Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
PETE
Everything seems to explode at once. First, Elias is shot, then the agents move in as the smoke surrounds us. I lose sight of Jagger and Wren, then I’m pushed to the ground, my hands cuffed behind my back.
I cough, the smoke so thick I can’t see anything anymore.
“Wren!” I yell, hoping to at least hear her voice, but even her screams of Elias’s name have grown quiet.
Fucking shit, we’re really in trouble this time.
I hear the others coughing around me as I’m told not to move. Someone speaks into a radio. “I need medics in here, we have an agent down.” Were they referring to Elias? I don’t remember hearing any other gunshots.
The smoke starts to thin, and I notice Sly and Dex in the same position as me, on their stomachs with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
“You okay?” I ask Sly when his eyes connect with mine.
He nods. “Can you see Wren or Jagger?” He shakes his head, then looks around from his restrained position as I do the same.
The smoke is dissipating fast, and my heart starts to hammer in my chest, knowing something is wrong before my head does.
“Where is she?” I yell to anyone who will listen, but nobody answers.
I watch as two medics rush in and kneel at Elias’s side, immediately cutting his shirt open so they can get to the wound in his shoulder.
Blood is covering his skin, and I hiss at the sight. “Elias, shit man, are you okay?”
“Do I look like I’m okay?” he asks through clenched teeth.
“No, you look like you’ve been shot in the shoulder.”
“Fuck!” he yells when they press something against the wound.
“We need to get him to the hospital,” one of the medics informs the agents watching over them. He waves for a stretcher to be brought out.
Elias starts looking around him, and I see the panic in his eyes. “Where the hell is she?!” he yells.
“She’s gone, they took her,” the agent standing over him says, sounding calm but also frustrated.
“What do you mean? Who took her?” Elias asks, eyes narrowed on the agent.
“Ivan’s men. They took Jason, too.” Jason? Right, that was Jagger’s real name. Why would Ivan take them both?
“Fuck, I need to get to my laptop!”
“The only place you’re going is the hospital,” the agent tells him firmly.
Elias glances at the rest of us cuffed on the ground, with no ability to help. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.
“I want to make a deal,” he says, his unwavering gaze steady on the agent in charge.
“You’re not in much of a position to do any bargaining,” he fires back.
“I can get you Ivan.”
The man stares at him silently for an extended beat before he asks, “What’s changed now? You’ve been tracking his movements for years.”
“Look, I know how this shit works—ow!” he hisses as he’s lifted onto the stretcher. “But with their help,” he gestures to the three of us. “We can get inside Ivan’s home and get you the name of every contact on his list.”
I see the interest in the agent's eyes as he stares him down. When he doesn’t answer, Elias keeps negotiating. “You won’t just get rid of Ivan, you’ll be able to track down every person involved with his criminal activity.”
“You expect us to just let these three escaped convicts,” he says, gesturing to us, “and you, an FBI traitor, go free?”
“Yes,” Elias replies boldly. There’s no way the agent’s going to go for this. “You know Robert framed these three; they never should have been convicted in the first place.”
“A court of law would disagree,” the agent replies dryly.
“Doesn’t make it any less true. You know better than most what Robert was capable of, Simmons,” Elias says, confirming he knows the other agent.
“Was?”
“You’ll find him inside, dead.” The agent glances at the house again as the stretcher is raised. “Simmons, please. You know me. Let me help you end this once and for all.”
The agent takes a deep breath before he answers. “I can’t promise anything. I need to speak with the deputy director first.” He turns to the medic and nods as he steps out of their way.
We’re pulled to our feet, and we follow behind them. I watch as they load Elias into the ambulance. His head starts to lull to the side, and I’m suddenly reminded why he’s injured in the first place. He jumped in front of a bullet to save Dex.
And now, he was trying to save our asses from prison… again.
“Elias!” I yell as they secure his stretcher inside. His eyes find mine, and I give him a nod of gratitude, hoping he understands what I’m unable to say right now. “Get better quickly, okay?”
He smirks back at me. “'Cause you need me to get your sorry asses out of jail?”
“No,” I reply, immediately shaking my head. “Because you’re one of us, and we need you.”
With that, the back doors of the ambulance are slammed shut, and the three of us are led to the back of a transport van, equipped with two benches along either wall, facing each other.
