Chapter 24 Rhys
Rhys
Rhys leant against Dex and Laila’s hired SUV as he watched the airstairs of the Stone Holdings’ jet slowly unfold, feeling like a shadow of his former self.
He hadn’t slept. Or eaten. He’d barely drawn in a breath since…
Well, since.
Like the rest of the population, he’d occasionally seen the loved ones of missing people on television, appealing for information that would lead to their return. Now, Rhys was in that position himself, and he didn’t know how they looked so…functional.
Not once had they mentioned how exhausting it was, how all-consuming. All he could think of was her. Where was she? What was she doing? What was being done to her? Was she in pain? Was she scared? The back of his eyes began to burn with the sting of unshed tears. Was she even alive?
Warren was the first to descend the airstairs, his green eyes alarmed as they found Rhys. “We came as soon as we could.”
Rhys nodded as Warren pulled him into a tight hug, instantly sending him back to when it was just the two of them locked in a prison cell for twenty-three hours per day.
They’d been strangers at the start of their respective sentences, but by the end, Rhys loved Warren like a brother—and he knew Warren felt the same.
Over Warren’s shoulder, Rhys saw the rest of the passengers rushing down the stairs. Aldous, closely followed by Jensen and Roman.
“Thank you all for…for being here,” he croaked, his throat raw and dry.
There was a clap as Roman clasped Dex’s hand in greeting. “Dex,” Roman said, before kissing Laila on the cheek. “Laila. Thank you for dropping everything.”
Had Rhys remembered to thank them? They’d been his constant companions over the last twenty-four hours, keeping him from his worst impulses—namely, tracking Chomsky down and cutting off pieces of him until he revealed where he’d taken Penny.
Rhys took one of the two seats in the back as they piled into the hired car, a sizeable black SUV. Aldous immediately sat next to him, his silence a balm against the sombre discussion happening up front.
For the first time since she’d been taken, Rhys felt like he could be honest about how he was coping. In the immediate aftermath, he’d wanted to rage, his anger powering him from one step to the next.
Anger like that couldn’t power him in perpetuity. All he’d done was exhaust himself. The lack of food and sleep didn’t help.
Rhys hadn’t let Dex or Laila see it, but he couldn’t hide it from his brother.
Aldous’s amber eyes held an ocean of understanding and compassion. His hand closed around Rhys’s—a rarity in itself, given Aldous’s past avoidance of physical touch. “We’ll find her,” he swore, his voice little more than a murmur.
Rhys offered a nod in response, holding his gaze. A private moment between brothers—a rarity since Aldous had moved to California.
“I was keeping an eye on Chomsky’s private jet as we were in the air,” Roman began, collapsing into a seat in the next row. “It left St Barts this morning. He should be due to land in London just before nine.”
It was nothing Rhys didn’t already know.
“We’ve been doing the same,” Laila replied from the passenger seat, looking around to face Roman.
“And worst-case scenario, I’ll be waiting on the runway to greet him,” Rhys snarled. Chomsky couldn’t hurt her if he were dead. “Thanks to the cloned phone, we have a list of buildings associated with Chomsky’s business. I say we split up into pairs and comb through them.”
That is, if she was even being held on a company site at all.
“About that,” Roman piped up. “I was thinking as we were flying over, you mentioned the video file of Chomsky and what’s-his-face murdering someone. It was from a security camera, right?”
Rhys grunted.
“I think you’re right in that we need to check company sites, Rhys, but I disagree that we should physically go to each site.
We want to find her before Chomsky’s plane touches down, and doing it manually will cost us time we don’t have.
” Roman paused, resting his thumb on his bottom lip.
“Plus, it’ll probably alert Chomsky as to what we’re doing in five seconds flat. ”
Rhys wasn’t following. “What’s the other option to doing it physically? We do it fucking spiritually?”
With a smirk, Roman shook his head. “Virtually, dear boy.” He glanced over to the front seats, catching Laila’s gaze. “I think Chomsky needs a rodent problem.”
Laila sucked in an excited breath. “Like we did in Darfur.”
“Exactly.”
Jensen’s eyes were narrowed. “I’m not following.”
“We put an RAT—a remote access trojan—on their computer system. It’ll mean physically visiting one location with a computer, and an admin at that, but once it’s placed, I’ll be able to navigate through to the security logs of every building to trawl through and see if she’s there.”
For the first time in twenty-four hours, there was hope in Rhys’s heart. “Just like that?”
“Well, no. It’s actually pretty complicated,” Laila admitted, pulling her hair across her shoulder.
“But thankfully for you guys, I know what I’m doing.
” She looked down at what she was wearing: a boxy sage-green t-shirt with a pair of dark jeans.
“Can we stop at a computer shop? I need to buy some supplies. And a hi-vis vest to make it look like I work for an IT services company. Last time we went in under the pretence of upgrading their equipment; we can do the same thing here.”
“You’re not going in there alone,” Dex told her, accelerating as they turned onto a motorway slip-road.
“One of us should come with you,” Warren agreed, as the rest of them nodded.
“I disagree on that count,” Dex said, his tone decisive. “Chomsky—and his employees—would recognise all of you. They’d clock you before we gained access to their systems. It has to be Laila and me; we’re strangers to them.”
“The only question…” Laila breathed out a long sigh, tapping her bottom lip. “…is which location to target. It’s not like we’re short of choice.”
As they debated which location to hit, Rhys zoned out. He couldn’t stop the cogs in his brain turning, serving up fresh possibilities of how Penny was doing, each worse than the last.
If she’s even still alive, a little voice in his head whispered.
Rhys refused to even consider the possibility. She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t be.
I would feel it, his heart told him.
His burner phone buzzed against his thigh, and he slid a hand into his pocket to retrieve it. It was an older model than he was used to, but it was functional at least.
His heart skipped a beat as he read the notification. An email. “Penny,” he whispered, his voice almost breaking. How could she be sending him an email right now? He opened it in record time, but it was empty except for the subject line, which included a Google Maps link.
“What?” Aldous asked.
Rhys didn’t answer, pasting the link into his browser. It opened out onto an industrial estate on the Thames. On the satellite image, the river was peppered with huge container ships loaded with cargo, with stacks of shipping containers ready to join them.
Holy shit.
It was either a trap, or—
Rhys raised his voice, silencing the hum of conversation. “I think I know where Penny is.”