Chapter 44 – ELIAS
Chapter
Forty-Four
ELIAS
T he helicopter blades cut through the Nevada night with a rhythmic thwack that matches my fucking pulse.
Three hours of preparation, and my hands are still shaking as I double-check the medical supplies for the dozenth time.
Everything I might need to patch up whatever damage Evan's done to our people. To Juniper. To Archer.
Detachment has always been my shield. The ability to compartmentalize, to treat bodies as puzzles rather than people I care about. But tonight that shield feels paper-thin, cracking under the weight of what we're walking into.
"You're doing that thing again," Carlisle observes from across the cabin, his voice carrying over the engine noise. He's checking his knives with the kind of care most people reserve for family members. "Counting supplies like they're prayer beads."
"Preparation prevents poor performance," I mutter, but even I can hear how hollow the words sound.
"You should get that on a t-shirt," Carlisle counters flatly.
Bane shifts in his seat, tactical gear making him look even more massive than usual. "It's not an accident Evan took Archer. Our pilot. He knew exactly how to cripple our extraction capability."
"Cocky bastard," Felix says from his corner, silver eyes reflecting the cabin lights like a predator's. His rage is almost visible, contained only by the promise of violence. "He always did like to show off how clever he thinks he is."
"Good thing I've got contacts," Bane continues, nodding toward the cockpit where our substitute pilot handles the controls with ease. "Reaper's the best there is. Saved my ass more times than I can count back when I was still pretending the badge meant something."
I lean forward to get a better look at our pilot.
She's an alpha built like she could bench press the helicopter if needed, with close-cropped hair and the kind of scarred hands that speak to a life lived in combat zones.
The name Reaper is stitched on her jacket, and something about her screams military mixed with a healthy disregard for rules.
"You trust her?" I ask Bane, though the question's mostly rhetorical. He wouldn't have brought her if he didn't.
"With my life," he confirms. "She's done more black ops extractions than anyone else I know except for Archer. And she doesn't ask questions about the bodies we leave behind."
"A woman after my own heart," Carlisle chuckles, but I can see underneath the bravado he's every bit as shaken as the rest of us, in his own way.
I used to think he wasn't capable of love, but our omegas have proven his version just looks a bit different than most. It looks like obsession.
So does mine, for that matter. The way his fingers caress his knife speaks of his true intentions.
"Two minutes to drop zone," Reaper's voice crackles through the comm. Professional, no-nonsense, with just a hint of Southern drawl. "Lowering to minimum safe altitude. You boys better be ready to hit the ground running."
"Always are," Bane responds, already moving to the door.
The helicopter descends, and my stomach drops with it.
Not from the altitude change, but from what's coming.
The Serpents' Den squats in the distance, looking like any other abandoned casino from the outside.
But Felix's briefing painted a different picture.
A fortress of depravity hidden behind crumbling facades.
"Remember," Felix says, his voice cutting through the engine noise, "Evan will have the main entrances covered. We go in through the service tunnels on the east side. They connect to the old kitchen, then branch into the main building."
The helicopter hovers just long enough for us to rappel down, then Reaper's pulling up and away. "I'll be on standby five clicks out," her voice comes through our earpieces. "Signal when you need extraction. And boys? Give 'em hell."
The Nevada desert stretches around us, a landscape of shadows and scrub brush under a moon that's trying to hide behind clouds.
We move in formation, years of training making us silent despite the gear we're carrying.
And this is the most important mission of all.
Felix takes point, leading us through terrain he must have memorized during his escape planning years ago.
I try to stay focused on the plan. The mission. But the personal angle has me shaken, and shaken means mistakes.
They have Juniper. Our omega.
The fact that she's in that building, that Evan's had his hands on her, is enough to drive a man to the brink.
"Perimeter guards," Carlisle whispers, dropping to a crouch behind a cluster of rocks. "Two at three o'clock, one at nine."
"I've got the pair," Bane says, already moving.
"Nine is mine," Felix says, and there's something in his voice that makes my skin prickle. Not his usual flat affect, but something darker. Hungrier.
They move like ghosts, and within seconds, three bodies drop without a sound. The blood pooling in the sand looks black under the moonlight, and I feel nothing but satisfaction.
"Clear," Bane reports, wiping his blade on the dead guard's shirt.
We reach the service tunnel entrance, a rusted grate that looks like it hasn't been touched in years. But Felix produces a key from somewhere, and it swings open on well-oiled hinges.
"He never changed the locks," Felix says with bitter satisfaction. "Always was too arrogant for his own good."
The tunnel smells like decay, the kind of stench that seeps into concrete and never quite leaves. Our flashlights cut through the darkness, revealing graffiti that's probably messages from omegas who never made it out.
"Split here," Felix says when we reach a junction. "Bane, Jackal, you take the north corridor. It leads to the main brothel area. Doctor, you're with me. We're going to the basement levels where he keeps the special merchandise."
Where he's keeping Juniper. The words hang unspoken but understood.
"Copy," Bane says, then catches Felix's arm before he can move. "We get them back. We free the omegas. No one gets left behind."
Felix nods once, then he's moving down the south corridor with me following.
