Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Rio
Watching Kayla walk away from us made my heart feel like someone had put it through the meat grinder, reshaped it, and shoved it back into my chest cavity. I couldn’t stomach the thought of losing another omega. I wouldn’t survive this if she was taken from us.
The hallway cleared, leaving me, Rylan, and Kane alone, the only sound the distant noise from the stadium. We walked in silence into the locker room, which was trashed, all of our bags and gear strewn about.
“Fuck.” Rylan dragged his hand down his face. “What are we going to do?”
We came together in the middle of the mess, our arms wrapping around each other’s shoulders, our foreheads coming together. Our bond was a mess with anxiety, anger, and fear. We needed to stick together now more than ever.
“We’re going to get our brother and omega back.” I leaned my weight on them and they did the same. Together we were strong and we’d make it through this.
“But what if-” Rylan started, pain in his voice.
“The lawyers are on getting Beck a quick hearing and release. I’ll request video footage from the hall to see if anyone came in when we weren’t in here.
” I squeezed their shoulders, then released them.
“Brian’s not going to admit to anything, so we’re going to have to come up with a plan in case there’s nothing on video and there are no fingerprints. ”
I pushed my turned-out duffle bag off the bench and sat down.
I didn’t understand why they had to make such a complete mess of our shit.
I wondered if they’d been to the house or if they had the proper documents to even do a search.
It was a Sunday, so it wasn’t like a ton of judges were working to grant permission.
“We torture his ass.” Rylan started to pick up his things off the floor. “Make some cuts and rub some lemon and salt on the wounds. He’ll tell us what we want to know.”
Kane sighed and took off his jersey before throwing it across the room in a ball. “Fuck this. Kayla was right. We’re fucking idiots. As soon as that whole thing went down with Omega Match, we should have been more cautious and done some digging into it.”
“No one expects someone they trust to be so deceptive.” I kicked off my cleats and pulled off my socks. “Let’s shower, then go see if Brian is still in the security office. I have his phone. We need to crack his passcode.”
“Let me see it.” Kane held out his hand and I held it out for him. “He uses a swipe password and I’ve seen him do it enough.”
The screen had a crack across it, but it had already buzzed several times since Alvaro had handed me it along with my phone after the game. If we could poke around in it before giving it back to him, maybe we could find something.
Kane swiped his finger in a pattern, cursed, then tried again. “See. Easy. Just had to try it a few different ways.” He handed it back to me and I felt hopeful we’d find something. “I’m going to go shower really quick.”
I opened up Brian’s text messages. There was a group text with us, a few others that looked to be business-related, and then one from someone named Brandie, who had sent quite a few over the last few hours. I read them out loud for Rylan and Kane to hear.
Brandie: Done.
Brandie: What happened? Are you okay?
Brandie: Do we need to worry? I told you to not be an asshole.
The conversation didn’t make sense out of context and with such vague messages. I pulled up his call log and saw she had been who he’d been talking to when Kayla had heard him talking about betting and she’d attacked.
Why did that name sound so familiar?
I went back to the message and took a second to think of what to say without drawing suspicion from her that it wasn’t Brian.
Me: Beck’s been arrested. OPS took Kayla.
Brandie: They don’t suspect anything?
Me: No. They’re fools. When can we expect the money?
Brandie: Tonight. I’ve arranged everything.
Me: What’s arranged exactly?
Brandie didn’t answer me back, and I cursed. Not even a second later, the phone rang with Brandie’s name appearing on the caller screen. I was going to take a risk.
“I’m going to answer and talk to her.” I cleared my throat and accepted the call. “What?” I whispered, making my voice a little less deep since Brian’s voice was higher.
“I didn’t want to put that in text. You’re deleting all the messages after you read them?” The voice sounded so familiar, but I just couldn’t figure out where I’d heard it before.
I quickly put her on speakerphone and unlocked my phone to pull up my video so I could record the call. “Yes.”
