Chapter Three
Rex
W e don’t stick around much longer after dropping Moore in the shit with his new partner.
Riviera’s understandably pissed as fuck about what Moore has done; even with his history with Seth, I still feel bad for him being saddled with a partner like Moore.
I wouldn’t fucking wish that on my own worst enemy.
Hopefully, he won’t be stuck with him for long; god help his sanity if he is.
When Austin and I get back to my car, Seth is lost in thought. Which is exactly what I was expecting; there’s no way he doesn’t have every possible scenario to do with Everett being back going through his head.
The drive home is interesting; Seth wants to keep Everett’s return from Jake, at least for now.
He doesn’t want to be adding more worry to his plate when he’s already dealing with everything exploding in Flash’s life.
I understand his reasoning, but it doesn’t mean I agree.
Jake is going to be pissed as fuck when he finds out that he’s been kept in the dark, even if Seth’s heart is in the right place with what he’s doing.
We’re brothers. No matter what is going on in our lives, we’ll always be there for each other.
Seth is taking that away from Jake by staying quiet, and when Jake finds out, he’s going to make his opinion known.
Probably loudly and with lots of threats.
As we pull up in front of our home, all three of our phones vibrate at nearly the same time. I don’t bother pulling my phone out to look; them all going off like that means it’s a group text. More than likely, Jake, so I just wait for either Seth or Austin to tell me what he’s said.
“Jake wants us to watch Micah and send Piston to meet them at Flash’s parents’ place.” Austin says as he looks up from his phone.
“Are you two good with watching him? I want to work on Dre’s case. Things keep cropping up, stopping me from focusing.”
“That’s fine. These past couple of days have been a little mental. We know where to find you if we need you.” Austin says as he opens the car door and hops out.
“Have fun.” I say as I follow them out of my car and into the house, but I take the staircase that leads to my wing of the house instead of heading towards the kitchen like Seth and Austin.
Entering my office, I close the door behind me and head towards my desk.
I move all the files I currently have on Dre’s case to one side of my desk, not caring if they mix anymore.
There’s nothing useful to be found in them anyway.
I take my seat and open my secure laptop, typing in all my security codes so I have access to the full Khaos Information System, or KIS for short.
The moment I’m in the system, I type in Dre King’s name, but this time instead of focusing on his life now as an adult, I start at the very beginning.
There will be no stone left unturned. If something is connected to Dre in some way, I want to see it.
I want to study it. I will find some fucking answers as to what the everloving hell happened to him. I’m a stubborn fuck when I want to be.
Pulling up his birth certificate, I scan over the information and can’t help but stare at the names of his parents; something about their names is familiar.
I’ve seen them somewhere before, and it’s pissing me off that I can’t place it.
Where the fuck have I seen the names Beau and Annmarie King?
Why are their names pulling on something in my mind that’s just out of reach?
More than a little annoyed that I can’t recall the information I need, I pull up another search window, one that will scan KIS for Beau and Annmarie King in any of our case files.
Them being related in some way to a previous case I’ve worked is the only thing that makes any sense to me.
My entire life is consumed by my work. I can’t think of any other reason except for work that I’d recognize their names.
Letting the search continue in the background, I switch back over to Dre’s file.
As I scan through the information in front of me, nothing really jumps out and grabs my attention.
There’s nothing in his earlier years that would warrant anyone kidnapping him and hiding him for all this time.
As I get further down his file, I see his parents’ names pop up once more, but this time in reference to their deaths.
According to what I’m reading, they died in a freak plane crash, and there were no survivors.
Even their cause of death is familiar to me, but I still can’t place why.
It’s literally just out of reach to me. I’m stopped from driving myself insane with trying to figure it out when KIS beeps, and a window pops up across my screen.
KIS has found Beau and Annmarie King in our files.
As I read the name of the case file that contains them, I’m hit with the reason their names and cause of death were so damn familiar.
I feel sick to my stomach as the information conjures up in my mind.
I remember it all now, and I’m kicking myself for not placing why they were so familiar before.
They were involved in the most abominable case we’ve ever worked on.
Operation Counterstrike. There were so many people involved from every walk of life that it’s no wonder I couldn’t place them at first. It would be close to fucking impossible to remember every person involved in a case like that one, but there was only one couple involved in the atrocities we discovered who never faced justice for their crimes, dying before they could be held accountable. Beau and Annmarie King.
Operation Counterstrike went from being a regular mission to take down a criminal enterprise to so much fucking more in what felt like a blink of an eye.
What we thought was a criminal network that operated just in the United States turned out to be a global operation, spanning nearly every first-world country across the globe.
They had their fingers in everything imaginable, from trafficking people and drugs to murder for hire and everything in between.
If it was illegal, they had their sticky fingers involved in it in some way, shape, or form.
What we discovered was horrifying. Though what made it worse was that it was people you’d never expect running the operation and taking part in the atrocities.
They were people you’d never even think to imagine could be the evil in the world everyone fears. They were all hidden in plain sight.
I can recall exactly what happened with Beau and Annmarie now that I know they’re involved in Operation Counterstrike.
Just days before my team and I were slated to head out and deal with them, the plane they were flying in malfunctioned and crashed.
It was reported there were no survivors.
I remember the time of their deaths not sitting right with me back then; something just didn’t feel right.
Not with them dying so close to finally being brought to justice for their crimes against humanity.
However, I never looked into it further; there was just far too much going on back then, far too many criminals that needed to be dealt with.
I definitely regret not following up on my hunch now.
I have a feeling we missed something big back then, and Dre’s disappearance is linked to his parents in some way.
It’s literally the only thing that makes any sort of sense.
Other than his connection to Beau and Annmarie, there is nothing in his life, past or present, that should warrant him being kidnapped.
He’s just a normal guy who was living a very normal life.
He just happens to have parents who were criminals.
Though I’m not sure Dre or even Wreck were aware of that fact.
Well, isn’t that going to be fun to share with them when the time comes?
Not. That’s something to worry about later, though.
It’s time for a change in focus. Dre isn’t who I need to be researching anymore.
No, it’s time to deep dive into his parents.
I can feel it; the answers that have been eluding me lie with them.
We’ve all been focusing on the wrong thing all along.
While we were all looking into Dre and anything in his life that could have led to his disappearance, we should have been looking at his past. Mainly his parents.
It’s time to rectify that and take a microscope to Beau and Annmarie. It doesn’t matter that they’re dead; it doesn’t mean that something from their criminal life hasn’t now come back to bite Dre on the ass, all because he has the unfortunate pleasure of being their son.