Chapter 11 Theo
THEO
IWOKE UP the next morning to find Shep on a video call with the rest of our brothers, their voices elevated as they took turns firing off their plan of attack.
Wait—attack?
What the hell did I miss?
I barely remembered passing out on the couch, but considering I woke up in Shep’s bed, I must’ve stumbled into it at some point. Unless he carried my ass, which I would’ve paid to see.
What had they all been doing while I was out?
Ripping off the covers, I stumbled out of bed and over to where I could see Shep sitting at his office setup in one corner of the loft, each screen showing a different brother, which raised the question—why hadn’t he woken me up for this meeting?
“We’ll enter in teams of two,” King said, and that was when I noticed a blueprint on one of Shep’s screens.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Shep looked over his shoulder at me, and the determined look on his face had me wondering if they’d found the motherfucker.
“Jesus Christ, Theo, do you want me to bleach my eyeballs?” Lachlan said, shielding his eyes. “Put some goddamn pants on.”
I looked down at where my morning wood was doing its best to punch out of my flimsy boxer briefs and shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
“That is not welcome.”
“My dick or me? Because it looks like you’re having a meeting that you were fine to let me sleep through.”
Shep reached for my hand, threading our fingers together. “You were exhausted, so I figured we could get the logistics together before I woke you.”
“Logistics for what?”
Shep nodded toward one of the screens. “Alessio, wanna take this?”
As Alessio clued me in on what was happening, I could feel Shep’s anticipation radiating off him.
“So you really think our answer could be in a public storage unit? That that’s where he was planning to take me?
” I wanted to feel as confident as the others seemed to be, but it just didn’t seem likely.
Surely this fucker would’ve wanted to hold me somewhere private, in a basement of a house or something, but somewhere people had access to?
“Shep and I spent all night searching Mott in Manhattan,” Alessio said.
“I’ve gone through every deed, every company on every street and business with the name Mott.
Narrowed it down by searching associations with anyone at Libertine, and long story short, one of the only large storage units in the city is located on Mott Street.
Usually it’s just a bunch of mini units all over, so I started digging, and there’s a unit tied to an untraceable company that just so happens to be located at—”
“This Mott Street storage,” I finished. “But that could be any sketchy asshole wanting to hide their shit.”
“Well, that’s what we’re going to find out,” Shep said, tugging me closer to run his hand up my thigh. “This is just the first of what could be many leads, but I have a good feeling about it. Only a smug bastard would choose something right under our noses.”
I ran my thumb across his lips, wishing I could feel as hopeful as he did. But a lead was a lead, and I was down for whatever we needed to do to make the fucker pay.
“All right, then,” I said, looking up at my brothers and trying not to notice that King had averted his eyes. “What’s the plan?”
IT WAS CLOSING in on ten o’clock that night when our van slowed to a stop a few doors down from the public storage entrance. We’d learned they only kept one employee at the front desk for security after nine, but we had just the right man to keep him occupied.
Benoit grinned as he leaned over to the driver’s seat, where his scary arms dealer boyfriend, Dimitri Stavros, put the van into park.
“Aw, don’t look so put out, mon monstre,” Benoit said, planting a kiss along the jagged scar on the side of Dimitri’s face. “Being a lookout man is an important job too. After all, it’s usually mine.”
“Then let’s switch,” Dimitri said in a low growl.
“Oh yes, because you’re the perfect person to charm the man inside.”
“More like send him off screaming,” I said, and when Dimitri’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, I winked at him. “I mean that with the utmost respect, of course.”
“It’s time.” King’s firm tone had the van going silent before he nodded at Benoit. “You’re up.”
“My time to shine,” Benoit singsonged as he checked his face in the pull-down passenger mirror and adjusted his earpiece and pinhole camera.
“You need me, you call. Got it?” Dimitri said as Benoit reached for the handle.
“I know, I know. You’ll come in and kill everyone. But I think it’s important we keep a low profile tonight, mon monstre. Don’t you?”
Dimitri grumbled something I didn’t quite make out before pulling Benoit in and pressing a hard kiss to his lips. Seconds later, Benoit was slipping out of the car and stepping inside the building.
“You really think this is something?” I asked Shep again as I stared out the tinted window at the building across from us.
“I do. Something about this place just feels right.”
I nodded, thinking about all the information Alessio had brought forward. It did seem to line up and point to this destination, and if Shep’s gut was telling him this was the spot, who was I to argue?
Hell, he’d found me in the middle of a damn jungle. I had to believe he’d be able to find this asshole in New York. Shep knew this place better than any of us.
“Bonsoir, is it…Melvin?”
I snorted as Benoit’s snobbish observation came across the speaker inside the van, and shifted to look at the screen attached to the dashboard where we all had a prime view of “Melvin.”
“Yeah, hi,” he said as Benoit shifted to the side to get a look at the computer on the desk beside him.
“Busy night?”
Melvin looked around the small, empty lobby and then back to his nosy customer with a what the fuck do you think? look.