“My transport to the airport will be there to pick me up in a few hours. They think I’m going to go visit my family but will be landing in L.A. around nine. The money is being sent to the offshore account.”
What the fuck?
“Huh?”
“Jesus, Brian. Don’t you fucking listen? Are you still meeting me at the airport or do I need to get to your house?”
I made a grunt of confirmation as Kane’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. Rylan looked ready to punch something. I was feeling the same way.
Kane cleared his throat. “Brian, the press is waiting. Get off your damn phone.”
“I bet you’re glad you’ll be free of those ungrateful assholes. I can’t wait to finally be together, boo bear,” Brandie whined.
I cringed and made a kissing noise before ending the call and stopped my recording, a million emotions running through me at once.
“Who the fuck was that?” Kane asked, moving to his locker area and picking up some clothes to put on.
“Some chick named Brandie. Why is that name so familiar? Do we know a Brandie?”
Rylan shoved his gear into his bag. “Wasn’t that the name of the chick that answered at Omega Match when we called?”
“It was.” Kane growled. “That was a number Brian had given us.”
How long had those two been planning all of this? There were so many questions. “I’ll call our lawyers and have them get on to notifying OPS and the police about this. Kayla probably hasn’t even left the parking lot yet.”
I texted her quickly that we were working on getting her back. “Let’s go see what Brian has to say for himself.”
Thirty minutes later, we were leaving the stadium, and I still couldn’t believe the two alpha security guards had let Brian go. I thought of all people, they’d understand how serious tampering with an omega’s pills was.
They said they had no jurisdiction to detain him, and their protocol was to release people they detained if the police weren’t going to arrest someone. The police briefly questioned Brian, then said to let him go.
We had no idea what Brian was capable of, and who knew what he was going to get up to now. All I knew was I was on edge from not having Kayla with us. It was our job to protect her, and we’d failed miserably.
Did we even deserve her?
My phone rang as we pulled out of the back lot of the stadium, avoiding all the traffic. We could have used our regular driver to bring us to the game, but we wanted to have a vehicle to leave in as soon as we were done.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and glanced at the screen, seeing it was our publicist who had been handling canceling the press conference and rescheduling interviews. It was a shit show for her, but that was why we paid her good money.
“Here, I can’t concentrate with this traffic.” I swiped to answer and handed the phone to Rylan in the passenger seat, who put it on speaker.
“Hello? We have you on speakerphone. We just left the stadium and are going to hopefully pick up Beck if the lawyers can get the whole thing situated.” Rylan propped his elbow on the center console and turned the volume up so we could all hear.
“About that… I take it you guys haven’t heard. It’s all over the internet already.” Michelle sighed. “They took Beck to Ocean View Medical Center. He passed out in the back of the police car.”
We’d been so caught up in winning and then dealing with the police and OPS, we hadn’t thought to have the doctor check him over before they took him.
“Do you know anything else?” I asked, pulling into the left-hand turn lane so I could turn around to go the other way toward the hospital.
"They won’t release any information to me, but they should to you guys. Are you headed there now? Do you want me to meet you there?” I could hear Michelle’s high heels clicking wherever she was walking.
“No. Get some press releases prepared and in contact with the lawyers to see what they want to say about Beck being arrested as well as Brian’s termination and, hopefully, his arrest.”
“You guys are really making me work.” She laughed nervously. “I hope this all works out for your pack. I only spoke to Kayla for a few minutes, but she really is a good fit.”
“Thanks, Michelle.” Rylan hung up and put my phone in one of the cupholders. “Fuck!”
“It’s going to be okay. It’s just a concussion.” I didn’t feel so reassured by my own words but had to keep a level head. “We need to call Kayla and tell her.”
Kane was already on his phone. “Hey, Kayla girl. Beck’s been taken to Ocean View Medical. We’re on our way there now. We’ll call you when we have more information.” He hung up and tossed his phone on the seat. “It went to voicemail.”
“Her phone broke, remember?” I ran a hand down my face.
This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.