Chapter 20
You've been invited to the group chat: Lara's Lads
Jonah (Daddy): How did you get this number?
Jonah (Daddy): How can I change the stupid nickname??
Beck (Chief): Some of us have jobs, Spare. Too bad you couldn't stay for round two.
Ray (Number 1 guy in the group): ROUND TWO??
Lara (PSGG): What does PSGG mean?
Ray (Number 1 guy in the group): Pretty Smart Gorgeous Goddess. I thought it fit ;)
Beck (Chief): typing.…….
Lara (PSGG): LMSYCUYCDMT ;)
Beck (Chief): typing.…….
Jonah (Daddy): What does that mean?
Ray (Number 1 guy in the group): Lara. Where are you?
Jonah (Daddy): What did you say???
Ray (Number 1 guy in the group): Blocked
Ray (Number 1 guy in the group): Removed from the group chat.
Jonah (Daddy): Lara, are you safe?
Beck: She's with me, big guy. You just focus on Adelaide right now.
Lara (PSGG): typing…
Lara (PSGG): typing…
**
"Don't leave the poor guy hanging," Beck clicked his tongue when I slid my phone back into my pocket.
I wanted to send a message to reassure Jonah, but what could I say? Adelaide believed Ray might have been involved in the attempts on her life.
I refused to believe it. But I couldn't convince Adelaide or Jonah.
I was juggling so many secrets from my best friend.
There was no way I could tell her why I was so sure.
She didn't know how close I'd become to Ray.
She certainly didn't know my skills as a covert agent.
Jonah believed in his boss, so our beautiful interlude was over.
"I want to pull my hair out. I know Ray didn't do this, but what can I do?"
"Tell them the truth." Beck quipped, holding my car door open for me. He peeled my bag off and tossed it onto the passenger seat. "You're panicking. You don't need to do that when I'm here."
"Any other nuggets of wisdom? Because I'm not saying a word until we've tracked down the real culprit."
Beck shrugged and dawdled. His baggy suit made me irrationally angry.
It was a sign of our duplicity. The secrets chafed my skin red-raw, and I hissed with phantom pain.
An ice-cream truck rolled past, silent, the kind I used to wait for in the summer.
All the neighborhood kids would pick, but Mom never had a dollar to spare.
"How are you supposed to do that when she's sent you into hiding? I heard she's dating her ex-boyfriends again."
I waved off his sharp tone.
"Adelaide thinks I'm weak. She thinks I need to hide in case Ray uses me as a pawn against her." I let out a frustrated sigh. "I want to protect her, but I'm—" I waved my hands about, trailing off.
Beck stopped me and leaned forward to kiss my forehead. It was hard, not tender.
"You're hunting down a rat the best way you know how, from the shadows." His voice was thick with affection, and it mollified the twisting in my stomach. "Our friend sure picked a dump of a place."
I'd gotten a reply from my mysterious aggressive texter, asking me to meet them at an abandoned building for further instructions.
I shook off my frustration and focused on the cramped alleyway we picked our way down. Each lungful of air coated my tongue with the taste of sour trash. We edged around piles of plastic bags. Someone slashed one open, spilling its contents everywhere.
"This is Donato territory, right?" I don't know why I whispered.
"Barely, but yes. This back building has been empty for about a year now. You looked at the plans I sent you?"
"Yes, two exits. One I'd rather not use. One sizable window you can smash in a pinch."
I wondered if he was remembering Angelo Amato and the barrel of a gun that changed everything between us. Adrenaline tasted like iron. It surged through my veins with the memory of the helplessness I'd felt.
"Do you ever think about Angelo Amato? What he said to us that day?"
"Don't go back there, Lara."
"He said they warned him we'd be coming for him. That he should have taken the deal when he had the chance. He knew who I was the second I stepped in there."
Beck reached out and gripped the base of my neck.
"Never again." His eyes flashed. He had been thinking about it.
How could he hide the need brimming in his eyes? The desperate desire and possession? I'd always thought him indifferent, but there was no restraint lurking in his dark gaze now.
Angelo had narrowly missed shooting me, and if I'd gone alone, I would be dead. Angelo's words burrowed like poison worms in my brain. I was a details girl, and the mission didn't add up. Just like this one, just like Ray. It niggled at me.
"Let's do this," I croaked.
I pushed through the wooden door, ignoring the bars on the small window.
The marinated scent of decay hit me in the face.
Musty disrepair that stemmed from unattended damp or mold.
