60
GAbrIEL
Seven and I stormed into the room as Emersyn whirled toward the door and leveled a gun at us.
I momentarily forgot how to breathe, because holy fuck—she looked stunning—no, beyond stunning—I didn’t have the right words.
The dress left nothing to the imagination, and with blood splattered over her and a gun in her capable hands—devil fucking help me.
Seven whistled low. “Baby girl—that dress—” His voice was strangled.
Emersyn lowered the gun and relaxed slightly once she realized it was us. She looked down at herself as though she just remembered what she was wearing.
A blush tinted her cheeks. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Oh yeah? That dress is fucking criminal,” Seven groaned.
“You both have seen me naked,” she said incredulously.
“Yeah, and that was spectacular too, but—” She glared at him and he held up his hands. “I’m sorry—I won’t look—” He covered his eyes. “Fuck—the memory is already burned into my brain.”
Somehow I picked my jaw up off the floor long enough to stalk over to her.
“Why’d you ditch comms?” I growled.
The minute she’d gone dark, I’d lost my shit. Brooks had shown up to ensure we didn’t plan on crashing the party, so we’d had to deal with him. By the time we made it to the great hall and found which room she’d been in, I was a wreck and beyond livid.
Emersyn glowered and held her ground. “I couldn’t concentrate with you shouting.”
Seven chuckled and shook his head as he moved over to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey.
He threw it back and poured another. I bit back every single thing I wanted to say to her.
I wanted to chew her out for taking risks, for shutting me out, for putting herself in danger—and I wanted to do a whole lot of other things too that had nothing to do with any of that.
“Are you good?” I swiped at a few drops of blood on her jaw. “Did he touch you?”
My eyes dropped to the line of blood that was clearly hers on the swell of her breast, and my rage flared, hot and violent.
“Easy Cujo.” A slow smirk took over her face. “He’s already dead, does it matter?”
My jaw tightened and my words were like ice as I looked up at her.
“It does. I need to know who I have to hunt down in hell.”
Her eyes darkened to an oceanic blue as her lips parted. She leaned in, an absolute storm in her eyes.
“He touched me alright,” she breathed. “He put his fingers inside me.”
There was a choking sound, and Seven sprayed whiskey across the bar. I wanted to strangle her, and it must have shown in my eyes because she huffed a laugh and her lips twitched in wicked amusement.
“Does that make you mad, Griffin?” She purred. “Does that make you want to stake your claim over his? Or whatever it is you men are so fond of doing to your territory?”
“Jesus fucking christ,” Seven wheezed somewhere behind me.
“It does make me angry, yes,” I said. “It makes me want to kill him all over again—preferrably slowly, so you can see exactly what I mean when I say no one touches you.” I stepped closer.
“But, no—you’re not my territory—you’re mine the way a river inevitably collides with the sea.
” I leaned in, my lips barely brushed the shell of her ear, and I watched a full-body shiver travel up her spine.
“When you’re ready to know what that means, you let me know. ”
I pulled back to see a look somewhere between annoyance and intrigue in her eyes, then picked up her hand that was gently bleeding onto the floor. I pulled a strip of bandage from my vest and wrapped it. I’d just yanked the knot secure, when the door slammed open.
We all turned as one, with guns trained on the intruder. Angel stepped into the room. When he saw the guns pointed at him, he held up his hands. In one of them was a tablet and he had an urgent, serious look on his face.
“Your tech guy isn’t subtle at all,” he said without preamble.
“What are you talking about?” Seven asked.
“This is all over every tablet in the manor,” Angel said, his voice strained.
He tossed the device to Seven who held it up for me to see. “That’s Rune alright.”
Rotating slowly in the middle of a black background was Rune’s symbol in gold—a mixture of different Nordic runes that made up his unique signature.
“How do you know that though?” He asked Angel.
“That’s not important right now. Mahoney is livid about—” Angel waved his hand at the tablet, but cut off when he saw Octavius dead in the chair. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.
“Oh fuck—oh, that is—hmm.”
He looked like he was trying to decide how he felt about Octavius being dead, which was curious.
My brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“I tracked you. We need to move—Mahoney will have this place in lockdown with that flashing,” Angel gestured to the tablet. “We have about two minutes before movement is nearly impossible.”
“Do you trust him?” Emersyn muttered.
I grunted in response. He’d helped us out in the maze and hadn’t batted an eye when Marcello had been killed.
He’d proven he was on our side up until this point—but after finding out we’d had a mole in my crew for going on three years, most of my trust was gone.
Not to mention, Angel had been suspiciously absent for the last twenty-four hours.
Angel pressed his lips together when he observed our still skeptical looks.
“I’ll explain—after we leave this room,” he said impatiently. “She just killed one of the brothers. That’s going to draw unwanted attention.”
I exchanged looks with Seven. He shrugged and held up the tablet.
“Either way, Rune’s ready to chat.”
“Alright, let’s go,” I said.
“No,” Emersyn said.
I turned back to her. “No?”
“I need to kill Mahoney,” she stated.
“Yes, but not right now,” I said.
“This is the best chance I have,” Emersyn insisted.
I stepped closer to her. “We do not have the manpower for this—”
She flashed me a cocky smirk. “Yeah, you’re right, you don’t have the manpower.” She mocked the word with heavy sarcasm and an irritated look.
“That’s not what I meant—”
She waved away my words. “Let me find him and dispatch him real quick, and then we can leave.”
“We can’t risk it.” I took a deep breath in an attempt at patience.
“Well, I don’t really care,” she scoffed. “I’m going to do it, just tell me where to meet you.”
“That’s not how this works,” I growled.
She smiled again, obviously enjoying my irritation. “It’s not how you work, you mean. Tough—I want Mahoney dead.”
“And I said no. Don’t make me drag you out of here—”
“Oh, I’d love to see that,” Emersyn scoffed. “Mr. I-Won’t-Touch-You—”
“Can we argue about this maybe somewhere a little more ideal?” Angel protested.
Seven came over and gestured to her dress.
“Not that I wouldn’t love to see you kill someone in that, gorgeous—” He bit his lip like he was thinking about it.
“But, we are vastly outnumbered, have very little firepower and probably only have a small window for exfil. Besides, don’t you want to savor Mahoney’s death?
Really make it matter? Especially because he’s been fucking with your dad for awhile.
” Seven shook his head. “I’m just saying, North will definitely want a piece of him too. ”
Emersyn frowned, but I could see Seven’s words had sunk in.
She sighed and strode past us. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Seven gave me an exasperated look like that’s how you do it, and I scowled at him. Angel led the way into the hallway and we hurried through the estate. At the end of the wing, Angel herded us into a utility room.
“We need to remove the trackers before we go any further,” he said. Angel flicked a knife open and held it by the blade as he extended it out to me. “Do the honors?”
I took the blade and Angel turned. I ripped the shirt to reveal the swatch of pink, raised skin near his shoulder blade where the tracker had been implanted. He didn’t flinch when I dug the blade in and extracted the small pill-shaped device.
“Destroy it,” Angel said.
I crushed it under my boot. Seven typed away on the tablet until a very static-filled, but familiar voice came through.
“There you fuckers are,” Rune said. “I’ve been broadcasting for almost an hour. What the fuck?”
“We’ve been a little busy, man,” Seven grinned.
“You got her?”
“Yeah, we have her. Problem is things are a little hot now—” Seven said.
“We need exfil immediately,” I interrupted.
Rune’s voice was broken and sounded very far away. “Storm is breaking up soon—should be able to reach you—four hours—”
Angel shook his head. “That’s too long.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I have a team on standby.”
“Who is that?” Rune asked.
“Good question,” Seven turned to Angel. “Want to shed some light on that?”
Angel pulled out his cell phone and hit a number on the speed dial.
“I’m a friend—” He held up a finger and stepped away as his call connected.
“Are our trackers still operational?” I asked Rune, eyeing Angel with half an ear on his conversation.
“Is the team ready?” Angel asked. “No—exfil needs to be moved up. Things have…escalated. Octavius is dead.” He listened. “No, Emersyn killed him,” he looked over his shoulder and took another step away.
How did he know Emersyn’s real name? I wracked my brain, trying to remember if I’d said her name in front of him, but came up with nothing. Neither Seven nor I would have been that careless.
