Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Garett
My heart thunders against my chest as I ascend the stairs. Last time she was in here, she ran from me. I can’t—I won’t, lose her again. I grab Ali’s hand tighter, clinging to the unstable connection between us. She’s mine and I’m hers. But she’s still scared. And I get it. This is a lot.
I’m acutely aware of Luke’s shadowy form behind us in my periphery.
He’s taller than I am but leaner. His brown hair is always perfectly styled and his clothes are always in place—he’s the calm to my chaos.
Ali is my soulmate, but Luke is my brother.
He’s been by my side through everything—good and bad.
There’s not another human being in this world I’d trust more than I trust him.
Even if he drives me insane at times.
Celeste clings tightly to him. Her presence in this space—Ali’s space—grates at my nerves. She feels like an intruder in our private retreat. She does not belong here, and the longer she stays, the more anxious I feel myself becoming.
“We do this and then you two have to leave,” I state without turning.
Luke huffs. It’s his annoyed noise.
Why’s he annoyed? He’s the one that woke me up and assaulted me in my house.
“Garett, social pleasantries are generally extended to guests,” he admonishes as we reach the top of the stairs and turn down the hallway.
“Do you want my help, or no?” I snip at him as I reach the door and extend my hand to the top of the doorframe.
I’m not quite sure why I hid the key again. Clearly, my hiding place was ineffective. I should have known my girl was too smart and too tenacious to not find a key above the door.
“You know we do,” Luke grumbles and I know I’ve won. Per usual.
Swinging open the door, I make sure Ali’s hand stays firmly planted in my own.
She feels so small against me, our connection still so fragile.
I want to cling to her, hold on to her, for as long as she’ll allow me, making sure she can’t run, can’t hide, can’t leave.
I’ve spent far too long without her. I refuse to spend another waking moment without her right by my side.
Call me obsessive, crazy, intense—I don’t give a shit.
She’s the other half of my fractured and broken soul. I don’t want her, I need her.
“This looks familiar,” Celeste snarks under her breath as we enter the room. I have no idea what her comment means and frankly I don’t care. I just want to get this over with.
The screens illuminate the darkened room in front of us.
The entire wall is an endless array of various screens used to monitor my properties and other locations of value.
I may not be great with people all the time, but my mind understands the wiring, the programs, the black and white systematic processes that run software quite easily.
I’ve always been better with computers than humans.
They’ve put labels on me over the years—I find them all irrelevant and unhelpful.
A label isn’t going to change who I am and how my brain works.
Spinning, I turn to face Ali, pulling her toward me until her warmth envelopes me. Her big hazel eyes stare up at me and it’s as if I can see my entire future in her gold-flecked irises.
“I need to work,” I tell her. “Please don’t run.”
“You’re going to find that girl?” she asks. “The one from the video?”
I nod my head. Her eyes flit back and forth between my own before her tiny hand comes up and lands on my jaw. Her skin is so soft, so smooth, so delicate against my own.
“You help. I’ll be here waiting.” I lean my head to the side and kiss her palm as she reassures me. She could be lying, but I’m choosing to trust her. “I’m done running.”
I want to kiss her. No, I want to fuck her.
I want to throw her legs above my shoulders and feast on her cunt until she screams my name to the heavens, then I want to sink into her tight ass and pound her into the mattress.
But, reluctantly, I pull away. We have a lifetime to fuck.
Right now, I need to hack security cameras for a casino hotel.
Sitting down at my control board, my chair squeaks.
It’s old and worn out but comfortable. I should buy a new one, but I sometimes have a hard time letting go of things.
It’s not that they’re sentimental necessarily.
It’s more that they’re mine. Pulling up some of my basic programs on my main screen, I begin logging in.
“What do we know?” I ask Luke without turning.
“Not much.” He sighs. He lists off a few names, the location of the casino, and any information he can remember from the video. He’s right—it’s not much to go off of.
“Do you want me to go make some coffee?” Ali asks as her fingers dance across my shoulders. Her sweet smell invades my senses and fuck, it makes me want to do foolish things.
As much as I hate to let her out of my vicinity, I’m not sure I can focus with her here. “Please, Princess.”
“Celeste…” Ali’s fingers leave my shoulder as she moves across the room. I crack my neck and refocus on finding the security feed out in the interconnected web of endless traffic. “Want to help?”
“Sure,” Celeste says before I hear their footsteps receding.
Maybe they shouldn’t be left alone together? Fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen?
Images of Luke and me in the woods flit across my mind. Celeste riding his cock while I pull her ass open and slide inside her warmth. Shit. I hope she doesn’t tell Ali about that. Let’s hope they don’t get too friendly.
“What’s the plan here?” Luke asks, pulling me out of my memories.
“Don’t let Ali find out that we tag teamed Celeste, mostly,” I tell him as my fingers fly across the keys.
He huffs. “I meant with finding Liv,” he snarks. “Ali has every right to know about who you are and what you’ve done, frankly.”
My fingers stop. I spin slowly to face my best friend who’s perched with one hand on my desk, watching over my shoulder as I work.
“She does not, and will not, need to know everything. I will decide what she does and does not need to know and you will stay the fuck out of it,” I growl into his face.
Most men would back down. I’m aware my anger borders on unhealthy. I don’t give a fuck. But Luke, Luke just stares at me right back.
“Honesty is the key to a healthy relationship, brother.”
“I will gut you and strangle you with your own entrails if you interfere with my relationship,” I warn as I turn back to the screen.
I’m being blocked out by several firewalls that seem to be dual process overrides.
I need a second set of eyes. Pulling up a chat box, I send a request to The Fox for a second set of hands on this one.
