33. Theo
Theo
The Mighty Lion
S oph works as hard as she can, scouring the town’s motion-activated cameras set up every twenty feet from one end of Main Street to the other.
The law frowns upon that kind of privacy breach, but Alex Turner says nothing as Soph and I sit together in the middle of Checkmate Security and try to find the needle in a haystack.
This town isn’t massive, but it’s still a lot of cameras, and motion activation means exactly that – everyone is in motion all over town.
The baker’s delivery van sends an alert up.
A cab sends another up. Kids playing in the park, and other folks heading to church.
There are a lot of cameras to study, and a lot of footage to watch, and the longer we take, the angrier those around us get.
Spence, Romeo, and Cruz collect weapons and ammo from the bunker beneath this building, and when they deem them not enough, Spence and Romeo drive away and come back half an hour later with bigger, better, more.
Alex Turner doesn’t know what to do. He can’t decide if he should arrest every single Checkmate employee and affiliate, or if he should thank them. He does neither. He simply accepts the weapons Spence tosses to him, and works them into holsters the same way the rest of our comrades do.
Pictures of Evelyn Kincaid are flashed on every wall, every screen, and on every electronic device that moves around the room, but it’s Libby’s eyes that remain in the forefront of my mind.
It’s not that she’s considered less important to them, but the fact a minor is missing trumps all else in everyone’s mind but mine.
Aiden and Benny might be the most dangerous men in this room. Even with Soph at her laptop, and the Checkmate crew strapping weapons to their bodies, those two, who appear otherwise unarmed, are the most dangerous. A dad and a friend.
A boyfriend?
They stalk the offices and make sure everyone is working, and because there’s literally nothing else they can do, they glare at anyone that dares to stop moving.
Evie and Lib have been missing for four hours, and for every minute that passes, the darkness presses in around us, and the heavier our worry sits.
Did the girl survive the initial attack? Did Libby? And if so, where are they now?
“Hayes sisters!” Soph’s ballerina body snaps taller when she gets our first hit. “Fuck, I found them.”
Half of the room stops and lifts their heads as Soph zooms in on her screen. The timestamp shows this footage is from only an hour ago.
After Olly took the girls.
Once they were already situated wherever they’re going.
“Let me just…” Soph’s eyes narrow as she clears away every other box popping up on her screen and isolates the one we need. “They went to the store. See the bag the chick on the left is holding? Her hands?”
I lean closer so Soph and I are basically cheek-to-cheek. “Jonah’s?”
“Mm.” She zooms a little closer and takes a screengrab of the bag. Isolates it, zooms in, and begins spinning it so we get a 3D view. “Soda?”
“Just regular groceries.”
My cell begins to vibrate as I study the screen and the bottle-shaped indent in the bag. Annaliese is the only person with permission to call, but though I don’t intend to answer, I still take it from my pocket out of habit.
It’s strange how a lifetime of habits makes a man.
I see Olly’s name on my screen, and I think of my driver.
I think of the guy I sent for groceries when Libby had a concussion and needed pain relief, or the guy who was sent to follow her into the city while I searched her apartment.
It’s instinctual that I think of these things, rather than what’s real, but once that second passes, my eyes snap wider.
“Guys! It’s him. It’s Olly.”
Soph snatches my cell with lightning-fast reflexes and jams a cord into the bottom. Spence and Romeo stay by their cache of weapons, but the rest of our crowd converge as I stand and force Soph up when I take my phone; she needs to stay within reach because of the cord.
I look to her for direction, then to the girl’s dad. He’s frozen with indecision. Broken beyond comprehension.
“Answer it,” Alex says. “Stay calm, ask questions.”
“Don’t fuck this up,” Ben growls. “I don’t know you, but I’ll remember you for the rest of my life. Don’t fuck this up.”
I nod and look back to my phone. Terrified the call will ring out, I swipe a thumb across the screen before I decide which way I’m going to play this. Am I Griffin, silent and foreboding? Or am I just a guy that wants that little girl back?
Mostly, I’m Gunner, and I’m running down those stairs again when what I really want is to grab onto Libby and never let go.
“Griffin.”
Olly’s chuckle feels like home. It’s ridiculous to miss the only man I considered my brother, when I know he’s not truly one of us.
“Theodore Griffin,” he laughs. “Gunner Bishop. Bastard child, prick of a boss.”
“Olly.” I back away from the crowd slow enough to let Soph keep up.
She works one-handed, since the other is supporting a laptop until one of the many men here take a hint and hold it for her.
For as long as I stand, she either works one-handed, or she needs someone to help.
