Chapter 34 Rafe
RAFE
My hands shook as I parked next to Zach’s car. What the fuck was I going to say? How was I going to know if I should believe him or not?
I didn’t know, but I had to do this. If Dante thought Zach might be telling the truth, and if I felt somewhere in my gut that I’d fucked up, I couldn’t back out now. I wasn’t going to throw whatever I had with Zach away because I refused to accept that he might have needed to lie.
Did I really refuse to believe him because I assumed everyone thought I could be tricked and used? Fuck. Enough stalling. I got out of the car and headed to the building. Someone was on their way out, and I grabbed the door before it could close.
As I did, I noticed that the lock was broken. I didn’t think much of it though. Someone must’ve lost their key and gotten fed up with it.
A few steps from the bottom, I saw a phone on the ground.
Wait. Was that Zach’s phone? I bent down and picked it up.
As soon as it lit up, I knew that background.
How would Zach not notice he didn’t have his phone?
I slid it into my pocket, but when I looked up the stairs, I saw a red stain smeared across one step—then more on the next one.
Blood. I didn’t need to look any closer to know.
I ran the rest of the way to Zach’s door and knocked. No response. No point in calling him. I knocked again, harder this time, and then I picked the lock. I charged in, looking all around. He wasn’t there. There was nothing to indicate he’d ever been there tonight.
I ran back down the stairs and outside, looking for any clues—footprints, more blood.
I turned on the flashlight on my phone, and I saw it: grass smashed down, a trail of blood leading all the way to the far side of the parking lot where there was no light.
No one would notice if a person was forced into a car or if someone was dragging a body.
No. No, no. Zach was alive. He had to be alive, and I was going to save him. If he’d been taken by Ivanov, he wouldn’t be alive for long. And I didn’t want to think about what that man would do to him.
I called Dante and talked so fast when he answered that he couldn’t understand me. Finally, I made him get it. He told me to go to Remington’s and that he would gather the family. My phone rang a few minutes after I started driving. It was Xavier.
“Is Zach with you?”
“No, I think Ivanov has him. I mean, I know he does. There was blood and his phone and—”
“Slow down,” X said. “Zach’s special agent in charge called me wanting to check in, worried because he ended a call with her superior abruptly, hadn’t checked back in, and wasn’t answering his phone.”
That was who all the missed calls were from that popped up on his screen. “I have his phone. It was on the stairs of his building. A few steps up, there are smears of blood and more blood in the parking lot leading to a dark corner, where I saw tire tracks and some oil.”
“All right, I’m on it.”
“I’m headed to Remington’s. We’re gathering there.”
“I’ll call Remington so I can consult.”
Thank God we’d have X’s help too. “Thank you.”
“We’re going to find Zach. He’s going to be okay.”
I swiped at a tear as if it rolled down my cheek. “He has to be.”
A few moments later, my phone rang again. I didn’t know the number, but I answered it anyway.
“This is Maria. I work with Zach.”
“He’s not with me.” Hadn’t X let her know?
“I know. The things he said to my supervisor… they weren’t true.”
“I know that now.”
“Good. What shoes was he wearing when he left you?”
Had I heard that right? “What the fuck difference does that make?”
“He met me a few days ago. I put a tracker on his shoe. I don’t think he realized it, so it might still be there.”
I thought back to the moment I’d stepped into the kitchen. “He was wearing black oxfords?”
“Perfect.”
Holy fuck. “Send me the link to track him?”
“Xavier has it.”
Again, I thought I was hearing things. “Xavier?”
“Yeah, the same one you’re working with.”
I didn’t have the capacity to put all these connections together right then. “What the fuck? Are you like a…?”
“I’m someone who wants to see evil people put away, and so is he. He’s also an excellent go-between when we work with criminal informants.”
What was she trying to tell me? “Informants like who?”
“That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Does Zach know—?”
“Not yet. Talk to Xavier. Find Zach, and bring him back safely.”
That was easy to promise. “I will. If I die doing it, I will.”
“Maybe try not to do that. He wouldn’t like it.”
Did she know about us? “You… fuck, this is insane.”
“Yes, probably.”
At least she didn’t tell me to back off. “I’ll text you when we find him.”
“Thanks.”
My head was swimming as I ended the call.
Could she be implying that Remington passed information to the feds?
What the fuck was that about? Did Xavier’s reach extend into every government agency, every branch of the military, every vigilante he could find in the country?
I was beginning to believe he was running everything.
When I arrived at Remington’s house, I expected a lecture on how I’d fucked up handling my assignment. Instead, Remington simply glanced up from his computer and said, “We’ve located Zach. He’s at the address Richard gave you that we suspect is Ivanov’s residence.”
