Chapter 31
Jericho
I do my best to keep my breath even on the drive over, choosing to focus on the chatter in my ears from my headset.
We managed to get heat sensors on the house, so we could see several guards sitting around two people in the center of the house.
They seem as geared up and ready for action as we are, and that tells me that since I worked for the Reese organization, Damien seems to have started taking his role a lot more seriously. Before, everything was a fucking joke to him, but you don't stay at the top of such an influential organization by fucking off and letting things slip.
It's also possible that he's only serious right now because his favorite toy is gone, and he wants her back.
He doesn't care for Aspen, I don't imagine that he ever did, but he also doesn't like the idea of her having any independence. If he cared for her, he wouldn't have separated her and Eli so soon. Five is much too young for a child to leave home and go to a boarding school, and I know it was a power play on his part. He had to separate Aspen and her son because it was too risky to leave them together. It minimized his power over her.
The first team of men exit their vehicles after pulling around to the back of the neighbor's house which is situated in such a way that gives them the best advantage in order to sneak up on the house we're aiming for.
I wanted to be on the front line. If taking a couple of bullets distracts the guys inside enough to get Eli to safety, then it's something I'm willing to do, but I also understand Hemlock's refusal to let me be on the team that breaches the house first.
With the second team, we wait in the SUV. Griffin, one of the guys from the New Mexico team, holds up a tablet so we can all watch the video feed from the camera attached to Hound's, the lead guy, Kevlar helmet.
Two guards near the front of the house drop, bullets from weapons with silencers hitting their targets before the men can turn in the team's direction.
Entry into the house is won by a simple turn of the doorknob.
"Fuck," one of the guys sitting beside me whispers.
"Too fucking easy," Griffin murmurs.
But I knew that before they even spoke.
If you're wanting a warning before someone gets into your house in any situation, the doors and windows are locked. You want a noise to be made to alert you to any form of visitor or foe.
" Stay focused ," one of the guys on the ground whispers. " We're definitely walking into a trap ."
" Tripwire ten feet in ," Hound says.
" On it ," comes the response from Jersey, a specialist in all things mechanical and explosive.
In a flash, it's called out that the trip wire has been disabled so the team can move further into the house.
"Too fucking easy," Griffin repeats, making my skin crawl with anticipation.
"Maybe Damien is just stupid," I murmur, already celebrating them pulling my son from that fucking house of horrors.
But now isn't the time to be making plans for the future. I don't even know what Aspen will want when all of this is over. She could consider my job puts her in just as much danger as the organization that Damien controls, leaving her with no other choice but to try and cut me off. I won't listen, of course. There isn't a place on this earth I wouldn't crawl to in order to find my son and be a part of his life.
Her claiming that she would've chosen me all those years ago doesn't mean that she wants me now, and I'd be a fool to try and read between the lines in this moment.
Plus, is there a chance if we kill Damien that she'll want to stay a part of her father's criminal kingdom? She seems to see her father differently from the evidence she's been presented with from Samuel. I think that cuts a little deeper than anything else because she was there when her father ordered me dead. If that isn't proof enough that her father was an evil man, then there would be no convincing her of that fact now.
I watch as the two men sitting near the two tied in the center of the room drop to the floor.
The boy in the chair cries, tears running down his face as sobs rattle his tiny body.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes because that child is not Eli.
" It was a fucking trap ," Hound says, realizing the kid isn't Eli.
I want to rage inside the SUV. I want to climb out and burn that fucking house to the ground.
It becomes very clear, very fast, when I hear the mention of the amount of explosives in the house that Damien fully expected to kill the boy, the man tied up beside him, and the men guarding the house when the wire was tripped. Hell, it might've killed the neighbors as well. He wanted whoever was there to deal with the aftermath to believe that he killed Eli in the explosion.
" Bomb's clear ," Jersey says, and everyone in the SUV moves into action.
I wait, sitting in the middle seat with my head in my hands.
Chatter continues, and everyone's voices come through loud and clear in my ears as they all try to assess the situation.
The man tied up beside the boy is no help. He was pulled off the street two days ago and has no fucking clue what's going on. He doesn't know who the boy is. They weren't together and they were transported to the house separately.
" Aiden Crown ," Casper says into the mic. " He was taken from a playground two hours away. I'm contacting authorities ."
" This is a fucking mess ," Ace says. " Four dead, an abducted man, and a kidnapped child ."
I know there will be a ton of red tape, but that doesn't concern me. I know this situation has to be assessed. There is a chance we might find something here that was overlooked and that could possibly lead us to where Damien is actually holding Eli, but the wait is fucking brutal.
"Look," someone says, and I lift my head out of my hands to grab the tablet Griffin left behind. "Is that who I think it is?"
" Where did you find that ?" I recognize Hemlock's voice.
" It was in the pocket of one of the guards out front ."
On the screen is a picture of a teenage boy and a note.
" Motherfucker ," Hemlock says.
The note reads, I know I have to die, but please find my son .
The boy in the picture was the deceased young man who was discovered in the first grave one of the teams found. This man sacrificed his life today in vain. His son was already gone and had been for a while.
" Jesus fuck ," Jersey whispers and I hear a round of grunts from several men who agree with him.
I climb out of the SUV and make my way toward the house.
"Found a note and a picture of the little girl on one of the other guards," someone else says.
He doesn't have to mention who the little girl is. We all know it's the one who was also found deceased.
"Gaines is a sick fuck," Hemlock says, his eyes landing on me as I cross the front yard toward the entrance of the house.
"He's tying up loose ends," I say as I walk up and look down at the dead guard on the front porch. "Poor bastard."
" Umm, guys ?" We all pause at the sound of Casper's voice. "We might need some help here."
Through the mic, I can also hear the growl of another man's voice, which normally wouldn't bother me, but then the tiniest whimper comes through, and I'm out of there.
Somehow Hemlock is right beside me as we haul ass back to base several blocks away. It seems we both thought it would be a waste of time to grab one of the vehicles to get there.
By the time we rush inside the house we commandeered for this situation, Aspen is curled up on the sofa with Nyx standing over her.
"I'll fucking kill him," I say as we enter, but Hemlock gets between the two of us.
"How many fucking kids have to die before you tell the fucking truth?" Nyx yells at Aspen, who is covering her head with her arms as if she suspects the man is going to hit her. I can honestly say I don't know that he won't.
The man seems like a ticking time bomb to me.
"This isn't helpful," Hemlock says as he grabs Nyx's shoulder to pull him away from Aspen.
The look in the man's eyes is feral when he spins to face Hemlock, and I can see that he's a little deranged.
It takes Hemlock stepping in even closer and demanding that he back the fuck down for the guy to snap out of whatever rage he was trapped in.
"She fucking knows something," Nyx snaps. "You don't spend the better part of a decade with a man and not know where he goes to hide."
"Take a fucking walk," Hemlock says, an evenness to his voice I don't possess.
Nyx looks back at Aspen one last time, and Hemlock has to grab me by the arm not to follow the motherfucker out of the house.
I don't know that man's story, but I have a gut feeling there's something that fucked him up beyond repair, and that is still controlling some of his behaviors today. With the way he just acted, I don't know if any of us can trust him to keep his shit together when it's most important and that makes him detrimental to our team.