Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Levi
We’re finally all assembled around the dinner table that evening—Grant, Dakota, Zephyrine, and me, along with the requisite members of the Kelly family.
Rowan and Hudson decided to fly out and back late tonight so we could have the meeting in person, but Charlotte was out of town doing research and Finn had other obligations.
Ramsey’s busy with his season and happy to keep the situation only on a need-to-know basis, and Hazel opted to stay out of the details of our plan but was happy to loan the ranch house for meetings, so long as we swept up afterward.
“How did things go?” Hudson looks between Grant and me.
“Successfully,” I answer. “Along with some clues about where the governor's keeping the relics.”
“He coughed them up?” Rowan gives me a surprised look. “Thought that fucker wouldn’t talk.”
“Levi gave a convincing speech,” Zephyrine pipes in, a wicked smile and a knowing glance from across the table have me distracted for a moment.
“Did you now?” Grant looks at me with a raised brow.
“I applied pressure in the right places, and he squeaked a little. I’m not sure he knew much.
I imagine Abbott knows better than to leak all his secrets to a man like him,” I explain, hoping to spare Dakota the gruesome details.
She’s aware of exactly what kind of family we are, but I know Grant’s still protective over whatever innocence she has left where we’re concerned.
At least when it comes to the torture and death part of the family business.
“He saw him as more of a convenient ally and less of a confidant,” Zephyrine adds.
“Does he have a confidant we can pressure?” Hudson looks between the two of us.
“It’s complicated. He has a few guys he relies on, but he always wanted my oldest brother to take over in his stead someday. But he’s a fuckup. With only half the brains my father wishes he had,” Zephyrine explains.
“And your other brother?” Grant asks.
“More brains, less impulse control. So it’s a catch-22 for him.” Zephyrine shrugs.
“So no one he trusts fully?” Rowan’s brow furrows.
“No. He’s paranoid and always worried about anyone outside the family too much.
Corey only knew as much as he did because he became family through me.
And even then, it was only what he felt was absolutely necessary,” Zephyrine reveals.
“At least as far as I understand. As you all know, I’ve spent quite a bit of time away from him. ”
“All right. So these clues, do we know where they’re at?” Hudson turns back to me.
“A compound up in the mountains. Zephyrine knows where it is. I did a little research, looked it up, and tried to find anything I could online. There are no publicly available images, but I might be able to do some reconnaissance and get some private ones.”
“Security?” Rowan asks. “I imagine he'll have something or someone keeping watch for drones.”
“Lots of it, it sounds like. A private security firm is my best guess. Governor’s team when he’s in residence, so we’ll need to avoid that. Armed presence. Gates on any exposed side.”
“Exposed?” Grant seeks clarity.
“It’s in a mountain valley. Steep climb in any direction around the main house besides the front entrance.” Zephyrine taps the blurry map I have open. “He’s always been paranoid.”
“For good reason with the kind of extracurriculars he gets up to.” Rowan tilts his head as he considers the landscape. “So how do we get in and out?”
“I need to do more reconnaissance to make a plan. There are a few blurry satellite images. Outdated but better than nothing. We’ll get ones at street level of the entrance ourselves if nothing else.
But I’m also going to see if I can hack the surveillance system.
Someone as paranoid as he is has to have one, and we might be able to use that to our advantage to help us map the property, with Zephyrine’s help, of course. ” I flash her a small smile.
“I’ve got a guy who’s good with drones,” Rowan offers.
“We just hired a few,” Grant adds, glancing toward me as he leans back in his seat.
“I don’t want to have them on any kind of alert. We'll need this to be a surprise. If he thinks we’re gonna storm the castle, he’ll lock it down. Fill the moats, pull up the gates. We don’t want this to get any harder than it already is.”
“What’s the move then? Do you have one in mind?” Grant knows me too well. I was up early this morning—three large cups of black coffee deep by the time Zephyrine joined me for breakfast.
“Trojan horse.” It’s a simple enough plan, but one that would take precision to execute with any sort of success.
“How?” It’s Hudson’s turn to furrow his brow in my direction.
“Zephyrine drives a truck straight into the compound. It’s closer to Purgatory Falls than the governor’s mansion.
She’s been there plenty of times. If she really escaped captivity, it’d be the first place she’d run to.
” I zoom out the map and point to the distance between our ranch and his.
“He knows we’ve got her, but he has no idea she’s cooperating.
I already sent a message threatening her life to Abbott.
So he’ll assume she’s in a hostage situation, not a willing participant.
Which helps us set up the Trojan horse.”
Grant barely flinches, but I know his tells, and I see the slightest tick in his jaw that I made a move that big without telling him first. He’s gotten conservative since Dakota nearly died, and I don’t want that interfering with how we play this game.
We'll hash it out privately later. Rowan’s tilting his head side to side, lips flatlined, earnestly considering the plan, but Hudson still seems skeptical, a feeling he confirms when he speaks.
“So you get her past the gates. Presumably with one or two people hidden in the truck—”
“Three hidden. We'll need at least four to pull this off. Bare minimum. Everything we take has to be carried out on our backs.”
“So you somehow pull off hiding three people in the truck, and you get her in there and trained up in time to be both an actress and a gunslinger. You get past the guards, the security systems, and into whatever dungeon he’s keeping the relics—”
“No guns for her. She’ll have to go in unarmed, or they’ll be suspicious. But yes, a vault housing the relics is in the main house. We’re still determining the location of it.”
“Then you somehow manage to crack the vault there. Extract the relics from whatever other collection he has inside. Then what? How do you get out undetected? You can’t drive out.
