Beta Team-The Saviors, Part two (Forest Grove #4)

Chapter 1

KIRA

Iwake with a jerk and immediately regret it.

My head starts pounding, and my stomach rolls.

Closing my eyes, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and count to ten.

What is wrong with me? I don’t remember anything.

Did I get drunk? I slowly peel my eyes open, and dread settles in my stomach when I don’t recognize anything around me.

I gasp when the memories start slamming into me; us racing to save Ari and Jason only to be too late, the fight in the apartment, Professor North showing up.

Tears fill my eyes, heartbreak overwhelming me.

Keon. I frantically look around, searching for anything that I can use as a weapon.

I have to get out of here. He has to be okay. They all have to be okay.

I jump from the bed, jerking open drawers when the door flies open. A guy steps in wearing the full tactical gear the bad guys were wearing at the apartment. “Don’t come near me,” I warn.

“We aren’t going to hurt you,” he replies, his voice coming out distorted behind the helmet.

“The needle to my neck says otherwise.”

Professor North, or whoever he is, walks in beside him. “We didn’t have a choice. My mission was to get you out safe, and that’s what I did.”

“Your mission?” I ask calmly, even though I feel anything but. “Who the hell are you?”

“That isn’t important right now.”

“Where are they?” I demand. “Where are my guys?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” My voice rises with each word, and I take a step forward. “You left them there?”

“I didn’t have a choice. The place was getting swarmed.”

“It was on fire!”

Everything Kane ever taught me about self defense rises up, and I let my anger fuel me.

I know there’s no way to fight them off, but that doesn’t mean I won’t go down trying.

I fly at Professor North and tuck my shoulder.

I hit him in the gut, and he barely moves.

He grabs me by my upper arm and spins me around, locking his arms around me. “Kira. You have to calm down.”

“Calm down?! You left them there to die!”

“No,” he says evenly, “I didn’t. Their teams were arriving.”

“Let me go.”

“Can you refrain from trying to attack me? I’m trying to help.”

I snort before I can stop myself. “You ran away like a fucking coward.”

Professor North sighs, but slowly lets my arms go. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

I whirl around. “Fuck you.”

Professor North nods his head for his friend to leave, and crosses his arms over his chest. How did I think this man was a friend? I’m so stupid. “You can come with me, or I can lock you back in here. Either way, I have a job to do. The choice is yours whether you want to help me or not.”

“Why the hell would I help you?”

“Because I know where Aryeh is.”

My heart drops, and my stomach bottoms out. “Ari?”

“Yes.”

I go over my options quickly, and finally nod. He spins on his heel, leaving me to follow him. We walk through a small apartment and when we get into the living room, it’s full of computer monitors. Some are running what looks like code, and the others are cameras. “Who are you?” I ask again.

“Give us the room,” Professor North says to the four men sitting around, and they leave without a word.

He pulls a chair out, and gestures for me to sit.

When I refuse, he shakes his head. “I don’t mean you any harm.

If I did, I would have either left you locked in the room or restrained you.

” I pull the chair away from him and sit down, leaving some space between us.

He sits in front of me with a serious look on his face.

“My name is Tivon Askari. I lead Israel’s version of the Saviors. ”

“The last I checked, the Saviors don’t go around drugging and kidnapping women.”

“Trust me, Kira. What I did is nothing compared to what would have happened if the Mossad agents got ahold of you.”

My heart rate spikes. “Mossad?”

“You have no idea what you’re mixed up in, do you?”

“All I care about right now is saving my guys.”

“We will. But we can’t do it with guns blazing. Ari’s locked up in a high security military prison, and I don’t have the manpower here. I need the Saviors’ cooperation.”

“How the hell do you plan on getting that? They aren’t going to trust you.”

“That’s where you come in.” Professor North, or Tivon, turns toward the computer.

He pulls up a video feed, and I gasp, covering my mouth.

Ari is sitting in the corner of a small concrete cell, his head leaning against the wall.

His face is a bruised, bloody mess, and he’s in shackles. “I know exactly where he’s at.”

“What about Jason?”

Tivon clicks to another feed, and tears fill my eyes. Jason is on a dirty mattress, and he’s entirely too still. “He’s the one you need to worry about. With his heart condition and whatever they dosed him with, he doesn’t have long.”

“How do you know all this?”

“It’s my job to know. I’m going to give you the short version.

” Tivon splits the screen so we can watch Ari and Jason, then turns back to face me.

“Ari’s father is the director of Mossad, and he wants him back to take over.

He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.

My team is in place to make sure that doesn’t happen. ”

“Why?”

I watch Tivon shut down. “That doesn’t matter. I need you to explain to Axel that he needs to trust me.”

“I don’t even trust you. You’ve been lying to me for months.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“You tried to run us off the road, and you trashed Jason’s apartment!”

Tivon’s brows furrow, and he looks genuinely confused. “I’d never do that.”

A thought hits me like a ton of bricks, and I stand up. “Did you shoot Keon?”

When Tivon grimaces, that’s all the answer that I need. “I didn’t mean to. I was trying to scare them off, because Mossad agents were on their way. One of them hit me from behind, and my shot went wide.”

“He could have died!” I go to adjust my beanie out of habit, and suck in a breath when I realize it’s not there.

I reach into my back pocket where I tucked it in, only to come up empty.

It must have fallen out when they grabbed me.

To my surprise, Tivon reaches into his vest pocket and pulls it out, handing it to me. I quickly put it on, using it as armor.

“One of my guys grabbed it when it fell.”

“Thanks,” I reply begrudgingly.

“Look, I know you have no reason to trust me, but time is running out. They’ll try to beat Aryeh into submission. When that doesn’t work, they’ll take him by force, and we both know Aryeh isn’t going to go down easy. If that happens, they will leave Jason there to die.”

“How do you know about Ari?”

“That falls into the category of ‘it doesn’t matter’ right now.”

Tivon seems like he has knowledge of Ari, and Ari was convinced he knew Professor North.

This just confirms it, but how? I don’t even have to question the many aliases because if they’re like the Saviors, that comes with the job.

Tyler told me one time that he was Todd, a mild mannered accountant working for a drug lord.

I’d laughed so hard at that story that I’d cried.

I sink back into the chair. “What do I have to do?”

“As soon as they have the rest of your guys clear, I’m going to put you into contact with Axel.”

“Why can’t you just tell them where they are?”

“I know who we’re up against. I trained with them. I have knowledge that I don’t have time to explain.”

I sigh and lean back in my chair. “I’ll try. That’s all I can do.”

“If that doesn’t work, I’m afraid we’ll have to risk ambushing it alone. Ari’s running out of time.”

I close my eyes and do something that I haven't done in years. Pray. I saw Keon take those bullets - my only hope is that they hit his vest, but there’s no way he avoided that roof collapsing on him and Tyler and Gavin were fighting for their lives when Keon dragged me away.

Please, let them all be alive.