Chapter 21
EVELYN
Patience was not my strong suit. It’s why I hated stakeouts and surveillance jobs and typically left those to Danny and Grace and their teams. So waiting while Liam and Sebastian peeled back layers upon layers of shell companies was killing me slowly.
There were a million other things I could be doing to pass the time, but instead I found myself in the filing room on the executive floor of SDS, aggressively reorganizing the files.
“Evelyn? What are you doing?” Alexander stood in the open doorway, his blue eyes scanning the mess of files around me.
“I’m reorganizing the files,” I said primly. And going crazy.
He arched an eyebrow as he looked me over, taking in my disheveled appearance. “You know we have other assistants for that?”
“I’m aware.” I couldn’t help the snap in my voice.
Instead of responding to the bite in my voice, this man softened.
Softened. The damaged part of me wanted to say something snarky, but the rest of me, the part that was so tired of holding everything together at arm’s length, recognized this—he—was exactly what I needed.
So embarrassingly, I felt my eyes well with tears.
Alexander moved instantly, shutting the door behind him and scooping me off the floor and into his arms. He sat down against the wall, still holding me in his arms while one sob broke loose and then another.
I didn’t even know why I was crying. It felt like everything had just been building for so long.
All the stress about the threat from Kingfisher and the weight of responsibility of keeping everyone alive and the constant fear of what would happen if I failed just bubbled over as tears rolled down my face.
I buried my head in his chest, and he just held me, his hand moving up and down on my back, gently reassuring me that he was still there.
He didn’t try to speak, didn’t try to tell me that things would be okay; he just held me and let me break apart.
Secure in the knowledge that he would put me back together again, I let him.
When my tears finally dried up, he fished a literal handkerchief out of his pocket. I snorted. I was sure the tears staining my cheeks and snot dripping from my nose were attractive, but he just held the handkerchief up and helped me clean my face.
“Only you would carry around a handkerchief,” I said, sniffling.
He chuckled. “It comes in handy, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, suddenly feeling exhausted and like my bones weighed a thousand pounds. He tucked me back into his chest, resting his chin on my hair. I fumbled with the words to explain what had just happened, what caused this breakdown, but he never said anything.
“What if we don’t find the building? What if the records aren’t there?” I finally asked.
“Then we focus on other leads,” Alexander said simply. “We reassess and evaluate other options.”
“That could take years.” I didn’t mean to whine, but I couldn’t help it. I was so freaking tired of dealing with this. Could men just not? Not hurt and assault women? Not be fucking rapist dicks?
With my defenses down, memories from when I was sixteen flashed through my mind. Hands on my body and touching me, hurting me. I whimpered, and my breathing picked up. Alexander’s arms tightened around me as my muscles stiffened.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed. “I’ve got you. We’ve got you.” He repeated the words over and over again as I shook in his arms. His words and constant reassurance slowly chased the memories away.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” he said fiercely. “This is not your fault. None of it is your fault.”
“I’ll let you know when I believe it,” I said bitterly.
“I’ll keep reminding you till you do,” Alexander said. He pressed his lips to my hair. “It’s okay to fall apart sometimes.”
“It’s not productive, though,” I argued weakly. Logically, I knew he was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Not everything about life has to be productive,” he teased me gently. “You’ve carried things alone for so long; it’s okay to lean on others.”
“So you’re saying I should come to you next time before I have a mental breakdown in the filing room?” I asked wryly.
He laughed, his chest rumbling comfortingly under my chest. “You can have a mental breakdown wherever you like. I’m just saying you don’t have to do it alone.”
I sighed. “I’ll try to remember that for next time.”
“I’ll be there to remind you,” he promised.
“Okay, you can stop being so irritatingly perfect right now.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, no can do. The universe made me for you.”
I groaned at the cheesiness, but internally, I was swooning.
“How about we call one of the other assistants to clean this up.” Alexander looked around at the mess. “And you and I can go to lunch?”
I sighed. “That sounds good.”
Before we could get up, there was a knock on the door, and Adrian stuck his head in. His sharp gaze took in the mess of the room and then me on Alexander’s lap. His eyebrows slowly rose. “Is everything okay in here?”
I nodded. “Yes, it is now.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, not entirely convinced.
“What’s up?” Alexander asked.
“Sebastian and Liam found the building.”
Sitting inside a gated business park, the office building Sebastian and Liam had found was nothing remarkable.
A two-story brick building, it was indistinguishable from the four others that flanked it.
Neat landscaping, clean windows, and a small placard by the door with a company name that meant nothing to anyone who hadn’t spent three days tracing it back through three layers of shell companies.
Sebastian and Liam had combed the area for cameras, and we had sent three Archers dressed in business casual around the park at different times throughout the afternoon to scout out any security measures.
It seemed like this business park relied on the gate to keep people out, but once you were past the gate, there were barely any cameras.
I wonder if that was by design. If Kingfisher chose this place intentionally for that reason, so there was no digital footprint to be traced back to him.
Still, we waited until darkness fell and dressed in the standard Archers uniform, wearing masks and hats so any cameras wouldn’t be able to pick up our faces. We needed the element of surprise if we were going to get ahead of Kingfisher.
My five guys and I traveled stealthily across the darkened parking lot.
With quick fingers, I picked the lock on the front door.
The door swung open silently. The alarm code panel beeped.
Sebastian pulled the cover off the wall and connected a small black box to the wires of the panel.
The beeping stopped, and I breathed out a quick sigh of relief.
With the alarm taken care of, we fanned out through the office.
Adrian and I headed down the hallway to the left, while Alexander and Marcus took the right.
