Chapter 9
LEX
Waiting for some damn coordinates.
Cade’s arm is slung over my chest. We’re both stripped down to nothing but boxers, tangled in sheets we never planned to use. His intoxicating cedar and ink scent clings to the pillow, to me, and fills the air around us. I don’t move. Don’t dare to breathe too deep.
No way in hell am I about to wake him up.
His body finally gave up around one-thirty this morning after hours of tossing and turning. He never said it out loud, but he’s nervous about tomorrow.
We all are.
Over the last few days, we’ve officially turned The Obsidian into something unrecognizable. Knox and Nate stripped that nightclub down to its bones and repurposed it into a full blown replica of Project Dylan’s headquarters.
It’s like the mission van threw up in there. Massive screens lining the walls. Whiteboards covered in timelines and coordinates. Tables buried under laptops and endless Luca poems.
Roman also cleared the entire eleventh floor for us at NOX so we could stay close. Close to each other. Close to The Obsidian. Close enough that if Luca so much as sneezes, we’ll all know about it.
Still nothing.
No coordinates.
No messages.
No videos.
No fucking anything.
The silence is deafening. It’s calculated. Seems like Luca wants us wound tight, exhausted, and desperate. Wants us to be buried alive inside this stupid waiting game of his.
Well congratulations, asshole. It’s working.
Knox and Haley took the room next to ours.
Though, I’m pretty sure Knox hasn’t actually slept in it.
Half the time he’s zonked out in a booth and drooling on his laptop downstairs.
The other half he’s just staring at lines of code as they burn deep into his retinas.
Haley’s come in here at least three times now because she doesn’t want to sleep alone.
The room on the other side belongs to Ellie and Briggs. That one took a minute or two to wrap my head around. We finally dragged the truth out of Little Whitmore the other day when Cade and I cornered her while everyone was picking their rooms at NOX.
Turns out Caleb Briggs reached out to her after the Donor Fight.
One message turned into a couple of conversations.
Conversations turned into a few dates. And eventually the dates turned into a secret relationship—her idea, not his.
Ellie wanted it secret with everything going on. I don’t really blame her.
Cade did.
The guy nearly had a coronary when the words “I love him” flowed from Ellie’s pink, glossy lips. Not because Briggs isn’t solid. He’s just the kind of solid dude Cade didn’t want his little sister falling for. Black Book and all that shit.
Which Little Whitmore was quick to remind him that my family deals in just as much blood and guns. Probably more, if we actually counted.
That shut him up. Sort of.
I think it’s just hard for him to come to grips with the fact that three of the people he loves are now tied to dangerous families in one way or another. Shit, if Cal ends up with a criminal girlfriend one day, Cade will lose it.
He’s still pissed about Ellie and Briggs. Just quieter about it now.
Honestly, I think it’s great. He’s not the normal annoying as hell Wall Street trust fund brats she usually has draped all over her. Briggs is different. He’s steady. Smart. Protective without being stupid about it.
Plus, the guy looks at Ellie the same way I look at Cade and Bella. Like he’d take a bullet for her. Like he’d kill for her.
He’ll keep her safe.
Cade stirs beside me. His breath is warm against my chest.
“You’re still up?” he murmurs, his voice rough with sleep as he tilts his head to look up at me.
I nod. No point in trying to lie. “Yeah.”
He studies my face for a second. “You’re thinking about the trial.”
I huff, dragging the back of my knuckles down the hard cut of his jaw. “I’m thinking about what happens if I can’t protect you tomorrow.”
Cade pushes up on one elbow, closing every inch of space between us. “Hey,” he whispers, resting a flat hand over my heart. “I’ll be ok, babe.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know that.”
“I know this,” he murmurs. His fingers trace down the ridges of my abs, sending a spark straight through my spine. “You’ll be with me.” His hand slides lower, grazing that spot just above the band of my boxers. “And that alone proves I’ll be just fine.”
My heart thumps louder at the heat in his voice. At the way his lust-filled, hazel eyes drink me in.
His hand slips under the cotton, palm wrapping tight around my dick. The friction and heat of his grip makes my hips jerk off the mattress.
“Fuck, Cade.” My voice breaks on the moan. My head thuds back into the pillows as his long fingers clamp around me. Fisting me with a tight, ruthless pull.
“I needed this, babe,” I say, completely unashamed by the thick drop of precum already leaking over his thumb. “Fuck, I needed this so bad.”
“I know.” He leans over me and crushes his mouth against my neck, biting and kissing his way up to the sensitive line of my jaw. He squeezes the swollen head of my cock hard enough to make me moan. Then ramps up his pace and twists his wrist just right.
I grab his chin and plunge my tongue deep into his mouth. Cade groans straight into my throat and kisses me back with this desperate intensity like he wants to claw his way under my skin and stay there.
He pulls back just enough to speak. His lips ghosting mine. “We both needed this.”
Never breaking eye contact, he peels my boxers down my thighs. I lift my hips to help and kick them off. I’m already panting and seconds away from begging his ass to wreck me.