Fuck. I’d known that was who had him, but hearing that made my stomach knot. “We’ve got to go now. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“They’re probably not keeping his shoes sitting around there if he’s dead,” Lorenzo said.
“Not helpful,” Dante muttered.
“I mean he’s alive. That’s what I’m saying,” Lorenzo added.
Remington turned to his brother Lancelot, who was also there to help. “Do you want to explain the plan? Lorenzo doesn’t seem to be able to form good sentences right now.”
Lancelot and I worked out a plan to get in and find Zach while Dante and Remington worked on tracking him and figuring out how many people we could expect at the Ivanov house.
A schematic of Ivanov’s house appeared on the screen.
How had they gotten that so fast? Xavier, probably, but it didn’t fucking matter.
I studied it, wondering where Zach was being held.
“I know we’d all like Ivanov to suffer,” Lancelot said. “We’d like to interrogate him, maybe be able to find some bodies and bring some closure to people, but this is a shoot-on-sight situation. We need him dead. We need this over once and for all.”
Lancelot was right, and I doubted I could stop myself from killing Ivanov immediately anyway. I was too pumped up on fear and rage and five thousand other emotions I couldn’t even name.
Lancelot showed various entrances where we could split up and make our way through. “The basement is the most likely place where Zach is being held. In other homes, Ivanov always had holding cells in the basement. He likes to keep his prisoners out of sight—less likely for anyone to hear them.”
The thought of Zach being locked up in that place, the thought of what Ivanov might’ve done to him, was making me sick.
I swallowed bile and forced myself to listen to what Lancelot was saying.
I watched as he traced different paths we could use to enter the house.
“As soon as we get in, we’ll split up. We don’t think he has many men with him.
He’s keeping a low profile, and most people here turned away from him after last year. ”
“Why has he let himself be so exposed?” Dante asked.
“Madness. Overconfidence. He doesn’t think he’s got anywhere else to go. He’s cornered. He’s going to come at us as hard as he can, but we’re ending this tonight.”
“Goddamn right we are,” I said.
When Lancelot finished explaining the plan, I stood. “Come on, let’s get geared up.”
“Sit down,” Remington ordered.
“No, I’m leaving now.”
Remington raised his brows. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t defy a direct order.”
“We have to—”
Lorenzo’s hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Rafe, you’re not thinking clearly right now.”
“We’re waiting until dark,” Remington said.
“No, I can’t wait. Anything could happen to Zach. You know what Ivanov is like. What if he’s torturing Zach right now? What if he’s—” I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my palms against them. Lorenzo dropped to the floor beside me.
“Zach is an undercover agent. He’s tough. He’s been through a lot of shit before.”
I knew that was true. I thought about the scars on his body—gunshot wounds, jagged lines from a knife. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t let him be hurt again, not by Ivanov. The man was crazy.
“I know.”
“And walking up to his house in the daylight is crazy too.”
“He’s in there. We have to get him out as fast as possible.”
Remington blew out a long breath.
I kept pleading. “Any amount of time could be the difference between life and death.”
“Yes,” he said. “And going in before dark could mean death for you, for me, for any of us.”
“You’re going in with us?”
He snorted. “You think I’m going to miss this?”
“I wasn’t sure… I mean, rescuing Zach is probably not—”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. Zach is your top priority, and mine is finding Ivanov. Because he’s going to die, and Zach’s going to be saved, and then we’re going to put this bullshit behind us.”
I wanted to protest. I wanted to say if there was any chance on earth he’d still have me, I wasn’t going to put Zach behind me. Remington was right about the risks we were running—I couldn’t save Zach if I were lying dead on Ivanov’s floor. But what if Zach were dying right now?
Remington walked over and sat down across from me. “I know how hard this is for you.”
I decided to pull out the strongest argument I had. “What if Henri were in there?”
Remington snarled.
“Would you wait?”
Lancelot laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I have a backup plan.”
I glanced toward Lorenzo, and he nodded. They’d known I wouldn’t be willing to wait.
“It’s riskier,” Lancelot admitted.
Remington nodded. “Explain.”
Lancelot brought up another image of the house with a few of the previous lines redrawn.
“It’s too much like what we tried before,” Remington said.
“Yes, but Ivanov got wind of that well beforehand. We just made this up a few minutes ago.”
Remington stood. “Every single one of you better be more alert than you’ve ever been. You see anyone you don’t know, take them out. We can’t hesitate.”
Did that mean… “We’re going? Now?”
“Yes. You made a good point.”
I smiled for the first time since I’d heard Zach lie about us on the phone.