Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
GREYSON
Irose to my feet, walking to the large window of my office. People were walking the street below, enjoying the warm day, unaware a predator watched them from above.
“I’m listening,” I told my brother. He sounded sincere for the first time in the years we’d been apart, and that worried me more than it should have, considering the bad blood between us.
“They took her.” A distinctive crack in his voice had my brow furrowing.
“Who?” I asked, although my gut told me the answer.
“Ava. Stole her from me and I didn’t see it coming.” I could hear the thud of him punching something. “Grey, I need to get her back, and these assholes have me cornered.”
The nickname only he had ever called me until Riley had claimed it. An endearment when we were kids, a reminder of our rift when we got older.
“Slow down. Who has her, and how did they take her from you?” The suspicions that Mason and his girl had raised pawed at my thoughts, and as Emerson spilled the truth, he confirmed them.
I listened to the unraveling of a man who had once been my brother and my partner, my best friend, and had become my adversary in a sequence of events that had spiraled from my one poorly choiced lesson.
“So, these guys have been masquerading as Omens, pissing everyone off, and now they have Ava. And you let them in right under your nose?” He was off his game, and I could only imagine it had started with the Randall incident, then spiraled from there. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was distracted. She…” He paused, and I didn’t have to see him to know he was searching for words.
“You fell for her. Damn it, Riley was right.” I heard a smug ‘hmm’ and looked up to see her leaning on the doorframe with just as smug a look. That door had been closed when I’d taken the call, and I shot her a scowl to remind her of what I thought about her sneaking up on me.
“Close the door,” I mouthed to her. Even if my secretary was part of the business, this was a conversation I didn’t want anyone hearing.
Emerson said nothing, but he didn’t need to. My brother had never asked for help. It was beneath him. Especially from me.
“So you took Ava, intending to take my wife…” A growl accentuated those two words. “To force my hand, giving me no choice but to listen to how your empire is in the tank and you want me to bail you out? Am I understanding that correctly, Emerson?”
“Yes,” he snarled, the man I knew returning with my curt summary of his actions.
“Idiot. You never did understand the art of subtlety or manipulation.”
“I don’t need manipulation or subtlety. People fear me because I act swiftly and with force.”
Two halves of the same coin our parents had called us.
I used my brains. Emerson preferred his muscles.
It was what made us the perfect team, one very similar to Brinks and Raines.
Only when Emerson flexed his muscles, he had already calculated every outcome and decided on the most lethal course.
He was too smart for his own good, with a need to strike quick.
“You fucked up,” I told him. “And you almost fucked it up with me. You had no guarantees that I would help you, especially if you had taken Riley. A bullet would have been in your head before a word left your mouth.”
“And mine would have been in yours. And I didn’t fuck up. I cleaned house, and it went wrong.”
I turned from the window to see Riley perched on my desk, watching me with those sharp green eyes.
“Then how did you end up with Ava?” I snapped, frustrated that he was such a mess when he’d never been this way.
“My men grabbed her, thinking she was Riley.”
I laughed, and Riley’s head inclined to the side while she studied me.
Two strides and I was in front of her, rubbing my hand up her thigh.
I’d forgotten she was meeting me for lunch.
Now that she worked for the smaller firm in town, she was no longer in the same building as me and the few blocks of distance grated on me.
Her insistence on maintaining her independence and continuing her career had been a point of contention until I had agreed with the condition that she stay heavily guarded and I run a check on every client she met with.
Arguments about client privacy fell on deaf ears and she conceded to my requirements.
“Another fuck up? Are those the two who took Ava today?” I pushed her skirt up, sinking my fingers into her skin.
“No. I shot them as soon as I discovered they brought me a blonde and pink haired vixen with a mouth and a fast right hook.”
My snort had Riley’s brows crinkling. I brought my finger to her mouth and shook my head.
“That sounds more like the man I know. Shoot and ask questions later.”
“Exactly.”
More silence. He was waiting for my decision, and it wasn’t an easy one.
His reputation went against everything I prided myself on.
Especially now that these imposters had botched so many attacks in his name.
Even without the suspected trafficking ring he’d never denounced, even if he wasn’t involved, it still looked bad.
I dropped my hand back to Riley’s leg, thinking about what Emerson had said about the reasons behind the sloppy attacks.