Cade drops down between my knees. He drags a slow, dripping-wet stripe of his tongue all the way up the underside of my dick, swirling around the leaking tip. Tasting me. Fucking soaking me.
Then he takes me in. Inch by inch. Sucking hard until his lips hit the base. His throat swallows me whole, clenching tight around my head.
“Oh my fucking…” I growl, my hands tangling into his thick hair, forcing him deeper. “God, babe. Just like that. Swallow it.”
He moans around me and fuck, I feel it. Every single vibration. Every fucking ounce of it.
Knock. Knock.
My eyes fly open. Pulse suddenly competing with the rhythmic slide of Cade’s throat.
But my man doesn’t stop. Not for one fucking second. He keeps bobbing his head, tongue pressed flat around my thickening cock. His fingers dig into my hips and anchor me to the mattress as he deep-throats me with a desperate, stubborn focus.
Knock. Knock.
“Babe,” I grit, hips twitching at the mercy of his mouth. “Someone better be dying out there.”
Cade hums against me. He reaches a hand down to cup my balls, squeezing them tight while his mouth works me raw.
“Fuuuuck,” I groan, throwing an arm over my face.
Knock. Knock.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to reach for the pistol on the nightstand and blast three rounds through the wood.
“Guys? You up?” Tex calls from the hallway.
“Goddammit,” I grit out as Cade slows his pace.
Cade lets out a low, frustrated groan and drags his mouth off of me with one last slow swirl of his tongue. He leans up to rest his forehead on mine.
“Guess that’s our cue,” he mutters through a heavy breath.
“Cue for what? Another round of blows with Tex? Because I’ll be happy to give the guy another shiner for stopping this.”
He chuckles low in his throat, already pushing off the bed.
“Nope,” I snap, grabbing his thigh and yanking him back on top of me. I wrap a hand around the back of his neck and entangle our tongues once more.
Knock. Knock.
“Babe,” he laughs breathlessly, finally pulling away. “Later. I promise.”
“Fine,” I whine as he gets out of bed.
Cade glances down at Little Lex, fully hard, wet with saliva and precum, pulsing proudly in the low light.
“You gonna pull the sheet up or just leave that there for Tex to see?” he asks, leaning down to grab a pair of shorts off the floor.
“No, that cockblocking bastard needs to stare at what he just ruined.”
“Menace.” He shakes his head and walks to the door, still grinning.
“We’ve got the coordinates,” Tex says before the door is even all the way open. “Gear up. We meet Eric in an hour.”
“Shit,” I mumble. “I forgot all about Sky Daddy.”
???
Costa Rica
Sweating my balls off.
12 days since Bella’s kidnapping.
SLAP.
My hand slams into the side of my neck for what has to be the millionth time when another bug the size of Mon-fucking-tana tries to eat me alive.
“I hate this place,” I grunt, wiping the blood and insect guts on my pants.
It’s hot as fuck out here in this damn rainforest. Sweat clings to my spine before we’ve even cleared the treeline. Every step is a fight against the muck. The damp earth sucks at my boots with every goddamn stride.
Up ahead, a waterfall thunders through the canopy. It’s the kind of lovely, postcard-perfect bullshit people pay thousands of dollars to see. I don’t give a damn. This place can keep it for all I care.
And since Roman’s stubborn ass wouldn’t stay in the fucking van, it’s taken us ten times longer to make our way up here. I glance back and watch him stagger. Again. Pretty sure the guy has leaned on every tree we’ve passed just trying to catch his breath.
Cade walks beside me. He’s quiet in the way that tells me he’s deep in his head. Already prepping himself for whatever hell Luca designed for him out here. I reach over for his hand, grabbing his focus before he disappears in his thoughts.
“I’m ok, babe,” he says, giving a small nod.
I don’t believe him, but I nod back anyway.
A house comes into view as we break through the last line of trees.
If you can even call it a house. The structure squats in the clearing like a bad joke.
It looks like it’s being held together by duct tape and spite.
Wood splintering with age and humidity. A tin roof that’s rusted and bowed.
And walls patched together with whatever scraps some poor sucker could find out here.
“So much for Eden,” I mumble.
“Thermals show no movement inside,” Nate’s voice comes through the comms. “Satellite uplink is stable.”
“Helps when you hack into the NSA. You’re welcome, Barinov,” Laing huffs from behind me.
Sabine’s calming voice follows immediately. “You boys be careful, you hear me?”
“Eyes on the house.” Tex’s voice crackles in my ear. “Kenji and I are in place. Y’all are clear to enter.”
Briggs and Laing peel off toward the outer perimeter, both armed to the teeth. Briggs gives me a silent nod as he passes. A quiet promise without words. Laing just flashes a small, smug wink like a dipshit and disappears into the trees.
Khoza reaches the shack first. His weapon raised and body tight. He pauses and glances back at us. “Say the word,” he says, already shifting his stance, “and I’m in. Simple.”
“It’s time, Cade,” Roman says, scratching at his chest. “Let’s go.”