Sebastian and Dominic cleared the lobby area and disappeared behind a door behind the receptionist’s desk.
There were three rooms off each hallway.
Adrian and I cleared them one by one. All three were empty, with a desk and a chair pushed against the walls but with no other furniture.
The walls were painted stark white, and the carpet was a drab beige commonly found in office buildings.
There were no signs that any women were kept here.
When we cleared the last room, we joined Alexander and Marcus in the lobby area.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing but desks and chairs,” Marcus said.
“Could we have gotten the location wrong?” Adrian asked.
“Hey.” Sebastian poked his head out of the room behind the receptionist’s desk. “Come look at this.”
The room had more furniture than the others. A desk and two chairs, along with a large filing cabinet against the back wall.
“What is it?” I asked.
Dominic stood in the center of the room, hands on his hips, as he studied the blank wall in front of him.
“Does this room feel weird to you?” he asked, looking at us over his shoulder.
I studied the room with a more critical eye. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance. The room was small, and the desk and filing cabinet took up most of the room.
“The room is small, right?” Dominic asked. “Too small.”
I made a slow circle. The other offices were bigger, but I wasn’t seeing what Dominic was seeing. “Yes?”
Dominic pointed to the wall with the filing cabinet. “This wall should go back another five feet, but it stops here.”
My eyes widened. “There’s a secret room.”
“I would bet money,” Dominic said. “I think the entrance is behind the filing cabinet. Adrian, help me out?”
Adrian joined Dominic at the filing cabinet. “Let’s tip it away from the wall and lift it up that way,” Adrian suggested.
Dominic nodded. They tried tipping it away from the wall, but it wouldn’t budge.
They tried a second time, but it was like the cabinet was glued in place.
It rocked a little bit but wouldn’t tip away from the wall.
I lay down in front of the cabinet, pressing my cheek to the carpet to peer underneath it.
“I think it’s on a track system of some kind,” I said, seeing some kind of metal strip attached to the carpet. I stood up and moved to the side of the cabinet, then tried tugging experimentally. It still didn’t budge.
“Look.” Sebastian pointed to the filing cabinet. “There’s an extra keyhole here.”
He was right. There was a keyhole to lock the drawers, but there was a second one at the top of the cabinet.
I pulled my lockpick kit out and picked it quickly.
When I heard the soft click of the lock flipping open, I tried tugging on the filing cabinet again.
It rolled away smoothly, revealing a small opening in the wall about four feet high and two feet wide.
Alexander put a hand on my shoulder when I went to slip into the opening. Sebastian moved through it instead, and I shot a glare over my shoulder at Alexander. He looked unrepentant.
“All clear,” Sebastian said, poking his head back through. “But we’re not all going to be able to fit.”
Sebastian, Alexander, and I slipped through the opening one at a time. I straightened on the other side and let my eyes adjust to the darkened room.
The hidden office was small but deliberately outfitted.
A desk with a small lamp sat against the left wall.
Along the back wall, a set of built-in shelves was lined with binders.
The binders were neat and labeled with meticulous care.
The rest of the building was a front, but I’d bet money that this is where Kingfisher actually worked.
Had he sat at that desk and planned his criminal takeover of my city?
Alexander moved to the shelves while Sebastian swept the rest of the small space. I crossed to the desk. The surface was clean and uncluttered. I tried the drawers. All were locked, but not for long. The top drawer held nothing but a single pen. The bottom drawer was empty.
Alexander pulled a binder from the shelf and flipped it open, the papers rustling as he looked through it. “Evelyn,” he said quietly.
I moved to his side. The pages were dense with columns. Dates, locations, and numbers running down the left margin in sequence. It was a familiar format.
“It’s a manifest,” I realized.
“In code,” Alexander agreed. “But instead of shipment weights or cargo, there are these numbers. These are—”
“People,” I finished.
My stomach turned. Each entry had a unique number, a date, two location codes and another two columns of coded data I couldn’t decipher. I flipped through the pages slowly, scanning the numbers.
I recognized one.
I tapped on it, drawing Alexander’s attention. “This is the number etched into the wall at the warehouse,” I said.
Alexander held the page closer, his eyes narrowed on the entry. “That’s the date of the SID raid.”
Sebastian peered over my shoulder. “You think the women are assigned numbers?”
I thought for a moment, my brain racing. “I do. I think they’re assigned numbers, and I think one of the women from the SID raid etched that number into the wall. She may be able to tell us about the symbol next to it.”
“The symbol is in the ledger here too.” Alexander pointed to the end of the row. “It’s in a couple of these entries.”
“She’ll still be in protective custody, right?” I looked up at Alexander.
Anticipation coursed through me. If she could tell us what the symbol means, it may help us crack the manifest’s code and give us concrete evidence against Kingfisher.
“She should be,” Alexander said. “Dominic would know for sure.”
I nodded and slipped back through the opening to where Dominic, Marcus, and Adrian waited.
“We found a manifest,” I said. “It’s in code, but we recognized one of the numbers as the same one we found at the warehouse. It’s from the night of the SID raid. One of the women we rescued may have written it. We need to talk to her.”
“I’ll reach out to Ethan,” Dominic said without hesitation. “He can set up an interview for us, quietly and off the record, so it doesn’t spook anyone.”
“Good,” I said. “We’re going to photograph everything here and then put it back how we found it.”
Adrian nodded. “Good idea. Better to not let him know we’ve been here.”
I agreed. Right now, the only advantage we had was that Nathaniel Drake didn’t know we were on to him. I wasn’t willing to give that up until we were ready to take him down.