Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Isat on the front porch, dozing off with Kayla in my arms. There was a bench swing which I had frequented lately. It helped get me out of the house, but nothing too far. Kayla was sleeping after a feed, and I was about to go down with her.
The crunching of gravel made me peel my eyes open, and they widened. A car I didn’t know pulled up. Getting out, Mike smiled at me. I blinked, confused for a moment.
“You didn’t steal that, did you?”
He snorted. “No, I rented it.”
“With what valid license?”
Mike stepped up to the porch, and I got up, throwing my arm around him. “And here I thought you would be excited to see me.”
I chuckled, squeezing him a little tighter with the one arm I had free. “I am. Trust me. I’m just surprised. Where is Rin?”
“She has class. I didn’t want to mess with her grades anymore than I already do.” He winked, and I rolled my eyes.
“Did you just come to see me or…?”
He shook his head. “I think I found him.”
My mouth opened, and I held Kayla tightly. “Mike, don’t…don’t…”
“I wouldn’t come if I didn’t have proof.”
I covered my mouth and let out a sob. He gave me a sad smile, brushing a tear from my cheek. “It’s not bad news, but it’s not good either.”
“We should…call the family. I’m assuming you want to set up your laptop and stuff?”
We walked into the house and I searched for Candice first. She was outside in the back, gardening. I asked if Tyson was in his office, but he had headed to the Archives this morning. Mike was the one who asked her to call him back.
“Beau is on her way.” He looked down at his phone as he sat at Tyson’s desk. “I think she’s bringing her mate.”
“Did you get in contact with Lai?”
He shook his head. “I think they are going on an outing today. Plus, with her explosive nature, it might be good she’s not here for this. You can tell her after.”
“Beau isn’t much better.”
“Yes, but Beau is the closest one to him in the family.”
I nodded, standing behind him as he pulled up things on his laptop. Leaning forward, I looked at one of the images he pulled up. My mouth fell open a little, and I felt the tears fill my eyes.
“That’s…”
“Marcus? Yeah.”
Everything around the photo was a little blurry, but it looked like a beach.
He was shirtless and in shorts. Mike was working around the photo as stared at it.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
We thought they were trying to break him, and they had locked him up in some dungeon or underground room. Maybe I expected him to look like me.
Marcus had tanned and gained a little more weight than before he left. He was wearing sunglasses, and his hair was long, combed off to the side. His beard was full, and I don’t think I would have recognized him if I didn’t see Keith from time to time with his full beard.
“What…is going on?” I looked at Mike.
“I’ll give everyone a rundown. Just wait until everyone gets here.
I whined. “Mike…this…”
He turned up to me, the same sad smile on his face. “I know, Colt. It’s not going to get easier. I had my guys get on the ground. I’ve got quite a bit as they blended in with the locals.”
The house shook, and I knew Tyson had landed. He threw open the door, Candice hot on his heels. Reaching out, he shook Mike’s hand.
“Tyson, good to see you.”
“Tell me you found my son.”
Mike nodded. “I did. We are just waiting on…”
“I’m here! I’m here!” Beau tumbled in, still pulling on her pants as she stumbled into the room.
Lauren was behind her, grabbing her shirt so she didn’t fall forward and hit her face into the ground.
Everyone looked at Mike, and he nodded, typing more on his computer.
Tyson walked over to the wall between the two doors and pulled out the picture that was on the wall.
My eyes widened as I realized it wasn’t a picture at all, but a screen.
“Can you connect?”
“Give…me…yeah.”
The painting in the middle of the frame disappeared, and the picture I had been looking at on his laptop replaced it.
Walking around the desk, I was shaking. Candice offered to take Kayla, but I shook my head.
I needed my little girl right now. She was probably the only thing anchoring me.
Beau came up behind me, throwing her arms around me and holding me.
“I had told Colton on the twenty-seventh that I noticed Ebony had been packing up for what looked like a vacation. I’d been following her movements, not just through the cameras, but through my team, since she kept going dark.
Sure enough, she went dark. My team followed her to the airport, but lost her. ”
The screen changed, and there were four photos of her at the airport.