Dex is placed on one side, his cuffs attached to a clip behind him, before they do the same to Sly and me across from him.
The doors slam shut, and I let out a breath, leaning my head back against the wall. “Well, that was a fucking shit show.”
“Why did he do that?” Dex asks, making me lift my head to look at him in question. “Elias. Why did he take a bullet for me?”
I tilt my head as I consider it. Would I have done the same for Dex?
I know the answer instantly. Yes, I would.
I’d do it for any of the guys. But Elias?
I’m not sure if I would have done it before today.
But knowing that he took a bullet for Dex and saved Wren from being… violated, solidifies the change.
“He’s one of us now,” I tell them with a nod of my head as they both turn their eyes to me. “He took a bullet for you because he cares. What further proof do you need of his true motives with us?”
Sly presses his lips together in a tight line before he speaks. “He’s in love with Wren.”
“Aren’t we all?” I ask with a smirk.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Dex shakes his head as he answers. “It never bothered me as long as she still has room for me in her heart. And now he’s shown us that he’s truly one of us, he deserves to be fully inducted into The Night Stalkers.”
I snort. “Is that what you’re calling our group?”
“It’s a working name,” he says with a shrug.
“You’re assuming Wren even likes Elias like that,” Sly says, steering us back to the topic at hand.
Dex and I share a knowing grin. “You don’t need to worry about that,” I say before resting my head back against the wall. “Let’s just worry about Elias being able to convince the feds to let us go after her.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Sly mumbles as the van engine rolls to life and we start moving.
Eventually, we find ourselves escorted to a holding cell in the feds' local field office, where we’re kept for the next two days. I expected to be questioned, but we were left alone, aside from being brought three meals a day.
We keep asking what’s happening, if Elias is okay, and if they know what happened to Wren, but they refuse to tell us anything; they just eye us nervously and walk away.
“This is inhumane!" I yell through the bars. “These guys stink, we need showers!”
“Speak for yourself,” Dex says, doing another pushup on the hard floor. “I smell delightful.”
“Stop working out!” I yell in exasperation. “You’re just making it worse!”
“I need to be ready,” he says without stopping his set.
I let out a breath and sink to the cot beside Sly as we watch Dex silently.
“Besides,” he says, moving to one-armed pushups, tucking his left hand behind his back with a grin. “Wren loves my body. She’d be upset if I got small like you two.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “Rude.”
Several pairs of loud footsteps have us all turning toward the hall. Two familiar agents head in our direction, so we all stand and wait. They aren’t carrying food, and we just ate an hour ago, so this is about something else. Are they going to start interrogating us?
“Move back, and don’t try anything,” Agent Simmons tells us as he steps up to the cell door. We all take two steps back, and he watches us carefully as he slips the key in the lock and turns it.
He pushes the door wide as someone steps out from behind the other agent with a determined glint in his brown eyes.
“You boys ready for a rescue mission?”
“Elias! You’re okay!” I say, eyeing the white sling around his left arm.
He looks down at his hand as he squeezes it into a fist, then wiggles his fingers, showing he has full movement there. “Yeah, the bullet went straight through my shoulder, missed anything important, luckily. The sling is for support while it heals.”
“You aren’t in handcuffs,” Sly says, noticing that he is, in fact, not bound, nor are they pushing him in with us.
Elias grins, his eyes bouncing between us as he confirms what we’ve been waiting two days to hear. “I’ve made a deal. We go in and get them the list of associates, and they’ll let us all walk away.”
“Seriously?” I ask in surprise. “We won’t have to go back to prison?”
Simmons shakes his head. “No. Agent—” he cuts himself off, remembering Elias isn’t any agent anymore. “Mr. Sinclair is a very good negotiator. We figure you’ll either get us that info, which is more valuable than the four of you, or you’ll die trying.”
Dex frowns at him. “The only ones going down are Ivan and his lackeys.”
“Save your trash talk for your real enemy, Berserker,” Simmons says, taking a step away from the door. “You’re all free to go.” He gestures toward the open cell, and Dex and my eyebrows rise in surprise.
“Just like that?” I ask as I step forward first. “No trackers, no blood oaths?”
“Elias has been part of the bureau for years just to watch over that girl. So I have no doubt in my mind that the only place he is going is wherever Ivan is.”
“You don’t know where he is?” Sly asks in alarm as he follows me out of the cell.
