victims through.
Although Grayson will never admit this, he is one of Cameron’s many victims. She exploited his naturally ingrained protectiveness to coerce him into an illegal activity so she could frame him for the drugs she’d taken.
Cameron stole Blake’s car. That wasn’t a lie. But instead of using the keys Blake always left in his gym bag during a game, she hot-wired his pride and joy to make it seem as if she were carjacked while attempting to return the missing drugs.
Her crocodile tears about a falsified sexual assault worked Grayson up so much that he didn’t notice the numerous empty cocaine brick wrappers in the back seat.
If Grayson’s father hadn’t pieced together the evidence as quickly as he had that night, and put steps into play to protect his eldest son, Grayson would have faced far more dangerous charges than malicious damage of property worth millions.
He could have had the cartel after him as well.
After a quick breather, I get back into game mode. I move further into the compound, senses on high alert. Scorch marks line the walls, and the air is heavy with loss. Bad stuff happened here. You can feel it.
I hold up my hand, alerting the agents surrounding me to freeze, when voices sound from beneath my feet. At least one of them is female, and she has a foreign accent. I’ve heard it before, and it spikes my pulse.
“We’re in the right location.”
I realize I spoke my thoughts aloud when Grayson hums in agreement.
I bring my blood pressure down before reminding my team of our game plan.
“No one is to make a move until I say so. If you move before ordered, I’ll expect your badge on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.
Target is to be brought in alive. I repeat, India is to be brought in alive. ”
My eyes bounce wildly when a disgruntled groan sounds out of my earpiece. It isn’t the response of an agent, not even a rogue one. It is the reply you’d anticipate from a man hell-bent on revenge.
“Maddox… is that you?” He doesn’t answer, but I trust my gut as much as Grayson trusts me.
“I need you to listen to me, okay? Your meeting with India is a setup. She knows who was behind the messages. Dimitri’s crew is one of the loose ends she wants to tie up.
I need you to leave now. Seek shelter in the tree line. I’ll be there in a matter of minutes.”
He proves my intuition accurate when he replies, “I can’t. It’s too late.”
Fear takes hold of my senses. I understand his pain, wholeheartedly, but if he kills India as I believe he wants to do, she will take all her secrets to the grave with her.
“It isn’t too late, Maddox. It’s never too late.” There’s silence, then nothing. “If you go through with this, you will start a mafia war. This is part of India’s plan for world domination. She’s pitting the Petrettis against the Popo—”
My words shift to a groan when pain shreds through my midsection. Several minor nicks set my skin on fire and send me flying backward so fast my earpiece knocks from my ear, and I waver between semiconsciousness and unconsciousness.
The world explodes around me. Agents shout, and gunfire ricochets off the concrete walls as the sharp tang of blood floods my tongue. I need to move, to seek cover, and the faint trickle of my name breaking through the ringing of a blast in my ears gets my feet moving.
As Grayson’s panicked shrill of my name sounds from my earpiece, I duck behind a crumbling wall. My heart is pounding, and my breaths come out fast. I scan the premises, expecting to see the shadows of my enemies darting through the smoke. I can’t see anyone.
Even with my earpiece several feet away from me, I respond to Grayson’s request for an update. “Booby trap.”