Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
STORM
“ W ake up, Storm. We got a problem.”
Axel’s voice is too loud and too serious for the time of morning.
Despite the jet lag, I slept in one-hour chunks, tossing and turning before ultimately deciding to get up at two a.m. A run around the internal perimeter of the property only made my mood worse, since the path brought me toward the art barn Mom and I shared.
Part of me long ago wanted to burn the place down—the entire Gold Coast house, actually. Instead, I keep the studio locked up and, with the exception of the things I moved in a few years ago, I pretend it doesn’t exist.
I roll over in bed and grab my cell phone from the nightstand.
It’s now four-thirty a.m., a reasonable time for Riale, bedtime for Axel, and an annoying hour to be awake for me.
“Someone better be dead,” I grumble.
“Yeah, someone is,” Axel snaps, and I jump out of the bed.
“What? Where are Shae and the kids?” I bark, my heart thudding in my chest. Axel rushes out of the room, and I follow behind him in my black boxers, stopping for a second to grab jogging shorts and a shirt off the floor.
“They’re fine, in their rooms,” he says as we move down the corridor.
“Then what the fuck’s going on?” I bark as we turn the corner into the room Axel’s retrofitted into our command center.
As soon as my gaze lands on the screen, my stomach drops.
Fire engulfs a Learjet at the end of a runway. Red and blue lights encircle the crash, and I don’t have to listen to the newscaster to know there are no survivors.
It’s impossible.
“Who was on board?” I ask, my voice heavy. Riale grunts out an answer.
“Kenyon Braxton, CEO of Keystone Financial. The manifest said he was headed to the Caribbean.”
Isla Cara.
“He didn’t make it five minutes past takeoff,” Axel says, falling into his rolling chair and pushing himself down the line of his desk.
I spoke with Kenyon Braxton in his office less than a week ago, before things went to hell with Lakeland.
Within an hour of meeting Kenyon, I had things lined up perfectly.
With my support, he’d push through the alternative bid for Keystone, kicking Orisun out of the running for ownership.
I’d still give Lakeland the end results he’s hoping for: shadow control of Keystone via an entity he has his fingers in.
Apparently, that’s not good enough. Lakeland, for whatever reason, wants Orisun in bed with Keystone. The annoying as fuck thing is, I don’t know why.
I can’t look away from the screen.
Lakeland’s threat is completely clear, if it weren’t already driven home by the event in France. He’ll annihilate Shae and everything I love.
He wants me to know he’s getting closer.
“Turn it off,” I tell Axel, and he taps his keyboard. The screen goes blank, and the room goes silent. Riale’s the one who breaks the tension.
“All right,” he says. “We’re in this shit now. And we’ve got to make a plan and get moving before it’s too late for us.”
He turns to me.
“All of us.”
Tension winds tight around my throat as a plan unfolds in front of me.
“We move now,” I grind out, already moving through all the steps.
“Axel, you’ve got that Ukrainian connection, right? Mikhail?” I say, beginning to pace with my arms folded on top of my head.
“Uh, you mean Misha?” he says slowly.
“Mikhail, Misha, Michaelangelo—you know who the fuck I’m talking about,” I say. Misha is the head of the Ukrainian Mafiya, and Axel has some connections with him, as well as his disdain for the people associated with Lakeland and Isla Cara.
“Yeah, I got you,” he says. He sounds hesitant.
“All right. We need firepower and an opening. Get Misha on the line,” I command, and neither Axel nor Riale moves.
“Did I fuckin’ stutter?” I roar, fingers twitching and ready to hit someone or grab my gun or something.
“Storm—” Riale starts.
“Nah, nigga. I definitely don’t want to hear no shit from you.” I swing to Axel. He leans forward in his chair, his hands dangling between his legs as he rests his elbows on his thighs.
“What progress have you made on spotting Lakeland?” I ask. Sweat starts to run down my spine, and I crack my neck from side to side, irritated.
“I have it on good authority that he’s in New England right now. It’s not confirmed.”
My eye twitches.
“When will it be confirmed?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Within a few hours,” he replies.
I can only focus on one thing: Eliminating the threat to my family.
“We’ve got to end this shit with Lakeland now, ” I emphasize, pulling out the nuclear option. “We need to grab his daughter. That’ll draw him out, and we can end this for good.”
Silence falls over the room, and Axel makes a weary sound, not unlike the disapproving sound he made the first time I brought this up over the phone while in Versailles.
“What?” Riale grinds out, and I finally face him head-on.
“Lakeland has a daughter. I’ve known about her. He keeps her locked up somewhere around here.”