I scanned the small entryway and saw one wall stripped to its studs.
Like someone with ambition had seen potential here.
"Reeks." I wrinkled my nose.
Beck grunted, waving his hand at me. He pulled his gun out and pointed the muzzle into the gloom. Controlled tension rippled through his steady movements. The gray in his hair was like strands of steel.
"Light?"
"No, I'm good." I shook my head, my eyes adjusting quickly to the dim.
Any source of light would have been a calling card, and I didn't feel like joining the pile of damp papers that looked like a sludge mountain.
"Come on in." A voice, husky and laced with amusement, echoed through the abandoned building.
Beck moved toward the voice, and I checked behind him. The building plans were etched in my mind as I canvassed the inside walls. There was no electricity. It was an old strip club, and the green velvet-lined stage was crusty, so I avoided it.
My stomach turned. A growl ripped through the main area, and I sprinted to Beck. He was staring at a nest camera attached to the back of a torn leather booth. A red light blinked, and confusion swamped me for a moment before I processed.
"This isn't what I was expecting." Beck's upper lip curled.
"Forgive me if I'm a little cautious. One can't be too careful." A voice filtered from several locations, but the warped, tinny quality made it clear no one was here. "I ordered you to come alone."
Frustration bubbled in my stomach. Whoever was on the other side was almost certainly recording us.
"Are you going to introduce yourself?" I growled.
"No games this time." Beck's expression went carefully blank.
He wiped the dust from the leather booth and relaxed into it. To whoever watched him, he would have looked languid, but nearly everything Beck did was calculated.
"Oh, but how I adore playing with you. Did you like my little joker and the prank phone call? Admit it. I'm pretty clever to have figured out the code words. The Unseen is getting sloppy."
Beck's eyebrows rose past his hairline.
"Your ego will let me catch you, Ellington."
"Oh, I love the way my name rolls off your tongue. Do you agree, Lara? Lisa? Lyra? I do struggle to keep up with your predilection for L names."
My intestines froze, but I didn't let it show on my face. My feet melded to the floor.
"Keep her out of this." Beck flicked something from the seat.
I shot Beck a look. My stomach flooded with warmth despite myself.
"I'm afraid it's much too late for that. Your little love was involved from the moment the council sent you both to deal with Angelo Amato."
"What are you talking about?" Beck growled.
The red light blinked, and I shifted myself so I could pull out my phone and hack into the camera.
It was transmitting the video somewhere, and I might pinpoint where Ellington was hiding.
I used my custom script. First, I needed to find the destination IP address of the server the feed was going to.
"The council said I'm a traitor, right? I used my mission to infiltrate the Thornridge empire and steal their fortune before killing them all and burning it down. Do you know why I was there in the first place?"
"Only the council and the handler receive mission objective briefings, as you know." Beck rolled his eyes.
Ellington let out a breathless laugh, excitement laced through the sound. Let him get his kicks out of this. A VPN hid his location, so I had to run an analysis to track him . Expected. Ellington hadn't stayed hidden for a year because he was stupid.
"My aim was to eliminate Thornridge only.
She was corrupt, messy, and The Unseen had her replacement lined up.
They wanted someone easily controlled. Do you know what I found when I infiltrated her world?
She was a good leader, respected, and the more I looked, the less evidence I found that she'd done what The Unseen accused her of. Does that sound familiar?"
I was only partially listening, too busy working on the encrypted feed. It was being rerouted to a bunch of different locations, but if I could track the relay path, I'd find him.
"What does that have to do with Amato?" Beck rested his head in his hand, bored.
"He was getting sloppy with his drug runs, wasn't he? Spending his money in all the wrong places. That was the excuse the council used to get you there to eliminate him, right? But what did you discover in his database, Lara?"
I looked up from my screen with a frown. As far as anyone knew, I'd completed my objective, to kill Amato and wipe his data. The mission had never sat right with me. The way Amato reacted and the way he scoffed before he attacked.
I kept a backup copy.
How did Ellington know that? A shiver rolled through me.
"You killed Thornridge and emptied half her accounts—" Beck started.
"I never killed Thornridge. She was worth more to me than money, but the council has you so wrapped up in their lies you'll believe anything. She was very much like Adelaide—smart, ruthless. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to her."
My phone pinged with access to the server. All I had to do was press a button, and I'd have login records and locations. Data I could use to pinpoint a real location.
"Keep her name out of your mouth," I rasped.