Chapter 29 Mass
MASS
Lucy’s fingers fly over a keyboard. Images of a boat appear. The picture is grainy, captured from a surveillance drone several hundred feet in the air, but I can easily make out three figures standing on the sand.
“Why don’t we have fucking microphones down there?” I growl through my teeth.
“Because we can’t rig the entire beach. Just watch, please.” She leans back, arms crossed.
The figures seem to be having a conversation. One person is standing away from the other two, holding a pair of bags and a squirming child.
Allie looks strange from this distance.
But eventually, she turns away. Whatever they said, she didn’t like it. She starts running and one figure chases after her. The third follows after making some kind of phone call. “Can we trace that?”
“We’re trying, but they used an encrypted private satellite.”
I watch the drama play out. The chase to the tree line. The guards and the search. I watch the third figure drag the second back to the boat. The pair of them get on and push out to sea. The dark rubber of the outrigger blends in smoothly with the black water. It’s impossible to follow.
“I want it found. I want it destroyed. Whoever’s involved, I want them dead.”
Lucy’s expression is grim. “We found a gun and bullet holes in nearby trees. I think whoever was chasing after Allie tried to kill her.”
I curse and start pacing. My heart slams into my chest. How did this happen? How could I have let someone get close to my wife and child?
“She was going to go with them.” I say it very quietly, but Lucy doesn’t contradict me. “Then it went wrong. Allie didn’t like something, she got spooked, something like that. She started running. But why try to kill her?”
“I don’t know. I have everyone out trying to locate the boat.”
“Is everyone else accounted for?”
“Everyone except for Satya.” Lucy’s face betrays nothing. “Should we keep searching for her?”
“I’m sure she’ll turn up.” I can’t think about the old nurse right now. She’s been in my household for years, helping out around the place. I’ve trusted her implicitly with my own child, and I can’t imagine that she’s a part of this insanity.
“Whatever you say.” Lucy taps at the keyboard again. The security station suddenly feels overwhelming and too hot. “And what about Allie?”
“I’ll handle my wife.”
Lucy nods once and doesn’t look at me. She’s frowning in concentration as she skips through surveillance footage. As I turn to leave, she looks back at me. “Go easy on her.”
“I’m sorry? You’re pushing for mercy?”
“Don’t get used to it. That girl’s been through a lot. She just had the surprise of her life dumped in her lap. Can you blame her for wanting to be rescued?”
“No, I honestly can’t.”
“There’s a reason she didn’t get on that boat. I’d focus on finding out what it is before you say something you regret.”
“Thank you for your infinite wisdom.”
“Always happy to be of service.”
I storm out, mind and emotions clouded. I’m humming and on edge. None of this makes sense.
I have to focus on the facts.
First, a group of people penetrated the island’s defenses. I don’t know how. I don’t know who did it, though I can probably guess. But it happened.
Second, they tried to rescue, kidnap, or take away Allie and Rosie. I can’t be sure how complicit she was.
Third, she ran. I have no idea why. But she didn’t go with them, even though she clearly had the opportunity. If she hadn’t made so much noise on her way back to the Fortress, they might’ve escaped before my people even realized she was gone.
Put together, these three facts are startling and deeply disturbing.
Everything I’ve believed for so long feels like it’s teetering on fine sand. One shift, one nudge, and it’ll all slide into a pit.
I can’t let myself fall to pieces now.
Not when this shadow war with Medved is beginning to come to a head.
I make my way to security room six. It’s less a holding pen and more a comfortable living area with doors that lock. I find Allie on the bed with Rosie, trying to calm her daughter. Most of the lights are off, and the baby is nearly asleep.
I pause, staring at them. Allie stares back, her eyes red from crying. After a moment, she puts a finger to her lips and keeps rocking Rosie.
I watch them. My heart feels like it fills with air.
I could squeeze it, but it’d only fill again.
I don’t move, transfixed by my beautiful wife and perfect daughter.
Guilt rushes through me, guilt over keeping the truth of her lineage from her, guilt over locking her in this room, guilt over a thousand things.
But I never feel guilty over taking her and marrying her.
I’ll never regret that.
Slowly, she places Rosie down on the bed, right in the middle. It’s not a crib, but it’ll do. Allie gets up and comes to me, staying close in case Rosie rolls or moves around. She seems composed now.
“It was Satya,” she says, talking very softly.
I let that sink in. “She was the third person.”
Allie doesn’t seem to know what I mean. “She helped arrange everything. When I decided not to go with them, she chased me and tried to kill me.”
A flash of anger. “I trusted her.”
“I know. That’s what I said. Mass—”
I can’t take this any longer. I grab her and pull her into me roughly, not caring if we wake Rosie, not caring about anything. “I almost lost you,” I snarl and slam my lips into hers, kissing her fiercely and possessively.
She whimpers in surprise. For a brief second, I think she might resist.
Instead, she returns the kiss with passion.
I hold her and kiss her. Eagerness burns in me. Hate flares too. All of my enemies will burn for this. They’ll suffer for what they’ve done to my family.
We break the kiss off slowly. Her taste, lilacs and honey, lingers on my lips.
“I’m still angry with you,” she whispers.
“Good. I’m angry with you, too.”
“Fine.” She gets on her toes and kisses me softly. “I think we need to start over.”
“How’s that work?”
“Honesty. Everything. All the ugly stuff too. I want it all, and I’ll tell you everything.”
I hesitate. So much of my life is built on secrets. But I nod slowly. “I can do that.”
She lets out a relieved breath. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good. Okay.” She pulls away. I wish she wouldn’t, but she sits down at the edge of the bed and gestures for me to join her.
I sit as she twists slightly so she can look at me and watch Rosie at the same time.
“Remember that young man you found killed on the beach? He gave me a cell phone. I’ve kept it hidden in the couch. ”
A tension unclenches from around my heart. “That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“We could tell he’d been sending unauthorized messages. Now we know how. What did you do with the phone?”
“It’s in our apartment hidden in the couch. I’m sorry, Mass. I should have told you right away, but I was afraid.”
“You should have, but there are bigger problems. Tell me about what happened.”
She seems to deflate as she tells me the full story. The meeting in the solarium. The texts, the calls, all leading up to Gabe and that boat. “It was Satya who gave it away. When I asked who sent them, she wouldn’t say.”
“Medved.” Molten iron fills me and glows in my core.
“That’s why I ran. I didn’t really want to go to begin with, but Gabe was there. I had to talk to him.”
“Satya’s working for my enemy.” I look at my hands. “Everything I’ve built feels like a lie.”
“I’m sorry, Mass. I really am.” She touches my knee. “What can I do?”
“I paid for her husband’s cancer treatments.
That’s how we met each other. He lived for a few more years but died in the end.
After he passed, I brought her here, gave her work, took her in.
I treated her like family, and now this.
” My hands curl into fists. “Medved’s a virus making everyone around me sick. ”
“I’m not sure how much Gabe understood about what was happening. He saved my life after Satya started shooting. Please, if you catch him, don’t kill him.”
I stare at her grimly. “No promises.”
“For me, Mass. Keep him alive, at least until I can talk to him.”
“If it’s possible, I will. But Lucy’s in charge of that operation, and she really loves drone missiles.”
Allie’s face pales, but she seems to accept that. “What are we going to do now?”
I lean in and kiss her lightly. Then I stand and pace. Rosie’s sleeping fitfully. “You two will return to our apartment. Put our daughter in her crib. It’s been a long night already.”
“Then what?”
“Give me the phone. I need to find out how deep this plot with Medved goes. I need to smoke him out.”
“How will you do that?”
“I’ll make a few calls.”