Chapter 34
FELIX
“How are they one step ahead?” Dove snaps, twisting her hands together in her lap as we race through the city streets. “I thought you and Bree were on top of this! I thought you both had every avenue covered?!”
“We did.”
She turns to face me, her eyes as sharp as daggers. “Then how the hell did that bastard get a hold of my son?!”
I wish I had answered.
Reese’s phone call threat was followed by a picture of proof and the wounded noise that escaped Dove at seeing her son beaten and tied up will haunt me forever. It plays in my mind even now, repeating on a look with every lurch and swerve of Toph’s expert driving.
“I don’t know.”
“Then what use are you?” Anger heats her words, and she turns back in her seat, gazing out the windscreen and chewing on her lower lip. Every muscle is tense like they’re about to burst right out of her skin, every movement rigid and controlled.
I have no clue how Reese managed to stay one step ahead of us.
Bree and I have been working tirelessly, searching and tracking everything we can think of. There were no hits from Alex’s phone, no hits from any of his friends, no sightings other than the gas station; how did he get him?
My leg begins to rock back and forth the closer we get to the warehouse district, the location Reese demanded we come and meet him.
There wasn’t enough time to organize more than a strike squad and when we meet him, I’ll do everything I can to delay whatever happens in order for Bree’s men to get into position.
But deep down, I’m not sure any of it will matter.
Dove’s one and only concern is her son.
There’s nothing she won’t do for him.
That kind of love and dedication is so fucking rare, yet it’s written all over her tired, beautiful face.
Reese has to know what kind of monster he’s unlocking inside her by threatening her child and he’s bound to be prepared.
There’s no way I can be prepared for how Dove may react. All I can do is help her and back her up, and pray there’s a way out of this with both of them intact.
“Dove!”
She’s already out of the car before Toph’s hand time to properly stop and after lurching out of my seat, I chase after her.
Due to her injuries, I manage to catch up with her just outside the heavy doors leading into the warehouse and I grab the back of her arm.
Dove spins to face me with fire in her eyes and my gut tightens.
“Let go of me,” she snarls with fury that isn’t really meant for me.
“We have to play this smart, Dove. I can’t have you just running in there and walking into a trap!”
“I have no choice!”
She tries to twist her arm out of my grip but I use it to bring her closer and clutch at her opposite shoulder with my other hand. “Yes you do!”
“No, Felix. I don’t. You don’t understand it. Alex is in there. My son. My baby. I will do everything I can to get him back and I don’t expect you to understand because—!”
“I do understand!” I cut her off as loudly as I dare.
“Alex is my son too. I don’t have the years of love or bonding with him that you do and I’m not trying at all to insert myself here, Dove.
But I have you. I love you. Back then, I would have moved heaven and hell just to have you back with me.
I would have started wars all across the city just to have you back in my arms, do you hear me?
Losing you broke me. I never knew I could love as intently or as obsessively as I did with you but you consumed me, Dove.
You were a drug I happily hooked myself on because nothing about this world was worth living without you.
But I lost you and now I have you back.”
My grip tightens on her shoulders and her eyes widen, darting back and forth as she holds my gaze.
“What I would do back then pales in comparison to what I would do now to keep you with me. I might not feel that for Alex, yet. But I feel it for you and I won’t let you kill yourself trying to save him. You’re not alone anymore, either, Dove. I’m right here.”
Her eyes flicker as if trying to hold back tears and her lips part, her lower one slick with saliva and slightly swollen from her worrying.
“You’re asking me to trust you,” Dove says hoarsely.
I nod.
“Then you need to trust me too.” She shrugs off my hold and this time I let her as a couple of my men have finally caught up. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I do trust you,” I reply quietly. What I don’t trust is how far she will go to save Alex, because I’d go just as far to save her.
“Then help me get my son back.” She straightens up slightly, then clears her throat when she finally notices Toph and a few others around me. “Reese asked for us to come alone.”
“I know.” I glance back at Toph who, with one nod, slips away with my men and melts into the shadows to put their plan into action. Reese is not leaving this warehouse alive.
The door creaks with rust and age when Dove hauls it open, and together we walk through a small, worn-down reception area.