“I couldn’t find her name on any of the tickets sold, nor did her accounts or her family’s show any ticket payments. I had to do some old-fashioned digging, and I went through each of the flights that day. Additionally, I searched for flights with layovers going to beach locations.
“Mike…” I looked at him, stunned at the amount of work he’d put into this.
He shrugged. “It was worth it. It actually narrowed it down a lot more than you think. I had five beach locations by the end. The Bahamas, Fiji, Hawaii, and Florida.”
Beau snorted. “Yeah, not Florida.”
Mike chuckled. “I agreed with you. I kept it in my back pocket, in case nothing came up at the others. My first thought was just to send three different teams to each location, but it seemed like a waste of manpower. Fiji was probably the easiest, being so small. Bahamas too. It was Hawaii that was going to be harder since there are multiple islands.”
“By the gods, is he always so wordy?” Beau grumbled, and I chuckled.
“Well, I started with the Bahamas. Searching the three-day window where I assumed she stepped onto the island, and combed through the airport footage. There is only one international airport there, and I found nothing. Then, I moved onto Fiji.”
The photos changed, and if you hadn’t seen the airport, you would have thought that they were the same photos. Ebony was wearing the same outfit as she had in the previous photo. Except this time, there were three large men walking with her out of the airport.
“I found her landing in Fiji on the exact flight I had found.”
“He’s in Fiji.” My voice was barely a whisper.
Mike clicked through, and more photos slid across the screen. “I sent two separate teams to the island. One was going to blend in with the locals. The other was going to be my stealth team and get photos. Proof that he was there, and it wasn’t just Ebony on vacation alone.”
I watched as a few blurry photos became clearer. Marcus was walking side by side with Ebony, holding her hand. He looked down at her, smiling brightly. In another, he had his arms wrapped around her, as though they were a newly married couple having their honeymoon in Fiji.
My heart pounded in my ears as tears slipped out silently as I watched my fear come to life. Ebony had won. She won. Marcus was looking at her like he had me. He was free. There were no chains. No cuffs. Nothing holding him back from running. No, he was happy. With her.
Beau tightened her hold on me. “What the fuck is happening?”
Mike stopped at a photo of the two of them kissing on the beach, and I covered my mouth. “The other night, when you were in the middle of your episode, and you said the pain had become so much worse. I don’t think it was the PCDHS. I think…”
“You think he was having sex with her? Are you kidding me right?” Beau asked, nearly yelling. “My brother would never! He would never do that to Colt!”
“The timeline’s up. They are about eleven hours ahead. My team caught them…on the beach.” Mike cleared his throat. “They sent the photos, but you don’t…”
I stared at the screen, unable to look away. “He fucked Ebony.”
Beau dug her face into my hair. “He wouldn’t, Colt. He wouldn’t.”
“I actually have to agree with you.” I peeled my eyes away from the screen. “What are you talking about?”
“One of the first teams, they were posing as newlyweds. Hitting the more touristy areas. They ran into Marcus and Ebony and struck up a conversation.” Mike flipped through and then landed on a photo of Marcus and another man laughing with drinks in their hands.
“He’s drinking.” Lauren said quietly next to me.
I nodded, but everything was caught in my throat. My words. My emotions. The only thing I could feel was my soul cracking. My wolf howled so loudly in my head that it almost hurt. Kayla shifted in my arms a bit, and I readjusted her a little.
“This isn’t our Marcus. I listened to the conversation.
It’s...someone else. Whatever they did, they stripped him down and rebuilt him.
” Mike frowned. “I have the conversation recorded. I’m sure Tyson might want to hear it.
They have somehow convinced him that Ebony is his fated mate.
That she has been by his side for the last two years. ”
My mouth opened, and I looked at him. “Two years?”
“Yeah. They’ve gone back two years and completely rewritten his memories. According to him, he doesn’t have a good relationship with his family because he marked and mated his fated, but his family didn’t approve.”
“No,” Candice covered her mouth.