“I was wondering if you could be a dear and look up something for me? My sister sent me down here to get a box of knickknacks for her, and, well, I’ve forgotten the unit number.”
I could practically hear the pout in Benoit’s voice as he leaned across the desk, but for once in his life his charm was falling flat.
Melvin was one hundred percent uninterested.
“Her name?”
Benoit gave a little harrumph, which made me smirk. It seemed our resident charmer was going to have to use the element of surprise this go around.
“Bérengère Olivier.”
Seriously? Could he pick a harder name to—
“How you spell that?” Melvin turned toward the computer and suddenly it clicked, as Benoit slipped his hands into his pocket, no doubt palming the tranq he had hidden inside.
Hope he kept that thing capped in there.
“B-E—with a little accent over the top.”
Melvin glanced over his shoulder at Benoit. “A what?”
“An accent. It’s French. You press the command button at the same as— Would you like me to just come around and type it in?”
Melvin, the poor bastard, rolled his eyes but nodded, and as Benoit slipped in behind the desk and moved in behind him—
Thump.
—he was out before he even knew what hit him.
“Merde. He went down harder than I expected,” Benoit muttered as his camera caught Melvin where he’d just face-planted into the desk.
Chuckles rumbled through the van, then Shep said into his mic, “Good work, Benny—we’ll be there in a second.”
“No need to hurry on his account. He’s got enough of that drug in him to have him sleeping until tomorrow morning.”
“Is it weird I’ve never found you sexier?” Dimitri asked.
“Non, mon monstre. It’s kind of the same way I felt when you pulled a gun on me back in Venice.”
“Masks on,” King said, gruff and no-nonsense.
The metal was cold on my skin as I pulled mine on, which actually felt good on my bruised face.
Each of us wore the same black filigreed style beneath black hoods, something King had been adamant on so that no one could distinguish between us in case we were seen doing things that weren’t exactly legal.
Like breaking into a public storage facility.
Once we were ready, Alessio held up the camera jammer, hit the button, then counted to ten before pulling open the van door.
As we all piled out, I stopped behind Dimitri’s seat and said, “You two are seriously fucked up, you know that, right?”
The interior light caught on the jagged scar that lined his cheek, and a wicked smirk curled his lips. “Bring him back safe or I’ll fuck you up.”
Yeah, Benoit’s boyfriend was one terrifying motherfucker, all right. But now that I’d seen Shep in full alpha mode gunning down my enemy, I couldn’t say I blamed him for being hot for his arms dealer.
We slipped inside quietly, Benoit tossing us the set of employee key cards as we passed.
“Way to win him over,” I said, eyeing Melvin’s body on the floor as Benoit lounged back in the guy’s chair and shot me a glare.
“Obviously something’s wrong with him, not me. Je suis la perfection incarnée.”
I snorted as I joined the others in the elevator, leaving Benoit to inspect his nails or whatever he did while we were on a mission. The man didn’t enjoy getting his hands dirty, though he was killer at planting devices.
“Third floor,” Alessio said, scanning one of the key cards. No one said a word as we climbed floors, the anticipation building with every second that passed by.
Would we finally get some answers? Or would this be a bust?
I wasn’t sure what I wanted more.
No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to know who was behind the blackmail, death threats, and kidnapping. But more than that, I wanted to know why this motherfucker—whoever it was—had targeted me.
I glanced at Shep standing beside me, his shoulders stiff and his hands clenched by his sides.
He looked as tense as I felt. The adrenaline running through us all but vibrated in the air.
When the elevator reached our floor, I brushed my hand over his, needing to ground myself in some way, and Shep turned to look at me.
The mask covered his handsome face, but that intense blue gaze locked and held mine in a way that made my breath catch.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
He gave a clipped nod as our brothers filed out ahead of us then said, “Let’s go and infiltrate this fucker’s world.”
I followed him out of the elevator and we made our way down the hall past identical orange garage doors all locked and secure. We made a few turns, located the hall we needed, then we were there.
The six of us stood in front of the door for a second, each taking in the moment and wondering what we were going to find on the other side of the door.
Then Lachlan stepped forward with the bolt cutters.
I reached for Shep’s hand as Lachlan cut through the lock, and when he tossed it aside and went to haul the door up, I blurted out, “Wait.”
He froze, and everyone looked at me.
“Something wrong, Theo?” King said.
“Non. I just want to say thanks for doing this, no matter what we find in here.”
“You’re our brother,” Lucien said as though that was the beginning and end of everything, but it went deeper than that. The level of trust they’d had to give me, even when everything pointed to the fact I was a traitor, was something else.
Something I’d never forget.
“Thanks anyway.”
Lachlan looked between me and Lucien. “You two want to sing a round of ‘Kumbaya’ now, or we good to go?”
I flipped him off, then gestured to the unit.
Lachlan grabbed hold of the handle and hauled it up, and before he could even step aside, two words left my mouth.
“Holy. Shit.”