“I don’t understand what’s going on right now. ”
“Of course you don’t.” What started out as sound in my ear turns to surround sound when Soph does something on her end. Now dozens of men can hear everything my second-in-charge says. “You were so fucking obsessed with yourself, you never paid attention to what was happening around you.”
“Please, Olly, explain to me where I fucked up, because I’m really confused. I thought…” Against my wishes, my eyes go to Kane’s. “I genuinely thought we were family. I’ve known you since you were just a kid.”
“The irony,” he hoots. “So much fucking irony.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“You say ‘kid,’ Griffin, and you mean you’ve known me since I was a hungry twelve-year-old approaching you like a stray cat in an alley.”
“Well… yes.”
“But you don’t remember the child in Hayes’ club? The boy you completely ignored, because you were so busy talking to the girl?”
I look to Soph.
“The boy? I don’t…” A memory from forever ago flashes through my mind. “The toddler. You were playing with blocks in Hayes’ office…”
“Give the man a medal.” Clapping hands literally make me jump when they crack through the speakers. “So easily ignored, so easily forgotten.”
“Olly… where’s Libby?”
“Oh, she’s here.” Olly’s eyeroll is almost audible. “Surprise surprise. Griffin is still obsessed with the girl.”
“She’s my family,” I answer in my defense. “Of course I ask about her.”
“And what am I?” Olly screeches. “Why aren’t I family?
You walk into a room and decide only one of the four people in there are worthy?
My father was banished from the Bishop empire, so what happened to me?
I became a fucking soldier. A child was handed a gun and told to kill or be killed.
Why don’t I get to be a part of your family, Griffin? ”
“You are! You were family. I trusted you to watch Libby. I trust you with my company, with my home, with my everything. I trusted you!”
“You trusted the soldier, the boy that came to you as a man, and only after I proved my worth. But that child, the toddler in Hayes’ club; he was nothing to you.”
“I mean…” I look around. “I didn’t know you. You were someone else’s kid, and you were playing blocks. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Knock them over and ask if you wanted a nap?”
“You’re an asshole,” he seethes. “You think you’re so fuckin’ funny.”
“No, I really don’t. I don’t understand why you hold animosity toward me. If you’re mad at Hayes, then fine, get in line. So am I. If you’re mad at Bishop, you aren’t the only one. But taking the Frankston girl was wrong and stupid. She wasn’t even conceived yet. She did nothing to deserve this.”
“But she did,” he taunts. “She’s like you, a bastard child who got lucky. Now she has–”
“Where is she?” Aiden snaps. “Where’s Evie?”
Unbothered by the fact someone else enters our conversation, Olly answers, “She’s here, Rocky. She’s fine.”
“Put her on the phone,” Alex demands. “Prove she’s fine. We’ll talk when we know she’s okay.”
“Girl.” We hear footsteps, whispers, and then a whimper. “Speak.”
“Biggie?”
Aiden’s breath explodes out on a strangled cry. “Smalls. I’m coming for you, baby. You don’t have to worry, okay? Where are you?”
“You can tell them,” Olly says. “We can’t start until they arrive anyway, so…”
“We’re at Scotch’s club,” she whimpers. “And they’ve got a–”
“That’s enough.” Evie is silenced with a cry, and Olly’s footsteps scuff against the floor as he walks away. “You know where we are. Send me the children of the club. No one else.”
“Why?” Libby’s voice echoes through our call and almost strangles me. Her single word is scratchy and garbled. “Why us? What did we do?”
“Because we need to finish something that was started.”
The line cuts out, and silence hangs for just a beat before our room explodes into noise.
“Club 188!” Alex shouts. He looks to Soph. “Do that thing you do, find us the best way in.”
“We know that club inside and out,” Ben says. “We know it. We don’t need computer stuff.”
“Wait.” Aiden’s brows furrow as he holds onto the boy’s tank before he races away. He looks to Alex, then to Kane. “She said Scotch’s club.” He turns to me and Soph. “She said Scotch’s club.”
“She means 188, right?”
“Right, she means 188, but that’s not Scotch’s club. It’s ours. It’s hers.”
“Why mention Scotch?” Kane stops beside us with glittery black eyes exactly like those his father wore when he asked an eleven-year-old boy his name. “Scotch has nothing to do with this.”
“Who is Scotch?” I ask. “Who is that?”
“Scotch is one of the band members,” Ben says. “He’s Alex’s brother, and the lead singer in the band that always plays at the club.”
“She means the stage,” Aiden says slowly, as though it’s a question instead of a statement. “She’s near the stage?”