Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Dewi
She wasn’t sure she might not pace a groove in the cabin’s floor, but she’d stay right there and wait since she now knew Peyton was alive and well—and so was Ken.
She’d even grabbed one of the battery packs Ken left behind, plugged her phone into it, and carried it so her phone wouldn’t die and she’d be tethered to the wall by a charger cord.
If it wasn’t for the baby, she’d be pacing outside, but this would have to do.
It was 56 minutes later when her phone rang. She didn’t even look at the screen before thumbing into the call. “This better be a damned good story for scaring years off our lives, Peyton.”
She nearly wept at the sound of his chuckle. “So you did miss me, huh, Dewster? Good to know.”
“It’s not funny, asshole. Gillian’s a wreck. And yes, you scared me.”
His tone turned serious. “Okay, for starters, I’m sorry. Believe me, it wasn’t my intent to get captured. I didn’t know what happened to the Haugen family, or I never would have gone out alone. And yes, you can chew me a new one when I get home for not following protocols.”
“Can I go tell Gillian now?”
“Not yet. We’ll handle that shortly. Let me update you….”
Her relief quickly tipped into rage as he spun the full story. She even managed not to interrupt him as she settled on the cabin’s sofa to let him tell it. It took him a full hour before he reached the part about boarding an airplane in Finland.
“Are you going to make me play ‘Where in the Everloving Fuck is My Big Brother,’ or will you just fucking tell me already?”
“Dewi, I’m serious that you can’t tell anyone I don’t clear first.”
She nearly broke. “Please, Peyton. Just tell me so I can stop worrying about Ken and focus on choking down the next shit sandwich I know you’re about to feed me.”
He sighed again. “We’re in London. We’re safe at Trevor’s home.”
She wiped her tears away, the relief nearly as painful as her worry had been. “Thank you,” she said, sniffling. “Seriously, I needed to know.”
“Ken’s safe, I’m safe. I need him here, though. Maybe a week or two. Possibly longer.”
“You’re not sending him anywhere dangerous, are you?”
“No, honey. I need his geek skills.”
“And you promise he’ll be safe?”
Another of those big-brother sighs. “I will ask Trevor to have one of his men stay with Ken, armed, anytime Ken leaves the house. Is that good enough?”
“I don’t know, is it? That fucker’s guys managed to kill Maisie and Rupert, didn’t they? And they were at a secret safe house with armed guards.”
Peyton
Peyton was glad he’d retreated to his bedroom for this discussion and wasn’t sitting near Trevor for the man to overhear.
“I will not deliberately put Ken in harm’s way, Dewi.
I swear to you, not just as your big brother, but as the Pack Alpha.
I can’t cover all possibilities, but I will do my best to keep him safe.
If I thought he wasn’t, I’d personally put him on the next plane back to the States as soon as he wakes up. ”
He could almost picture her exasperation. “Fine.” She sniffled, and he felt horrible that she’d cried. Relieved tears now, sure. Still, he hated being the cause of it.
“Where’s Hamish?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I know he mentioned flying back to St. Louis to take care of business before returning to Florida, but I don’t know if he’s left the compound yet.”
“I need you to take notes on your tablet or computer. Something you can easily delete. Not on paper. We cannot risk it.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
Peyton waited until she was ready, then he listed things he needed to happen ASAP.
All under the guise that he was still missing.
“Wait a minute. You mean I can’t even tell Hamish you’re alive?”
“No. If he’s somehow intercepted before he reaches London, he won’t be able to give up that information. In fact, I’ll have Trevor come up with a secret signal for whoever meets him at the airport, so Hamish knows it’s safe.”
“And you don’t want Aisling to travel with him?”
“No. I want her left right where she is, for now.”
Dewi paused. “Can I speak freely?” she asked a moment later.
“Yes.”
“Is this related to what you told me about her skills? Wouldn’t someone like her be better going into the lab?”
“We’re nowhere near ready for that operation.
I don’t even know where the lab is. Jake, Ken, and I will work with Trevor’s contacts to see if we can pinpoint it on satellite photos.
That’s one of the reasons I want Ken here instead of playing phone tag.
There’s a greater chance of electronic surveillance finding me if I’m doing that. ”
“When we locate it, let’s send a fuckton of well-armed shifters in there and destroy it. Or are we rich enough to buy a bunker buster from a failed former Soviet state?”
“I love your thinking, sweetie, but we don’t know what we’re dealing with.
And we don’t know if anyone might be tipped off if we do.
The world needs to believe I’m still missing.
The people at the lab will likely be hunkered down right now since I didn’t make it there and the team delivering me likely didn’t, either.
Then they couldn’t immediately find me. Ideally, we’ll pick up one of the lab workers and Prime them for details.
I will not risk lives by going in there half-assed. ”
“And, obviously,” she said, “we have to stop hunting Faegan, for now. We don’t know what’s true or disinfo.”
He stretched out on the bed. “Oh, we’re not stopping. We’re taking the fight to them.”
“How?”
“Because another ‘tip’ was phoned in to a wolf pack in Italy today. They passed it to Trevor a couple of hours ago. We’ll set up a reverse sting and see if we can catch anyone.”
“How do you know it’s not a real tip?”