More silence from the room, and I feel a slight nudge of…something. Maybe it’s remembering how Lakeland talked about his daughter the last time he mentioned her.
“We need to abduct her and use her as bait to get a face-to-face with Lakeland. Then, we can end this. I know how he thinks. If he didn’t value her, even if just as a possession, he wouldn’t keep her locked away.”
More. Fucking Silence. Then, Axel sighs and says, “Storm?—”
“No, I don’t wanna hear it. Listen, you said it yourself that he’s on the run. Who’s to say that he’ll stay in one place long enough for someone to off him? This way, we control the terms and the turf.”
“Storm, you want us to kidnap a kid?” Riale asks, disbelief plain in his voice.
“The ends justify the means,” I snap.
“The hell they do! What you’re talking about is crazy, Storm,” Axel says, and I narrow my eyes in his direction.
“Well, this situation is crazy. Lakeland killing my parents is crazy. His sending assassins after the love of my fucking life is crazy. There’s nothing about this situation that’s sane!”
Riale takes a step closer to me.
“We’re taking the girl,” I grind out. “If what I’ve heard is true, she might be looking for a way out anyway. But we can’t risk waiting.”
“That makes us no better than the monsters we’re trying to kill,” Riale shouts.
“And ask me if I give a fuck !” I shout back, rushing him.
“ Storm !” Axel shouts to get my attention. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him shout, which is why it stuns me into silence. Breathing hard, Riale and I glare at each other before my best friend takes a step away.
“I know I speak for Riale when I say we want to light that bastard up like a Christmas tree. But we’re not abducting anyone, and we can’t move now. You’ve got to wait. Let me get with Misha and we’ll form a plan.”
I stare at Axel hard, my mind struggling to compute what the fuck he’s suggesting.
Listen to them.
With tight lips, I say, “Why?”
Axel and Riale share a look, and Riale nods at the other man.
“This is bigger than Lakeland, Storm. Way bigger. And I think you know that,” Axel says. I roll my eyes. Of course, I know this is all bigger than Lakeland. I’ve known that for years and have intimate knowledge of most of his business workings.
I know about the trafficking, the guns, the drugs.
“And?” I burst out. “Listen, there’s gonna be evil whether Lakeland’s on this planet or not. I might as well take out the direct threat and work on the rest later.”
“You’re trippin’, Storm.” This comes from Axel.
I want to hit my head against a wall.
“I think Keystone’s not just a bank. It’s a front, a shell, or a node.
Something critical that connects everything.
I think there’s something hidden within the company, something beneath all the obvious shit that anyone with a few weeks of coding camp could uncover.
And Lakeland needs that,” Axel continues.
“Okay,” I say blandly.
“I think when Shae delayed the acquisition, he got into some seriously hot water. I think he’s moving around so much because he’s running from his bill collectors.
We won’t see him settle in unless he can cure his debts to whoever he owes.
The only way he’ll be able to do that is by getting the Keystone deal over the finish line. ”
“But he wants it specifically through Orisun—why? There must be something, or someone, linking him to Shae’s company beyond you,” Riale says.
I hum, trying to stay focused on the conversation.
“Then he’ll have the direct access to money needed to go hyper-speed on funding his crimes,” I say.
Axel spreads his hands out wide, as if to say, Exactly.
I shake my head.
Slumping in my chair, I press two fingers to my left temple. This just got fucking complicated quickly. A flash of an overheard conversation between my father and Lakeland, just a few doors down in my dad’s office, comes to mind.
“You trust those people like they wouldn’t hesitate to eat your Black ass alive…I don’t want any favors from you…or from them. You’ve done enough, and their help doesn’t come without a price. You know this,” Dad had said.
At the time, I thought Dad was talking about the general connections made on the island. Could he have been talking about something more? Something even more of a mindfuck?
“Bottom line: Getting rid of Lakeland isn’t gonna solve anything as long as the Keystone deal is in limbo,” Axel says.
I shake my head.
“We kill Lakeland, we end the direct threat,” I say.
“Kill Lakeland without handling the rest of it, and you’ll just spread the infection,” Riale rebuts.
I stare at both of them for a heavy moment before sliding my eyes closed.
This entire situation is enraging, overwhelming. How do I keep my family safe from an invisible enemy?
“Regardless of anything, Shae, Tempest, and Raiden are untouchable.” Tension grows so thick I could choke on it. “On my life and everything holy, they are to stay safe. Understood?”
Axel takes a deep breath, and Riale looks grim.
Neither of their expressions offers comfort.