Chapter Two
Mao
“No. Absolutely not. Don’t even think about asking me again. And whatever you told Mom to get her to give you this number, forget it, because I’m changing it the moment I get off this call.” Mao glared at his satellite phone.
His emergency phone. The phone which had a private number that, until ten minutes before, only one person knew—Mom. So, when he answered, to say he was pissed off hearing his brother Ben’s voice, was an understatement.
“It is an emergency, and I wouldn’t have had to pressure Mom for a number for you if you’d answered any of the dozen calls me and Beaumont have made to your regular phone in the past week.
” Ben was always the smooth talker of the family.
Mao preferred to keep his sentences short and oftentimes preferred not talking at all.
“This job through the council isn’t just a regular hit job ordered by someone with an ego who wants a big boom.
The keywords for this one are finesse and discretion, and you’re the best guy for the job. ”
“Doesn’t make any difference. I won’t work for the council.
” Mao perched his butt on a rock, staring out over the Scottish Highlands.
He couldn’t pronounce the name of the mountain he’d was climbing, but what he did know was that there wasn’t another person around for miles.
Just the way he liked it. “After all that business went down with Teilo and Nico and how they were found… for fuck’s sake, Ben, I thought you’d walked away from that shit because of your mates. ”
Mao shuddered, glad in that moment that Ben couldn’t see him, shudder and swallow the bile in his throat.
He’d seen a lot of horrible things in his life and his work, but it would take a dozen lifetimes to forget the state of Teilo and Nico when they were found…
in Mao’s backyard. Not literally, of course, the jungle close enough to count in Mao’s head.
“The council are a bunch of shits who have no clue what they’re doing, and worse, they don’t give a shit about the people they’re meant to protect. Why would I want to do a job for them?”
“Beaumont is working to change that as well you know! And this is to do with the shifter records,” Ben said quietly, as if afraid of being overheard, which was silly in Mao’s opinion. The man lived on a warded island with his mates—away from civilization.
“What about them?” Mao’s whole body stiffened.
He’d heard about the records, of course, even seen some of them.
A small portion of the records were with the krakens.
Some were down in the depths of the sea, protected by a natural kraken, and the others were in a hidden bunker.
As far as Mao knew, barely anyone knew where that bunker even was.
It wasn’t like it showed up on Google Maps.
“The krakens have children now, and they’re worried about people prying into their business. They want the bunker blown up. Discreetly. Quietly.”
“What the fuck?” Mao was on his feet again. The ledge he was on not that wide, and it really didn’t give him the room to pace like he wanted to, his panther would ensure he never fell despite that. “There are hundreds of thousands of individual shifter records in that bunker.”
“Exactly, and if people go looking for information about the krakens, then they might find the rest. That’s why—”
“Hang on a minute. You’re telling me that all because of four or five… how many are there? Five. Five krakens are worried about their secrets getting out, they want the records of all those shifters destroyed—”
“They’ve got kids, now,” Ben persisted. “Of course, they want to protect them.”
“You… you…” At a loss Mao became tempted to throw his phone off the damn ledge at how damn angry he was. “You got the records for Teilo and Nico, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and the details—”
“I don’t need to know the details,” Mao cut him off quickly.
If Ben went down memory lane, he’d never shut up and Mao had enough nightmares over what they’d found when they’d searched for Ben’s mates.
“You have the details about your mates who were part of the program that was instigated, paid for, and managed by the fucking council, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And the Thalassas, the krakens, they got all the records that pertained to them from the boat and the bunker, too, yes?”
“Yes, you know that already. Todd has put them all into a computer database—”
“Which is just as likely to be hacked as it is someone to stumble over that bunker. Ben, stop and think for a minute. Think beyond the lives of your mates and your friends right now and think about the lives of the thousands of other shifters in those records. The records still in that bunker.”
Ben was quiet for a moment, and Mao checked his phone screen, but the call hadn’t dropped. “A lot of those shifters would be dead,” Ben said at last. “You know yourself, so many shifter kids died because of that assassin program…”
“Not all of them, otherwise you wouldn’t be happily mated right now.
” Ben’s gasp let Mao know that was a low blow, but it needed saying.
“This is why I’m asking you to think about what you’re doing for a moment.
” Mao lowered his voice. “Can’t you see that blowing up all those records could be denying ten, a hundred, maybe a thousand or more shifters the right to know what happened to them—why they were taken from their families, what experiments were done on them… the whole thing.
“Those are not just paper records, bro. Those records are information about real shifter lives. If only one person was looking for information about where they came from and who their family was, and why they went through hell, and you and I both know they went through, I should not destroy them. It is incredibly cruel to those innocent shifters who have a right to know.”
Ben’s sigh was long and heartfelt. Mao always knew his brother was a caring man, even if he did find himself swept up in other people’s crazy ideas sometimes. “So, are we all good now, bro? Can I get back to what I was doing before I was rudely interrupted?”
