18
SEVEN
It took everything in me to walk away from Emersyn.
My gloved hand flexed where I’d covered her face, grinding my teeth behind my face covering in rage at what she thought we’d been out there to do.
G was silent next to me, but I knew him well enough to know he was barely hanging onto his composure.
Every step felt wrong as we headed back toward the glow of the guardhouse.
We’d left Angel and Marcello behind to come out and check on Emersyn.
The excuse being we couldn’t see her in the dark and needed proof of life, but really it was to stop G from spiraling.
The first cigarette had turned into an entire pack as he started chainsmoking again.
He hadn’t left his post at the doorway unless it was to step a foot outside to light up.
We walked back into the guardhouse in a flurry of wind.
I yanked down my face covering and rubbed my hands together.
“Damn, it’s cold out there,” I complained.
Angel looked up from the hand he was playing with Marcello and chuckled.
“You’re definitely not gonna work on your tan here,” he said, tossing his hand down. “Probably only going to get worse too. These winter storms can rage for days.”
Well, that wasn’t good news. I could practically hear G’s teeth grinding to dust, but he’d already turned back to the door where he leaned up against the jamb and looked out into the dark.
I sat down. “Deal me in.”
Angel shuffled and dealt the cards. He caught my eye and jerked his head toward G.
I scrunched my nose with a jerk of my head, indicating he was fine, it was nothing, just G being G.
Luckily, it seemed to appease Angel. I wasn’t lying—G was a surly, moody motherfucker on the best of days.
But, this was the worst I’d ever seen him.
It was hard not to take this job personally and I knew that was what was going to fuck him up the most. He wasn’t going to be able to be detached from this, and those demons of his were ruthlessly waiting for him to slip up.
I just hoped we could wrap all this up quickly and get out, because just like the explosives G liked to play with, he was his own ticking time bomb and the fuse was scarily short.
A few hands later, Angel threw his cards down, a frown in his eyes.
“You won again.”
He made it sound like an accusation. I’d actually won the majority of the games, but who was counting? I couldn’t help it, I was just lucky. I smirked and gathered the cards as Marcello tossed his into the pile too.
“One of my many skills.”
Angel hummed like he didn’t believe me.
“We don’t play games with Seven,” G threw over his shoulder.
It was the most he’d spoken this entire shift. Angel’s eyes narrowed.
“You cheat?” Angel accused.
I gave him a mock offended look like he’d just wounded me. I opened my mouth to reply with some snarky comment, but it was G who spoke again.
“Nah,” G continued. “Might be better for your ego if you think he does though.”
That pulled a genuine grin. I chuckled and leaned over the table like I was about to tell a secret.
“He’s sore about it because I beat him at darts every time and that’s supposed to be his game,” I said in a loud whisper.
G scoffed but remained silent. Angel’s eyebrows rose and while I couldn’t see his mouth beneath the face covering, his eyes said he was fighting off a smile of his own. “So, it’s not just cards, huh?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Like I said, we don’t play any games with Seven,” G grumbled.
Angel gestured for another game, but I declined, bored from playing hand after hand of cards.
We only had a few more hours before our first ten-hour shift was up, but now that I was here with Emersyn, I didn’t want to leave her.
I knew we had to though—G and I had a lot of work to do.
Especially if the storms were going to continue to hit the island.
We had bigger problems than we planned for—primarily that the weather would delay extraction—and it was time to come up with some contingency plans.
As if mocking my thoughts, the first flash of lightning and boom of thunder erupted outside and the heavens opened.
Rain poured down in sheets off the overhang in front of the guardhouse.
I watched G’s shoulders stiffen and knew his focus was once more on Emersyn.
This had to be eating away at him, not being able to save her.
Just like before.
Unfortunately, our shift had to end sometime and we headed back up to the estate. The storm was still going strong, and by the time we got back up to the barracks entrance, I was soaked through. G and I headed back to our room to regroup.
The moment we stepped through the door, G attacked the closet door and landed a punch that sent splintering cracks through the wood.
He braced himself against it, breathing hard like he’d just been out for a run.
I pulled my wet clothes off and disappeared into the bathroom to both clean up and give him a minute to come back to himself.
I leaned heavily over the small sink and watched my hair drip into the bowl.
It wasn’t that I didn’t feel a similar rage—it crept under my skin like an itch I couldn’t reach—but, expressing it as violence wasn’t my first instinct.
The emotions would simmer until eventually it would get to be too much.
But, an eruption from me was rare. G always said it was because I felt like I needed to take care of everyone else, whose triggers were light.
We couldn’t all fall apart at once after all.
I finished in the bathroom and emerged with a towel slung around my hips, using a second to dry my hair. G sat in an armchair with some of the gear sprawled across the table. He hadn’t bothered changing into dry clothes yet. I frowned and jerked my head towards the bathroom.
“You catch a cold I’m gonna be pissed,” I said.