Wires and cables hang from the ceiling, torn and dirty paper covers the floor, the reception desk is overturned and shoved against one wall, and several warped metal frames from old chairs litter the path from the front door to the next doorway.
One door hangs from the top hinge with the other missing entirely.
This place hasn’t seen life in years.
Past the broken door, we walk across a wide open stone floor, through darkness broken up by spots of sunlight creeping through the torn and broken rafters above.
Several overturned shelves litter the ground near the walls and a sharp, chemical smell catches in the back of my throat with every breath.
Dove walks in front, striding with purpose until she halts so suddenly that I almost walk into her.
“Well,” comes Reese’s snakey voice. “About fucking time. Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything when I called.”
Dove goes rigid as if her spine has suddenly formed into a steel bar, and her gaze becomes one capable of turning people to stone. Reese stands a few feet away with a black gun in one hand, pressed firmly to the temple of Alex.
Poor Alex is visibly petrified, with tears streaking down his cheeks and soaking into the cloth gag around his mouth.
He jolts in the metal chair he’s bound to when he locks eyes with Dove, then whimpers as Reese presses the gun a little more firmly against his skull.
“If you hurt him—,” Dove begins but she’s cut off by Reese.
“Oh my god shut the fuck up! Did you come here thinking you could threaten me into giving Alex to you? You’ve been out of the game for a long time, bitch.
You’re not in control here and I sure as shit don’t fear the fucking Nightingale.
” He purses his lips and spits on the ground with a grunt. “Fucking ghost story.”
“You might not fear her,” I warn him in a low, cold voice. “But you sure as fuck better fear me.”
“Awwh Felix.” He pouts dramatically. “Are you still bad that all this time you thought I was your friend but actually I was Caterina’s friend?
She’s not one to share, you know that. Y’know, if you had actually listened to me and made some of those deals yourself, you might have become bigger than her.
Then I might have switched loyalties once she washed into obscurity, but you always just had that big, gigantic Nico-shaped chip on your shoulder.
” He laughs dryly. “Man, she played you like a fucking fiddle. How does it feel knowing who he truly was? You dedicated your whole life to the memory of a man like that?”
Every word is a threat, a taunt that drives the needles of irritation deeper and deeper into my skin.
I want to kill him.
I want to tear him limb from limb and make him stop talking because he’s a fucking rat drunk on power and I want to take it from him.
But that anger is softened by the utter distress of Alex between us and something warm and unfamiliar curls just underneath my ribs. A determination to get him out alive.
“You talk a lot,” Dove remarks. “Assholes who talk a lot are just trying to fill the void of their insecurities. Is this the first time you’ve had a little power? I can tell. You’re like a kid in his very first candy store and you know what that stinks off?” Dove breathes deeply. “Insecurity.”
“Insecurity?” Reese takes the bait immediately.
“Fuck you! If I were insecure in any way, it wouldn’t be me standing here with a gun to your kid’s head.
But I was the one who picked up on his phone call.
I was the one who tracked him long before you two made your shitty fucking escape.
I was the one with the foresight to keep tracking his little bestie's number in case he called. I mean, who the fuck calls their dead friend?!”
Reese’s laughter echoes around the warehouse and Dove shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
Now it makes sense.
Bree and I never found anything on Alex because Reese had Alex before we escaped and started the search.
It never crossed my mind that we couldn’t find him because they already had him.
Caterina’s test to see if I killed Dove must have been the final nail before the reveal, a reveal that Toph gloriously fucked up.
“Wow, you look like shit,” comes Toph’s voice from behind Reese.
“Toph?!” Reese spins around but his gun never shifts against Alex’s temple. “Fucking hell. A triple agent, huh? I never saw that coming.”
“You should have,” Toph remarks. “If you knew anything about me then you would have seen right through my lie. My loyalty to Felix was never up for bargain.”
Now we have him surrounded. All we need to do is get Alex away from him and this will all be over.
“Mom,” Alex wails suddenly, having shifted the gag off his mouth with frantic jaw movements. “Mom, I'm so sorry! I was scared, I was so scared and I just wanted to hear a friendly voice so I called Mike—!”
“It’s okay, honey!” Dove can’t stop her voice from breaking. “It’s all okay honey. I swear. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong?” Reese turns back to us with a sneer. “He called his dead friend and walked right into my arms. How fucking stupid did you raise this kid?”