“I can’t let this go.” The sadness in Ben’s tone stopped Mao hitting the end call button.
“I’m really sorry. I totally understand your thoughts on this, and for what it’s worth, I think you’re right.
But the mere fact that the information is there, in that bunker, is dangerous to the shifters that are living their best lives now, can’t you see?
“It’s not only the family records in those files, but it is also details about the experiments conducted on them—what worked and what didn’t.
Details any unscrupulous person could use to try again.
The Thalassas have a right to be scared, Mao.
As a species, they’re meant to be extinct and instead they’re having babies. ”
“The krakens can take care of their own. They always could. It is why most people think they’re extinct.” Mao wasn’t going to be swayed by the idea of little kraken babies… although they would probably be cute.
“It’s not just the krakens either. It’s the assassins. Think about Marvin and his son, or Wyatt and James and their two little girls.”
Mao snorted. “I hardly think Wyatt and Devil will allow anyone near their two cuties. And Marvin’s mate is another assassin who can protect his family.
“Ben, why can’t the Thalassa’s just leave well alone. That information is kept for a reason. Someone took the time to keep it safe from prying eyes, so why can’t it just stay that way?”
“Because it’s too risky, and now there are kids involved. You are the best person for this task because you will be mindful of what it means, you know this.”
Ben wasn’t just blowing smoke up his ass, Mao knew that.
Mao got his reputation because of how careful he was with his work, and there wasn’t anything he couldn’t explode, or implode, or blow up into a million pieces if that’s what the job required.
And Mao wasn’t heartless—he cared about keeping kids safe as much as his brothers.
“If I take the job,” he said slowly, “and that’s a big if, is there any way one of the krakens with their fancy tech equipment can get in there first and record all the details so they’re not lost?
They already chose not to retrieve the records that were on the ship before they sank it,” he pointed out recalling Markov and his mate Cassius had done that.
“They retrieved what they could. And there are too many of them in the bunker,” Ben said sadly.
“And having the krakens going anywhere near that place could bring attention to the bunker that none of us need. Look, for what it’s worth, I would’ve told Beaumont to go to hell when he asked me to get in touch with you, except this touch's family.”
“Family? How are you making that connection? Did one of our brothers catch himself another random kraken as a mate? Did Tendua find one in London?”
“As if.” Ben laughed heartily at their confirmed bachelor brother.
“I don’t think he’ll ever look for a mate.
In terms of family, what do you call the assassins?
I’m mated to two of them, and Kylo snagged one of his own in Conrad.
Conrad’s part of Marvin’s family—from an assassin's perspective—and Marvin was found and brought back to civilization by Kelvin, one of the Thalassa brothers. Beaumont is also mated to another one of the assassin family with his mate, Duron. Circles with circles there is no escaping the family connections can you see? It’s our duty, something Mom and Dad instilled in us since we were small, to look after and protect family. ”
“I think your definition of family is being stretched awfully thin.” Mao was only putting off the inevitable because it was a family no matter his grumbling. He’d also do the job, because if it had to be done, then it had to be done well. It didn’t mean Mao had to like it.
“Mom and Dad would never turn away a person in need,” Ben said softly, pushing like always. “I like to think they raised all their sons the same way.”
“Yes, well, I also thought Mom understood the concept of privacy. How if I give her a private number it is not to be shared with anyone else, except in a case of a genuine family emergency, that she wouldn’t just give it to you because you asked her.” He was nit picking because he was giving in.
“She doesn’t want what happened to Teilo and Nico to happen to anyone else.”
Sucker punch—Mao felt it right through his gut because that is exactly the sort of thing Mom would think.
She adored Ben’s mates and considered herself their mom, too.
“Fine, I’ll do it, but I’m not dealing with Beaumont, Duron, or anyone else on the council.
I vowed I would never work for the council again, and I meant it.
The job will go through you, or not at all. ”
“I’m retired,” Ben protested, except Mao could tell from his tone he was pleased.
“So am I, or at least I should be on vacation, except annoying brothers keep calling me on numbers they shouldn’t have.
My rate for this job is double my current executive rate—half in advance, half when the job is done, and no refunds no matter what happens.
” He named an amount that had Ben whistling down the other end of the phone. “Deal?”
“Yeah, but you’re paying for dinner the next time we go out. I didn’t know you were loaded.”
“I’m careful with my money.” Another topic Mao preferred not to talk about.
“I do the job in my own time. I need to scout out the area, make sure no one else is living anywhere near the bunker. I’ll head for the location when the deposit is in my account, and I’ll contact you when I’m done.
Not before. Understood? No calling me for updates. ”
“Yeah, bro. Understood and thanks. Knowing you’re on the job is going to put a lot of minds at ease on this end. Later.”
Ben ended the call, but Mao stood in the same spot for a long time afterward, looking out over the misty hills feeling like he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life.
This is not going to go well, he thought as he finally made his way down the mountain and back to civilization. He had a plane ride to organize.