He didn’t even spare me a glance. I pulled on clothes and leaned over the table, purposefully looming until he didn’t have a choice but to look up at me.
Our eyes clashed and he looked pissed, like he was going to argue.
Except, I knew this man better than I knew anyone else and after a minute of silently fighting me, he grunted in irritation and disappeared into the bathroom.
I shook my head—I swear, sometimes I felt like he was an unruly teenager.
Once I was dressed, I looked down at what he’d been messing with. We’d smuggled in a few comms units and a USB drive with the code needed for Rune to be able to infiltrate behind the firewalls. However, for that to happen, we needed to find the server room. Unless—
I looked over at the tablet embedded in the wall. What if they’d given us a door that was right here?
I was fiddling with the device when G emerged from the bathroom. I glanced over at him briefly, pleased to see he seemed more composed than earlier.
“I think we can get Rune access from here,” I said. “At first I thought it was a separate system,” I continued while he changed into dry clothes. “But, this tablet has a channel to the main security hub in case of an emergency.”
“That’s all Rune needs,” G agreed.
He brought over the USB drive while I gently pulled the tablet from the wall bracket.
I didn’t know exactly how it all worked, but Rune had told us that all he needed was a backdoor into the security system.
It didn’t matter how small, so long as he could access their servers through it, he’d be golden.
G and I spent the next few hours fiddling with it until the code was uploaded and it seemed to be doing what it needed to be doing.
After that, we tried to rest, but as the hours ticked down, it was pretty obvious neither of us was going to get more than a few hours of sleep. I gave up and got a workout in, only to come back and see G cleaning gear at the table.
I checked the schedule. “We’re headed to the Menagerie next. Looks like we’re about to find out what Brooks meant by Menagerie access.”
G nodded, but I could tell his mind was elsewhere and whatever he was thinking wasn’t pleasant. I waited him out. Sure enough, he gave a heavy sigh and rubbed his hands over his face before he sat back and fixed me with a look that chilled me to my core.
“I think Mahoney knows who she is,” he said bluntly.
I shook my head at such a bold, and frankly terrifying, statement. “I really hope not.”
“What other explanation is there for him singling her out?” G insisted. “Not to mention the mole—”
“The traitor,” I corrected with a snarl. I still was incredibly offended and pissed off that someone on our team would fuck with our operations.
G nodded. “I don’t know how else to look at it. It looks like Mahoney got suspicious of North befriending him, dug into it and learned about Emersyn. Then, somewhere along the way, blackmailed one of our team and has been playing us ever since.”
“Jesus Christ, man,” I muttered.
“Three fucking years,” G growled.
I could see him getting worked up and honestly, I didn’t know if I’d be able to calm him down because just the thought of Mahoney fucking with us for that long was doing terrible things to my self-control.
My only saving grace was that I was giddy with the thought of how North was going to react when he found out.
“North is going to go absolutely ballistic,” I said gleefully.
“Not if I don’t raze this place to the ground first,” G seethed.
I held up my hands. “I mean, sure, if it works out like that, but honestly, I think you need to let North have him.” G glared, but I persisted. “Think about it. How would you feel if someone like North killed the people who murdered your sister before you could get to them?”
A dark look settled over G’s face, and I knew I’d made my point.
“We’re just the muscle,” I continued. “This is their fight.”
I cringed, because even as I said the words I realized I didn’t agree with them. G noticed and smiled humorlessly with a knowing look.
“That doesn’t feel right, does it?” He stated. “I’m pretty sure we’ve made it ours at this point.”
“Well, regardless, we don’t know anything yet. We shouldn’t do anything on speculation alone.”
“We need more information,” G agreed.
“What I want to know is where do the brothers fit into all this?” I asked. “Obviously Mahoney is pretty buddy-buddy with them—” A horrible thought came to me. “What if he’s going to give Emersyn to them to use against North?”
G frowned. “That would make sense. North was going to go after Albatron next. If they know that, they could use her as leverage to stop that from happening.”
“And the worst part is we can’t reach North right now to warn him…about Mahoney or any of it.”
The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like the road of possibilities those thoughts took me down at all. If the brothers acquired Emersyn, they’d basically control North, and who knows how that would turn the tides. I paced toward the door and back again.
“This is why I like being the muscle,” I grumbled. “My head hurts trying to figure it all out.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to deal with any of that.”
“Yeah, hopefully Rune gets through soon and we can be out of here before Mahoney even makes his move. Whatever that may be,” I muttered.
G sighed. “We also have to hope Rune can keep our location hidden from the mole. The last thing we need is Mahoney finding out we’re here.”
“We’re sitting ducks,” I agreed and then shook my head and chuckled. “The situations you and I get into, man. It’s never a dull moment, that’s for sure.”
“Let’s hope this doesn’t turn out like any of those,” G said dryly.
I shrugged my shoulders as the scars on my back suddenly felt tight. Sometimes I could still feel the burn of the whip despite the skin being long healed.
“Yeah, let’s hope,” I murmured.