“We don’t know. If it is legit, no harm, no foul. If it’s not, we stand to capture someone with information. Faegan wasn’t at the house where the family was murdered, so we know it wasn’t him on-site. Trevor and his men, however, have scented that person. Meaning we have an advantage.”
“I don’t get it. What if the guy who killed the family was one of the guys at the barn who might now be dead?
You wouldn’t know who that man is because you didn’t go to the house and scent him.
They were obviously expecting to get away with this bullshit because they didn’t even bother moving the bodies or going through the trouble of killing the family elsewhere. They just left them in their house.”
Peyton rubbed his forehead. He honestly hadn’t considered that, thanks to his own exhaustion. “There are a lot of moving parts. Stuff I haven’t and can’t tell you, about this and other things. Pack Alpha business,” he quickly added when he sensed her impending protest.
“I don’t like being kept in the dark. Especially now.”
“I know. I don’t like keeping you there. Hopefully, I won’t have to keep you there much longer.”
“Why do you want Hamish in London?”
“Because there are likely things about the house Hyacinth doesn’t know,” Peyton said.
“I want Hamish on the ground in case there are secret nooks Faegan kept hidden. Hamish grew up in the house. It’s a long shot, but it’s something we can immediately act on.
As tricky as the bastard is, maybe there’s something we’re missing, as simple as a wall safe, or a false drawer in a desk.
Short of hiring a crew to literally take the house apart nail-by-nail—which we don’t have the manpower or time to do—we don’t know what we don’t know. ”
“Couldn’t we just ask Hamish?”
“He might see something that we miss.”
“Then why not bring Hyacinth?”
“I want her kept in isolation. She was interrogated, and I’m satisfied she wasn’t involved in this.” He heavily sighed. “Not that it helps Tamsin, but Hyacinth was as much of a victim as Tamsin. She suffered decades of abuse, and Faegan murdered her son. She’s practically catatonic now.”
“Then what’s our next step? And how long do I have to keep poor Gillian in the dark?”
“Not long. Where’s Badger?”
“Hold on.” She did something. “Light’s on in his cabin. I think he’s there.”
“Can you take me over there to talk to him?”
“Hold on. Let me grab the baby—”
“Wait, don’t do that. I have Ken’s work phone. I’ll call him from that. Don’t go to sleep yet. Once Badger helps me tell Gillian, I’m going to have him call Duncan and Trent into your cabin so I can call you back on speaker. Don’t tell them what’s up.”
“Okay. Love you, you fucking asshole.”
Peyton laughed. “Love you, too, brat.”
“Wait!”
“Yeah?”
“Can you…do me a favor?”
Something about her rare, vulnerable tone made him pause. “Depends on what it is.”
“Can you delete all the angry texts and voicemails I sent Ken while you have his phone? Please? I don’t want him reading those.”
“Dewi, I don’t know if I—”
“Please? I mean, if you have his personal phone, I’d appreciate you doing that, too, but I don’t want him…” She choked up and it ripped at Peyton.
He remembered the baby he stood guard over in the hospital, the toddler who never smiled.
The young woman he hated to appoint as Head Enforcer, but knew it was the right call to keep her from turning into something they couldn’t control.
The woman they thought might never find happiness.
“Okay, sweetie,” he gently said. “I’ll do it. But I’m not going into his personal phone. And I’m going to tell him I did it in case he wants to restore them.”
“Fair enough,” she softly said. “Thank you.”
“Love you, kiddo.”
She sniffled. “Love you, too. Dick.”
He was laughing even as she hung up on him.
He grabbed Ken’s phone, quickly deleted all the texts—holy shit she can type fast—and the voicemails without reading or listening.
His next call was to Badger.
The old shifter answered, his voice wary. “Ye all right then, Ken?”
“He’s fine, but this isn’t Ken. And if you aren’t alone, please get alone immediately and don’t give away who you’re talking to.”
There was a pause long enough that Peyton actually looked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Peyton?”
“Yep. I already called Dewi.”
A relieved sigh rumbled through the line. “Oh, thank christ, lad! I bet Gillian’s relieved.”
“Eh, I haven’t told her yet.”
“What? Ye haven’t told her yet? What the bloody feckin’ hell’s wrong wi’ ye?”
“Let me catch you up, please? Then we’ll go through that.”
“All right.”
For the third time in the space of several hours, Peyton told the story, abridged even further so it only took about ten minutes.
“Bloody hell,” Badger said. “All that and ye found Jake Peterson, too?”
“I know. And I don’t want his existence revealed yet, either. Not even to Carl.”
“Secret weapon, then?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Okay, now can we go tell Gillian?” Badger asked.
“Not just yet. Ken told me about what happened when you accepted acting Pack Alpha.”
Another frustrated grumble. “Yer makin’ it hard fer me to take yer side in this.”
“Once I talk to Gillian, I need you to summon Trent and Duncan to Dewi’s cabin so I can talk to all of you on speaker. Don’t tell Duncan or Trent I’m alive yet, either. I’m serious that I don’t want anyone else knowing. Not even Asia.”
“All right. I’m sure ye have yer reasons.”
“I do. And before you even tell Gillian I’m on the phone, or what’s going on, I want you to Prime her so she doesn’t scream and wake up the whole compound.”
Finally, Badger chuckled. “Ye know, that’s probably not the worst plan.”
“I have a decent idea every once in a while.”