The silence between us is heavy as we navigate the maze of service tunnels. Felix moves with absolute certainty, every turn memorized, every hazard anticipated. But I can see the tightness in his shoulders, the white-knuckle grip on his gun.
"Felix," I say quietly as we pause at another junction. "Are you alright?"
He turns to look at me, and those silver eyes are empty as winter sky. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not." I keep my voice clinical, even though everything in me wants to rage at the unfairness of it all.
The fact that he has to come back here to this place that traumatized the hell out of him.
The fact that Juniper is here somewhere, probably scared and alone, not knowing if we're coming for her.
But a part of me hope she knows somehow.
"None of us are. Not until we have her back. "
Something flickers across his face—surprise maybe.
"She's strong," I continue, checking my weapon as we prepare to breach the next door.
"I know," Felix says, and there's something broken in his voice. "That's what terrifies me. How much she can survive and still smile. Still see beauty in the shadows. If anything happens to break that in her, I—" He stops, jaw clenching.
"It won't," I tell him with more confidence than I feel. "Not on our watch."
He studies me for a moment, then nods. "The next room will have guards. Probably three, maybe four. Evan likes redundancy in his security. It's the one thing he doesn't go cheap on."
"What, you're telling me the gold candleholders aren’t real?"
His lips twitch slightly at my attempt.
"How do you want to play it?" I ask.
"Fast and quiet. I go high, you go low. No survivors."
"Ready when you are," I say, and mean it.
Felix counts down on his fingers. Three. Two. One.
We burst through the door in perfect synchronization.
The guards barely have time to register our presence before Felix's knife finds the first one's throat.
I put two bullets in the second's chest, the suppressor reducing the sound to whispers.
The third reaches for his radio, but Felix is already there, snapping his neck efficiently.
"Clear," I report, but Felix is already moving to the next door.
The basement levels are worse than the tunnels. Here, the perfume can't quite mask the scent of fear. Doors line the hallway, each one a potential horror story. But Felix doesn't pause, doesn't check. He knows exactly where he's going.
"Trap," he says suddenly, grabbing my arm before I can step forward. He points to a nearly invisible wire stretched across the hallway. "Pressure activated. Probably connected to an alarm, maybe something worse."
We carefully step over it, and I make a mental note of its position for our extraction. If we're running, if we're carrying wounded, we'll need to remember.
More guards appear as we go deeper, but they're expecting scared omegas trying to escape, not two trained killers on a mission. We leave a trail of bodies in our wake, and I feel grim satisfaction. Each one is one less person who can hurt our people. One less monster in a building full of them.
"Bane, Jackal, report," I whisper into my comm.
"Having a lovely time," Carlisle's voice comes back, slightly breathless. "Bane's redecorating the place with arterial spray. Very avant-garde."
"Shut the fuck up," Bane growls. "We've cleared the main floor. Moving to the holding areas."
"Copy. We're almost to the basement cells."
Felix stops suddenly, his whole body going rigid. "Wait."
"What is?—"
"Shh." He tilts his head, listening to something I can't hear. Then his face transforms into something feral, dangerous. "He's here."
"Who's—"
"My brother."
The lights suddenly flood the corridor, harsh fluorescents that make us both squint. And there, at the far end of the hallway, stands a man who could only be Evan.
He's nothing like Felix. Where Felix is lean elegance, Evan is brute force.
Thick with muscle that speaks to pure violence and never having to back down from a battle.
His face is handsome in a cruel way, with eyes that are almost Felix's silver but somehow empty of everything that makes Felix human.
Even if Felix himself doesn't recognize it.
"Little brother," Evan says, his voice carrying down the hallway like poison.
"I was wondering when you'd show up. Though I half expected you to come alone.
You always were too proud to ask for help.
And still just as predictable as ever. I already needed to take care of some inconvenient thorns in my side, and luring you to that auction was just the excuse I needed to do it. "
I bristle at his words. Even as we were using the auction to lure out the enemy, Evan was using it against us.
"It was you," I muttered. "You're the one who hired them to take us out."
Evan looks at me like I'm dirt beneath his shoe, and his arrogant smile cracks into a grin that could thin paint. "Of course." His gaze shifts back to Felix. "Did you really think I wouldn't be keeping an eye on my finest assets? That I wouldn't find you eventually, my clever little mice?"
"Where is she?" Felix's voice is death given sound.
"Juniper? Oh, she's safe. For now. Though I can't say the same for your alpha friend.
He's been so heroic, trying to protect her.
It's almost touching." Evan's smile is all teeth and malice.
"Did you really think you could steal from me and I wouldn't take it all back?
Everything you took, everything you think you've built, it's all mine. It always was."
My finger finds the trigger of my weapon, but Felix puts a hand on my arm. Not yet, the gesture says. Let him talk. Let him reveal where they are.
"You were always so predictable, Felix," Evan continues, moving closer with the confidence of someone who thinks he's already won. "Even now, playing dress-up with these vigilantes, pretending to be something you're not. But I know what you really are. What you'll always be."
"And what's that?" Felix asks, his voice deadly calm.
Evan's smile widens. "Mine."