Any car you take will be called in, and every state trooper in Colorado will be looking for you.
You can’t walk out because you’re in the middle of nowhere.
His security presumably still at your back. ”
“We ride out.”
“Ride out?” Hudson’s furrow deepens. “How?”
“He’s got horses on the ranch. Or he did. I’ll need to confirm he still does, but we steal what we need from the tack room, grab the horses, and ride for the mountains.”
“And what stops the guards from following you in a car?”
“Nothing. We’d have to outride them to a place where they’d have to follow on foot. Then we could put enough distance between us to buy time.”
“Time for what?” Rowan’s intrigued by this plan. He always loves a challenge, which is good because he’s one of the three I’ll need on this mission.
“An airlift,” I answer. I planned to take a page for Corey’s book.
“My pilot’s a former combat pilot, not a magician. Even he can’t get a plane down in a valley like that. Let alone being shot at.” Hudson shakes his head.
“Not a plane. A helicopter.” I point to the top of one of the mountains, where there’s enough of a clearing it could land, or worst-case scenario, hover low enough for us to climb up a ladder.
“And we’re getting that where exactly?” Grant raises a brow, but I can tell he’s intrigued.
“I’m sure we can find one if we look hard enough.” I offer up a wry smile, trying to reassure the doubts I can feel start to rise in the room.
“And a pilot?” Hudson gives me a questioning look.
“Yours won’t want the job?” I joke because I imagine he’s used to flying a private jet back and forth across the country these days and is less interested in a job that gets him shot at.
“I doubt it.”
“Wouldn’t you want someone with more recent experience?” Dakota chimes in.
“Yes, so if any of you have ideas, let me know. I have a long shot in mind.” I look to Grant, and his brows slant southward for a moment before he tilts his head in recognition.
“Worth trying,” he agrees when he understands my meaning.
“Want to share with the group?” Rowan looks between us.
“An old friend of mine. Heard a rumor he’s not the ghost we thought. If it’s true, he’s the guy.”
“A pilot?” Hudson wants clarification.
“No, but he would know one we can hire.”
“And who’s our fourth?” Rowan already assumes he’s along for the ride, and he’s right.
“Him if we’re lucky.”
“She know how to ride?” Hudson’s eyes land on Zephyrine.
“No,” she answers him. “But I’m willing to learn.”
“Make that two of us. I’ve met your horses but never ridden one.” Rowan frowns at the idea.
“We can get you a refresher, and Zephyrine can learn. It’s easier than it looks.” I look between them, thankful when Zephyrine doesn’t disagree with me.
“I can help too,” Dakota offers. “Hazel might be home for a visit soon, and she’s excellent with first-time riders.” She gives Zephyrine a reassuring look because the doubt is showing on her face.
“How long do we have?” Rowan asks.
“Less than a month.”
“A month? To find a fourth, a combat pilot, map the property, teach these two to ride, and come up with a plan that makes those odds work?” Hudson gives me a skeptical look.
“We’ve pulled off difficult plans before.” Rowan turns to his friend.
“Difficult, yes. Impossible, no. We tried impossible once, if you remember,” Hudson recalls, a flash of something crossing his face before he clears it.
“We all survived.” Rowan shrugs dismissively.
“Barely.” Hudson emphasizes his displeasure at the memory that the rest of us aren’t privy to.
“It’s possible, just requires good planning and timing. We’ve got three-fourths of the crew already,” I insist.
“Half. You’ll need a pilot and a backup in case something happens to him, especially if we’ve got the cavalry on our heels coming in hot.
But half is still a good start. Especially since we have her.
The rest we can manage; we’ll just have to work our connections until we find something. ” Rowan’s always up for chaos.
“What are you doing about the cameras?” Grant interjects. “If you’re using the cameras to map the property, what stops him from just reporting the theft and putting you all in jail?”
“I’ll patch in clean security footage when I hack it. But I also plan to take out the local electric grid when I do it.”
Hudson makes a guttural sound of disbelief, and it echoes in the silent room. The faces around the table stare at me with concern.
“How do you plan to take out the local grid?” He asks what everyone is clearly thinking.
“A small EMP device.”
“Right. So what’s the backup plan?” Hudson looks around the table skeptically, surveying to see if there’s anyone who's on board with this.
“We don’t have a backup plan,” I reply honestly because I doubt the governor will make good on the directions I sent him. “But I’m open to suggestions.”
The table’s quiet then. However unhinged and nearly impossible my plan is, it’s the only one we have.
“So we’re moving forward on this one?” I look for a consensus.
“Sounds like we have no other choice.” Hudson’s still skeptical, but he’s willing to acknowledge our limited options. “If everyone on the team is willing…”
“Tell me what I can do to help.” Grant nods his approval.
“Just let me know when you want me back out here. I have a few trips I have to run for Charlotte, but I can make it work,” Rowan agrees.
I look to Zephyrine last, waiting to hear what she has to say. She might not usually have a vote on this particular council, but she’s an honorary member for the time being. The most important one, if we’re honest.
“I’m in.” She nods, but the way her eyes catch mine, I can read her underlying concern. She’s willing but worried. I have my work cut out for me to get her to a place where she feels confident.
“If anyone can pull this off, it’s you three. You’ve got this. I know you do.” Dakota does her best to boost morale.
We'll need all the morale we can get. This particular plan doesn’t have an exit strategy. If we fail, we won’t just lose out on the opportunity to bring the relics home. None of us will ever see this ranch again.