Chapter 16 #2
Then there were the armed men hunting her.
From what Griffin had told him, Asahi Watanabe had given his people orders to bring her back alive.
He still wanted to keep her, but once she was back under his control, he’d lose access to her.
And Van desperately needed to get eyes on her to reassure himself that her heart was still beating.
At least they had an address. If the worst happened and Asahi Watanabe found Makayla first, then he and the Delta Force team here with him could still plan a raid and get her out. But he wanted her safe now, and that would take time.
“We’ll get her back,” Walker “Trigger” Nelson said from the seat beside Van’s.
The Delta Force team was posing as his personal security for this mission.
Since Azure was sending him to do damage control for Makayla’s escape, it made sense for him to bring security.
There was no way Azure had the manpower to spare to send in more men than him, especially with Nathan and Mateo recently abandoning them, Josh out of commission thanks to Makayla, and them wanting to start rebuilding their product catalog.
So when he’d suggested hiring himself a team, Griffin had readily agreed.
Now they were all here, sitting around a table in one of Prey’s private jets, trying to figure out a plan for when they landed, without anywhere near the information needed to build much of anything.
They were going to head straight to Asahi Watanabe’s estate, and after he’d offer apologies on Azure’s behalf, they’d head out to help search for Makayla.
Griffin hadn't confirmed for him, but Van still believed that Asahi Watanabe was one of the heads of the operation, which meant he wanted access to the man’s house at some point.
He needed to be able to look around, see what he could find, or at the very least hide some cameras he could use to gather intel over the coming days and weeks.
“We got back Emma and Ally,” Fred “Grover” Groves added.
“From what I heard, you almost got taken out by Emma,” Van said with a smirk in an attempt to distract himself. If he focused too much on what Makayla was going through, what she might be experiencing this very second, he wouldn't be able to function.
Going from not allowing himself to experience a single emotion for two-thirds of his life, to being unable to stop himself from feeling, was a shock to his system.
Makayla had done that to him, changed him.
While part of him wanted to be angry and resentful about her doing it against his will, the other part found it couldn’t.
Because feeling things again wasn't all bad when it included feeling things for her.
Grover chuckled. “Yeah, she tried to shoot me. Needs to work on her aim, though.”
It was clear that the man wouldn't have minded being shot if it meant the vulnerable woman, who had also managed to do the impossible and escape from the man who had bought her, had protected herself.
If it had been someone other than Nathan or the Delta Force team who had gone in to rescue her, who had managed to stumble across her, then she would have found herself recaptured and possibly executed.
“Azure needs to realize that not everyone they take is going to go down quietly,” Craig “Doc” Wagner mused.
“They think there’s no one they can't crush,” he said. “If the women turn out to be too much work, then there’s always an auction that specializes in that to pass the women off onto. Reputation means everything to Azure, and Makayla just blew that out of the water.”
“If you're right about who Asahi Watanabe is, it’s probably a good thing that’s who bought her. The man is less likely to retaliate both against Azure and against Makayla,” Troy “Lucky” Schmidt added.
That was true at least. If Asahi Watanabe was one of the two heads of Azure, it wasn't like he could blame his own organization.
Only Van knew that Makayla had managed to escape twice already, although everyone else knew about the second attempt.
Which meant Asahi Watanabe was really the one responsible for letting her get out.
He should have expected that she wouldn't give up and accept her reality and taken appropriate precautions.
This was on his own head, and Van hoped that meant that Asahi Watanabe would go easy on Makayla if his people found her first.
“We need proof while we’re here,” he said, hating that this wasn't all about Makayla, even as he knew that she’d want him to topple Azure, not just rescue her. “I need something to link him to the other head of the ring, that’s what I've been looking for all along.”
Porter “Oz” Reed cocked his head to the side, examining him, and Van met his gaze squarely.
Maybe he was relearning what it meant to feel emotions again, but he had enough of a hold on the emptiness that had ensured he survived his childhood and the years following, that he didn't shy away from the probing gray eyes.
“You know who the other head of the ring is,” Oz finally said.
“I have my suspicions,” he confirmed. He’s known who one of the heads was from pretty much the beginning, but that knowledge didn't help him if he couldn’t find out who the other one was and then find enough proof to destroy them both.
“You know,” Oz corrected.
Because he wasn't going to lie to the men who had once again dropped everything to come and help Prey with this case, Van gave a single nod.
“You gonna share?” Kane “Brain” Temple prompted when he didn't say anything.
“Andy Finch,” he said. They needed to know so that if they got time to wander Asahi Watanabe’s house, they knew what kind of intel they were searching for.
“Second in command is Griffin’s father?” Trigger asked.
“Yes,” he said simply. Honestly, it hadn't been hard to figure that out. If that had been all he needed to end this, he could have done it months ago and saved a whole lot of women a whole lot of trauma.
“Thought you were going to say Griffin was only pretending to be second in command and he was the other one in charge,” Gage “Lefty” Hankins said.
“No, he’s not running things. Well, he’s doing most of the day-to-day work, but I know for a fact he has to report everything back to his father and take orders from the man.
” Actually, Van knew a whole lot more than that, but he wasn't ready to divulge all his information to these men just yet.
Falcon knew everything he did, but he needed these guys to go in with a clear head, unbiased in any way, so they could help him look for all the intel and not just what they thought they needed.
But right now, as badly as he wanted Azure destroyed, he wanted something else more.
Makayla had swept into his life at the most inopportune time, messing up everything he had planned and everything he thought he wanted, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to care, because in doing so, she’d saved him, and now he had to save her.