He’s an online menace, a hacker with skills that border on manic compulsion. He’s the best there is.
“You wouldn’t kill your only friend,” Luke goads in my ear as I type.
The Fox is online. He accepts my SOS, and together, we attack the system’s security.
Clearly, Will, Luke’s foster brother and head of operations for this casino, hired someone very good to run his tech.
Good, but not great. It takes just a few minutes before we’re in.
I send The Fox some coins as thanks before he logs out.
Probably off to go hack the Pentagon or some shit.
“You’re not my only friend,” I finally reply to Luke.
“There’s no way this doesn’t blow up in your face. You know that, right?” Luke chuckles over my shoulder as I begin to flick through security cameras. There seems to be the main security and a separate private feed. I have a feeling I’m going to want the private stream of cameras.
“If I have to burn it all down, watch this life and everything in it consumed with flames, just so she can rise from the ashes of her pain like a fucking phoenix, I will. Do not doubt the lengths I will go to for her, brother,” I snarl at him.
I flash through camera stream after camera stream, the screens before me jumping from scene to scene, barely long enough for me to truly register what I’m seeing.
Room after room, private moments, empty spaces, individuals lounging in what they perceived to be privacy of the hotel attached to the casino.
Each room seems to have a camera hidden somewhere within.
Fucking Will, always up to something shitty.
“Find anything yet?” Ali’s sweet lilt fills the empty air behind me as she reenters the room.
She comes up next to me; Luke instinctively moves out of the way so she can slide in against me.
She places a white ceramic mug filled with steaming coffee on the desk next to me.
I look up and she smiles at me. Her smile is warm, soft, sweet—just like her.
If I had a whole heart, one that hadn’t been broken and reconstructed from the jagged pieces, I would melt at such a simple symbol of endearment.
“There!” Celeste shrieks from my other side. I forgot how annoying her voice can be when she’s worked up. She becomes shrill. It grates at my nerves.
I follow her eyes to a screen at the top left. There is the same room from the video, the same worn out bedding, the same unmoving body. I bring up the feed, projecting the stream on all of the screens. We watch as Liv lies motionless on the bed, face down. Blood pools around her face.
Fuck. She might be dead.
“Liv,” Celeste whimpers as Luke moves to wrap his arm around her shaking shoulders.
And then she breathes. The motion is almost too small to detect—but it’s there. She’s breathing.
“There…” Ali notices too. “She’s breathing. She’s okay.”
Everyone leans in simultaneously. We take a collective breath and sigh of relief as her back rises and falls ever so slightly. She’s alive. We can get her.
“Can you tell us the room?” Luke asks.
I click through the system, identifying the labeled room number. “Yes,” I confirm. We have her.
“What about Will? Erika?” Celeste asks, her worried eyes looking up to Luke.
“We will need a distraction. Something to keep those two busy while Garett and I grab Liv,” Luke responds to her as he holds her tight. She leans into him without any restraint and I find I am a bit jealous. I long for that type of intimacy—when another trusts you to literally hold them up.
“Why you two?” Celeste questions. “I want to help. Why can’t I come? I can be the distraction and—”
Luke silences her by pulling her into his arms. His forehead touches hers as he stares her down.
His normally slick hair has fallen across his forehead.
They spend a silent moment just staring at each other.
Ali’s hand finds my shoulder, the touch soothing a part of me that I didn’t know was hurt.
I haven’t needed anyone in a very long time, but I’m beginning to think that I won’t survive losing her again—not now that I have her here.
Mine.
“Will could recognize you, Sweetness. They won’t be fooled in the slightest.”
My mind reels through potential ideas, any possibilities we might be able to use to keep Will and his sidekick busy long enough for us to grab the pink-haired girl.
“They won’t recognize me,” Ali offers from my side.
“Absolutely not!” I roar as I spin to face her. “There is no way in Hell you’re getting anywhere close to that cas—”
“Why not?” she argues back as she crosses her arms and pops her hip. Normally, I love her fire, her fight. But not now. Not about this.
“I am not letting you get anywhere near that place, these people. Ali.” I take her hand in mine, pleading. “I can’t risk it. They’re dangerous.”
“She’s right,” Luke adds from behind me. “They wouldn’t recognize her. Wouldn’t suspect anything.”
I spin on him, seeing red at his suggestion. That he would even suggest that we put Ali in risk…
“I will gut you if you even think about using her—”
“Threaten him again, and I will go get the bat and hit you upside the head again,” Celeste interrupts, her eyes alight with a flame fanned bright by rage and loss and love.
“Enough!” Ali yells, quieting us all. Apparently, the teacher’s voice really does work.
“I am doing this.” I start to argue but she holds up a hand to interrupt me.
“I am doing this and we are getting her out of there. Then we will regroup and figure out how to make all of these fuckers, including Brody, pay for all the vile and evil things they’ve done. ”
“Are you sure?” I ask her, clasping my hand around hers and pulling her toward me. She doesn’t fight me. No, she easily surrenders to my will. A surge of pleasure rushes down my spine.
“I want to be free of Brody. I want to be able to be with you without an angry husband looming over our future,” she reassures me as she lays a free hand against my chest. “I want them to get what they deserve. And I want us to have the future we deserve.” She leans in and kisses my cheek, her soft breath whispers across the shell of my ear. “I trust you to keep me safe.”
This is a truly terrible idea. It’s risky and dangerous and not planned out in the slightest. And yet, her faith is intoxicating.
A man could do many crazy, ill-conceived things for the love of a beautiful woman.
And knowing Ali trusts me is a heady rush.
Despite my better judgment, my rational mind screaming no, I find my resolve wither away to ash.
“Fine,” I finally concede. “But we all follow my plan without question.”