Simmons shakes his head. “We lost him straight away. Looks like you boys have your work cut out for you.”
I follow Elias silently as he leads us to a set of stairs and down two flights to the ground level. Outside a black SUV very similar to the one we first started our adventure in sits parked by the curb.
“This is our ride,” Elias says, holding up the key fob. “Who wants to drive? I would, but…” he motions to his arm, and Dex grabs the key from him and moves quickly to the driver's seat, with Elias sitting beside him and Sly and me in the back.
Elias plugs an address into the nav, and I recognize it as the safe house we were staying at.
We’re all quiet as Dex navigates through the busy streets, and I keep glancing at the empty row of seats behind us. “Why do you keep looking back there?” Sly asks, as he takes a look himself. “Are we being followed?”
“It’s not that,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “It’s just too quiet in here. I miss her.”
He nods, and I know he feels the same.
“I wonder where she is right now. Do you think she’s okay?”
“Ivan won’t kill her,” Elias tells us. That’s not exactly reassuring, as there are a lot of terrible things he can do to her while she’s alive.
“What about Jagger?” Dex asks.
Elias doesn’t answer straight away, which isn’t a good sign, before he finally says, “I’m not sure.”
We’re all quiet for the rest of the trip, all lost in our own thoughts.
As soon as we reach the safe house, Elias practically runs inside, grabs his laptop, and sits at the table. He yanks the sling off and starts tapping away, his eyes inches from the screen as his hands fly across the keys.
“What are you doing?” I ask curiously as I move up behind him.
“I’m checking her tracker.”
“She didn’t have her phone or watch,” I tell him, knowing we already went through this when he was taken with her by Robert. Fuck, our girl gets kidnapped way too often.
“I know.” He pauses for a second, his eyes meeting Sly’s, who’s standing across the table from us, watching him. “You know that necklace I gave her?” Sly nods slowly. “It’s a tracker.”
“I don’t know if I’m mad that you put that on her without telling her, or pleased that we have a way to track her,” I tell him, though the relief filling me tells me how I really feel.
“Let’s just see if it’s working before you decide,” he says, his fingers moving quickly. “Ohhhhhh fuck,” he curses.
“What?” I ask, trying to figure out what he’s looking at.
“What is it?”
“Where is she?” the other two ask at the same time as me as they move around to look at the screen. A small red dot flashes in the middle, but I can’t tell where it is.
He starts to zoom out… way out. It’s not until I see the entire continent that I understand where she is.
“She’s in Russia?!?” I ask in complete shock, my blood running cold at the thought of her being so far away.
A loud bang has my head lifting to see Dex pull his fist out of the wall. Elias frowns at the other holes there, but luckily doesn’t question it. I’m sure Dex is barely holding it together right now.
“Fuck!” I say, realizing how screwed we are. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“What do you think we do? We go get her,” Elias says, like it’s the most obvious answer.
“I still don’t understand why he took Jagger, too?” Sly asks. I’ve been wondering the same thing; he could have killed him or left him unconscious, but he took him.
“Why not kill him or knock him out?” I ask. “Is it for leverage against her?”
Elias pushes back his chair and stands, turning to face the three of us with a pinch between his brow. “There’s probably something you guys should know… about Jagger.”
“What is it?” I ask in confusion.
“Look, I was waiting for him to tell you guys, first. I didn’t think it was my place.”
“Spit it out, Elias,” Sly says angrily.
The hair on the back of my neck starts to tingle as I wonder what they’ve been keeping from us.
“You know I did background checks on you guys when you were in prison.” We nod. “I had to dig a little deeper with Jagger. His father, the one who was killed when he was only thirteen, wasn’t his biological father.” My eyebrows lift in surprise. I didn’t know that part.
“There was no name listed on his birth certificate. So, I did some investigating into his mother. Did you know she’s Russian?”
I feel goosebumps rise on my arms, as if my body already knows it’s about to hear something insane.
“She moved to the States when she was pregnant with Jagger and changed her name. It looked like she was running from something, or someone.”
“What are you saying?” Sly asks, worry tinging his tone.
“Jagger… he’s Ivan’s son.”
To be continued in My Crazy Killers…
Thank you so much for reading My Fearless Fugitives, I hope that cliffhanger doesn’t hurt to much! The good thing is you don’t have to wait long, My Crazy Killers comes out on March 27, 2026.