“Yeah, once you’re back in range they will be,” Rune answered.
Angel hung up and turned back to us. “Exfil ETA one hour. But, we have to get to the other side of the island.”
“That’s faster than what I can do, Griff,” Rune said.
I rubbed my chin as I quickly raced through options. There weren’t many.
“Fine, put a call through to North while we have a signal,” I said.
I saw Emersyn stiffen from where she stood against the shelves. A myriad of emotions crossed her face at once.
“It’s going to be spotty—”
“Do it,” I barked. “My comms only.”
“Roger that. Hold please,” Rune said.
I walked as far away from the group as I could. A moment later, the phone dial tone came over comms. It was broken and sounded like it was far away. I willed the call to connect.
“Yeah?” North’s voice sounded like it was underwater.
“North—it’s Gabriel—”
There was a horrible static sound.
“Where are—” North’s words broke off, and for a moment I thought I’d lost the call.
“We’re in deep, can’t talk long. Just wanted to let you know we have her.”
“What?” Static.
“She’s here. We found her, North,” I repeated. “As soon as I have a trusted line, we’ll be in touch—”
The line went dead.
“We lost Rune,” Seven called. “Mahoney cut the tablet.”
“That means we are running out of time,” Angel said. “Remove your trackers quickly.”
I removed Seven’s and he cut out mine, then I moved over to Emersyn. She automatically turned her back for me, her brow furrowed. My fingers traced along the small welt where her tracker was.
“Ready?” I murmured.
“Is this you asking permission?” I could just see the curve of her lips over her shoulder. “Because if so, it needs a lot of work.”
“Don’t be a brat,” I grumbled.
She smirked and smoothed her hair away. I removed the tracker and destroyed it. She turned back around, and I pulled a new comms unit from my vest.
“You need a new one of these,” I said dryly.
I pushed her hair away, my fingers purposefully coasting across her cheek. She went still, and I heard her breath stutter as she looked up with eyes that were slowly losing their apprehension. I slipped the small device into her ear.
“No taking it out this time.”
Emersyn opened her mouth to reply, but Angel strode over and dumped a duffle bag at our feet, effectively ruining the moment.
“You’re going to need different clothes if we’re going traipsing in the woods,” he said dryly.
Seven groaned. “Such a tragedy.”
“There’s firearms in there too.” Angel checked his phone. “We have three minutes until this location is compromised.”
We all stared at him, and I crossed my arms. “Perfect. Three minutes for you to tell us who you are.”
Angel ran a hand over his mouth as he debated. I waited him out and nudged the bag of clothes toward Emersyn, who unzipped it and started to pull out what she needed.
“I’m the one who sent Rune the email,” Angel admitted.
“What the fuck,” Seven exclaimed. “Why?”
Angel waved his hand. “That is too much to explain now—”
“Well try—cliffnotes,” Seven demanded.
“She is why I’m here,” Angel said like it was obvious. “Emersyn is very important, and it is imperative she doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. I couldn’t bring an entire team in or Mahoney would have known.”
Before I could ask why Emersyn was so important, Angel shrugged. “So I tipped you guys off.”
“What?” Seven said incredulously. “That’s insane—” He sputtered and looked over at me in disbelief.
“I mean, you’re here, so it worked,” Angel chuckled. “I have a team on standby because it was always the plan to get us all out tonight.”
“All of us?” I asked skeptically.
“Yes. Now, we have to get going,” Angel said impatiently.
“Who do you work for?” I demanded.
Angel shook his head. “Questions later. You’re just going to have to trust me that I have all of your best interests in mind.”
Emersyn had quickly changed into an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants that were a little too big for her even with the string tied as tight as it could go.
Angel pulled a pair of combat boots from the duffle that looked like they fit her.
It all screamed premeditated. I had more questions, but Emersyn spoke first.
“I don’t really care about the details—” She pulled a holster out of the bag and buckled it around her waist. “I mean, I do, but now that we’re committed to getting off the island, we need to move.
Angel said he’d answer all our questions later, and trust me—I have more than enough for all of you combined. ”
I had to admit, she had a point.