A war to turn us all against him and wipe him out.
“It’s more than that,” I mumbled, the pieces falling into place.
“What?” he asked, confusion in his voice.
“They know you’ll call me. Your bargaining chip is gone. They may not know we’re brothers or why you had Ava, but they know she belongs to my family. That I’ll hunt down anyone who hurts her.”
“And bring your force on me when they know I’m weak.”
I shook my head, my hand frozen on Riley’s skin. “No, you taught these guys better than that and they’ve taken what you taught them and are using it on all of us. This isn’t a play to take you out. It’s a move to take all the top families out.”
“It’s a trap?”
“You’re too far into it, too focused on what they’ve been doing to your dynasty to look outward and see their true aim.
By taking Ava, they know I’ll come for you.
Your bargaining chip is gone. By proxy, Brinks comes with Raines because Riley is involved, and they’ll want payback for hurting her friend.
Brinks might be an asshole, but he’s as protective of Riley as I am.
” She pouted her lips and crossed her arms. “Donelli has been waiting to get a piece of you. With Tony in charge, he’ll bite at the chance to get revenge for the attack on his family and for the shit with Tirenti they think you masterminded.
And by proxy, Strint will join in as well as Rinagi who they placed in Tirenti’s seat. ”
“All of Armina and the power of the east coast gunning me down and not noticing the real threat is surrounding them,” he muttered. “Shit, this is a disaster.”
“Yeah.”
“Stay there, Grey. I’ll get her back. I can’t drag you into this if it’s a trap.”
I could hear the stress rising at the speed of his speech and knew he was pacing the room.
“Suddenly getting a conscience, Mer?”
Riley’s hand played with the buttons on my shirt, and I suddenly had the urge to shorten this call.
“Maybe. Forget I called.”
“Mer,” I said to stop him from hanging up. “I’m in and I’ll bring Brinks and Raines. But this needs to stop. We put the past behind us, and you let your grudge go. Maybe I’ll forgive you for shooting me when I tried to stop you from leaving.”
Riley’s brow rose. I’d never told her the story behind the scar that reminded me every day of what had broken between me and my brother. What we’d both lost that day.
Silence was my answer. A silence that almost had me hanging up.
“Fine. You’re still an asshole.”
“And you’re a shithead whose aim sucks.” Thankfully. “Clean house, Mer. I’ll call Brinks. But we’ll need someplace safe to fly in. They’ll be expecting us to use the closest airport, and they’ll have eyes on Armina.”
“I’ll text you the coordinates to my safe house. There’s a landing strip behind it. Only my top men know it exists.”
“Good.”
“Grey.” He caught me right before I disconnected. “Thank you.”
“I’m doing this for Ava. If you prove yourself and don’t turn on me like I suspect you will, then I’ll accept your apology and your thanks.”
I put my phone in my pocket and met Riley’s eyes.
“So, I finally get to meet the infamous brother?”
Tipping her chin, I said, “No. You’re staying here.”
“Nope. We’re a team, Grey. Where you go, I go.”
She was stubborn, but there was no way I would take her to Seagate.
“I know we are, but this is too dangerous. My brother can’t be trusted.
I could walk off that plane and he could gun me down in seconds.
I don’t want you there for that, and I won’t risk losing you if this shit about the trafficking is all a ruse. ”
“What shit?”
I rested my head on hers and sighed. “Lunch is off, baby girl. Let’s call your brother and I’ll fill you both in.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck. “And then we leave for Seagate?”
My jaw tightened, but I saw the resolve in her eyes. Once she had it in her head to do something, there was no talking her out of it. She was the only one who had ever gotten her way with me. It was the reason she now worked out of my sight and too far from me for comfort.
“There will be consequences if you insist on defying my order to stay here,” I said. My fingers draped down her arm, causing goosebumps to rise.
“I like your consequences,” she said with a grin, those green irises sparkling with mischief.
There was no winning this argument. The situation was dangerous. Emerson could turn on me, kill me and everyone I brought with me, but my gut told me otherwise. That my brother needed me and this was a chance I couldn’t turn away from. To mend the gulf between us. If we survived.
“Ready to save Ava?”
Her smile faltered, worry coating her eyes. “What happened to Ava?”