“Manipulating a fucking child is nothing to be proud of,” Dove growls. “It’s lower than low. But that’s where you’ll always be, Reese. You’ll always be the little fucking rat scurrying for crumbs, eager for acknowledgement that will never come.”
“You’re surrounded,” I pipe up, barely able to contain the knot of heat growing in my chest. “Give it up and you might still walk away.”
Reese presses the barrel hard against Alex’s temple and he whimpers, sending a ripple of tension through the entire room.
“I’m not surrounded,” Reese snarls. “You think I came here alone? But it doesn’t matter because I’ll be walking out of here without issue. Wanna know why?”
Dove and I exchange a brief glance and both her hands curl into fists. “Enlighten us,” she mutters.
“You’re coming with me.” He nods at Dove.
“It’s pretty simple. I have Alex. Caterina wants you.
She wants you because she hates you, she hates that you killed her son and she hates that Felix loves you.
So she’s going to take you, and you’ll spend the rest of your days not knowing if Felix has done a good enough job keeping Alex safe or if he’s already dead in a gutter somewhere.
So I’m here for an exchange, Dove. Alex goes free and you come with me. ”
“Over my dead body,” I snarl heatedly but Dove cuts over me without a second thought.
“Okay.”
“Okay?! Dove, you can’t!”
She turns to me and despite the pain in her eyes, there’s warmth in her smile. “You remember what you said to me outside?”
“That doesn’t matter, Dove. We have him in our crosshairs, there will be another way out of this!”
“Will there?” Reese sucks on his upper teeth. “I get tired easily and one slip and I’ll just— pow!” He mocks shooting Alex and Alex whimpers, choking on his tears.
A visible ripple of pain moves through Dove and she steps away from me. “I can take care of myself,” she says. “I need you to take care of what I love.”
“Dove!”
She walks forward and as I move to chase her, Reese’s eyes narrow and he slides his gun to Alex’s throat, glaring at me.
“One more move, Felix, and you’ll be bathing in his blood.”
Fuck!
How can she expect me to stand here and just let her hand herself back to those monsters? I glance at Toph, who is just as pained as I am, but his aim on Reese relies on him getting a shot off and not triggering a reflexive squeeze of the trigger from the bastard as he goes down.
Any move risks Alex’s life and I can’t do that to Dove.
“You can untie him,” Reese remarks as Dove reaches him.
“And before you get any clever ideas about using those killer moves on me, I’m not the only one aiming at your precious boy.
Sure, you could take me down but one of my guys will take Alex with me and I guarantee your boyfriend hasn’t removed all the threats. ”
I meet Toph’s gaze once more, and he gives a subtle shake of his head. Reese is right. My men haven’t completed their sweep so even if Reese is talking shit, we can’t take the risk.
Dove doesn’t reply. She simply kneels and unties Alex’s hands from the chair, then Alex immediately latches onto her with a sob.
“Mom!”
“It’s okay honey,” she replies, her voice betraying how close to tears she is. “Felix will take good care of you, okay? I promise. I promise it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he wails, gasping desperately for air.
“I know, I know. Go, Felix will help you. On you go.”
Watching them tear themselves apart breaks my heart in such a sharp, unexpected way that I almost can’t breathe. Alex stumbles away from Dove and hurries toward me as Toph moves around Reese and reaches my side.
“Hey buddy,” Reese sneers, waving one hand at Toph while grabbing Dove by a handful of hair and jerking her against him, his gun pressing hard against her skull. “Wow, you smell good.”
“Take Alex outside,” I murmur to Toph, not taking my eyes off Reese for a second.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Reese grins. “Best you stay here until I’m out of here. Don’t want you getting any ideas about being heroic or anything like that. Maybe take this time to… I dunno. Return to your criminal routes. You were never built for love anyway.”
I lock eyes with Dove. Her face remains expressionless as she’s dragged away but she doesn’t look away from me either.
“I’m coming for you,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster. “I’m coming to kill you, Reese. You and that fucking Queen bitch. I’ll kill you!”
And I’m coming for you, Dove.
Heaven’s angels can’t keep me away.