Mike sighed. “Apparently, they have convinced him he has lost his dragon. I don’t know if it’s true or not, though. If they had destroyed his dragon…”
“They haven’t.” Tyson’s tone conveyed a clear sense of disapproval. “He wouldn’t like that if he lost his dragon. They must be suppressing it. I know what a shifter looks like when they lose the other half of their soul. It’s not like they’ve been on vacation for a week. I can say that for sure.”
I swallowed. “So…two years…two years with her and I…”
“I don’t think he even knows you, Colt. I wouldn’t put it past Ebony to have completely erased you from him if she’s been able to implant this many memories. There was no stuttering in his voice. No rehearsed speech. He genuinely believes everything he is saying.”
“That he’s been mated to her for two years.”
Beau growled. “Even making up that we didn’t approve. Which you damn right we don’t fucking approve of her. So that he wouldn’t contact us. If he’s estranged, there would be no reason to call or talk to us. The perfect cover for hiding away in fucking Fiji.” She spat out the last sentence.
“I agree. There are definitely some things that are messy. That doesn’t quite make sense. We could see that Ebony submitted Marcus’ resignation to the school, but when they were talking, he was only taking a break. So there are some discrepancies, but he wouldn’t know if he didn’t look.”
“They’ve made it so that he knows enough not to ask questions. Not to reach out. To be happy in this bubble despite the pain they’ve made up.” Tyson spoke evenly, but his pheromones were whipping out angrily.
Mike clicked through and a few sheets of contracts popped up.
“Currently, he is renting out a villa, and they have it set for a month. The last couple of days, they have been looking into moving there. I think this was their attempt at bringing him out into the open. They just didn’t expect us to find him so quickly. ”
“Beau…”
My voice broke as her name left like a plea, and her arms moved from around my shoulders to my waist. My knees buckled, and she held me up from falling.
Tears streamed down my face. How much worse was this?
I’d been feeling pain, but I didn’t realize it was Marcus betraying our mate bond. It never crossed my mind.
I lost him. I lost him, and I had been struggling every day to survive. All the while he was happy and smiling with her. My nose pressed against Kayla’s head. She would be six weeks old on Saturday. Our little girl. Now, I had no idea what was going to happen.
“What do you want me to do? I can get my third team in there. We can take the house, grab Marcus and bring him back. Try to right whatever they have done to him.”
Looking back up at the screen, I was thankful that the photos of him were off it. Tyson let his hands fall to his sides. He looked lost. Candice was holding onto his arm, looking at me worriedly.
“Maybe we should just kick him in the head. Maybe that will help. It sure will help me.” Beau grumbled.
I closed my eyes, the tears still falling. “No.”
“No?” Mike and Tyson asked at the same time.
Shaking my head, I opened my eyes, looking down at the floor. “No. Monitor him. He will probably reach out eventually. No matter his memories, Marcus can’t let go of his family.” I looked up at Tyson and Candice. “He loves his family too much.”
“But…”
“What are we supposed to do?” I let the pain hit my tone. “He doesn’t remember. Whatever they did, it worked. It fucking worked. She won. Ebony fucking won.”
Lauren shook her head. “No, Colt. Not yet. We aren’t giving up. We won’t. Whatever she did, or Alpha Genesis, whatever they did, it’s not completely. You still have your bond. For as long as you have that, there will be hope for bringing him back.”
I gave her a hollow smile. “I can’t…”
“You can. You can hold out. We will find a way. A way to have him second-guess himself.” Lauren looked up at Mike.
“I think if we take him, he’ll just see it as us kidnapping him.
We don’t know what she did. I think we should monitor them.
I think Colt is right, though. We need to be ready for him to call, and we need to get him here voluntarily. If we can do that…”
“Then we can bring him to our side. Show him we aren’t angry anymore, or however he feels. If we can trick him into trusting us again, while making him question himself. I think we could at least get him away from her without needing to chain him up.”
Looking up at Lauren, she brushed my cheek. “Not yet. Not yet, Colt. We will find him. We will bring him back to us.”
Nodding, it was the only thing I could do. I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t. In my mind, Ebony won, and no amount of hope would change that.