Thirty
“ T his had better be good,” I told Collum as we stepped out of the car and stared up at the burning mansion in front of us.
It was Liam Flannagan’s beach mansion, though there wasn’t much left of it now as the flames reached up to lick the starry night sky above.
We’d left Perrie still sound asleep after last night’s romp and I wanted nothing more than to be curled up with her right now.
Every single one of my instincts was screaming at me for being so far away from my omega when her heat was so close. Her strawberry scent practically engulfed any room that she was in now and it was hard for me to focus on anything, let alone trying to figure out who was still trying to frame me for the port explosions.
Jifein Cheng trusted me after reading the files, but I knew that trust only went so far until I found the true culprit.
And now I had one of my branch family head’s homes being lit on fire.
“As far as we know Liam and his son are still inside. Security cameras caught his wife leaving in a dark SUV around an hour ago. We think she might have set the fire.”
Of course it was fucking Yulia. I could have told them that much without even needing the footage.
I couldn’t care fucking less if Liam burnt to a nasty little crisp inside of that house. But his son was a part of my men. Rory was integral to my plans and if we lost him it would be a serious loss.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I turned to Rhodes. “How long until fire and rescue put this blaze out?”
There were four trucks currently working in tandem to try and douse the fire, but it was clear their goal was to keep the nearby other McMansions from burning down right alongside Liam’s.
Rhodes shrugged, his expression dark. “A couple of hours at best before they can start picking through the wreckage for remains.”
“And we know for a fact Rory is inside?”
“His phone location pinged here a few hours ago and hasn’t moved,” Collum cut in, showing me a tablet with Rory’s personal phone tag. All of my men were required to have their phones tracked by me after the ambush. I wanted to keep an eye on them to make sure they were safe, but also to make sure they weren’t double crossing me with whoever was fucking with us.
Asking them to betray their fathers was no small task, and while most of them were eager to do so, I still couldn’t read minds and would only know their true intentions when the time came.
“ Fuck ,” I cursed under my breath as I shoved the tablet out of my face and turned away from the blaze.
“It couldn’t have been avoided, man.” Rhodes gave my shoulder a squeeze. “And there isn’t anything more for us to do here.”
Sucking in a deep breath that tasted of smoke, I turned to Collum. “Keep me updated once they get in there.”
Without waiting for the man to answer I turned and yanked the backdoor of the car open and got inside, Rhodes sliding in behind me.
No sooner had the car pulled away from the curb was my phone ringing.
Shuuhei Saito’s name popped on the screen and somehow it filled me with an even heavier sense of dread.
“What do you think he wants?” Rhodes asked as I turned the phone so he could see it too.
“I don’t know,” I said, holding my thumb over the answer button, “But it can’t be anything good.”
I answered the call. “Saito, what can I do for you?”
“I know who has been stirring shit up and that’s not all.” The man sounded pissed, his voice tight as he spoke.
Sucking in a deep breath, I shifted in my seat. Could it be this easy? After months and months of dead ends? “Well, are you going to leave me hanging in suspense?”
“We figured out where Haruto was going the day he went missing.”
I sat up straight. That really was news.
Shuuhei’s man had been the one puzzle piece that didn’t fit into the grand scheme of things. Why had it been him specifically that they had targeted and how had they made a man who Shuuhei swore up and down was loyal go out of his way to get killed?
“I’m listening,” I said, keeping my voice even despite the adrenaline running through my veins.
“He had a woman and a child that he never disclosed to me. The day he went missing he was heading to the secret apartment he kept a city over and that’s where they got him.”
As Shuuhei spoke, things slowly started to line up in my brain. Everything about this was rehearsed, like we were all taking part in some big fucking play.
I thought about the explosions at the ports, the ambushes, the dead men, the fire we were still driving away from and the woman who had potentially set the fire.
All of it seemed so useless now because we’d known for a while that someone was fucking with us, adding new acts to the story that they were weaving like some damned puppet master.
No, I realized as all of the pieces fell into place. They were distracting us.
There was only one person that I knew looked at everyone else like they were toys.
“Did Haruto’s woman happen to be Russian?” I asked, thinking about Yulia and her beginnings as product for Vladimir Volkov.
Silence greeted me before Shuuhei finally answered. “She was.”
Rhodes cursed next to me.
It was the most obvious answer and because of that I’d written it off when thinking about my suspects. Of course it would be Volkov, the man who spent most of his time observing the squabbling between the four other families.
He would look at the discord sown thanks to my marriage to Perrie and use it to his advantage—but to what end?
“And like I said, that’s not all,” Shuuhei continued. “I looked at everything that’s been happening, the ambush, the explosion—all of it—and I realized it seemed awfully familiar.”
“What do you mean?” I asked even as I was already working to figure it out on my own.
“The last war started very similarly, Edison. You and I were too young to really remember it, but I asked some of my elders and they connected the dots for me. Years ago, prior to the war, things were tense. There was product being stolen, groups being ambushed at nightclubs, and it all pointed towards the Serbians just like how it’s all starting to point at you and your men.”
A sick feeling began to form in my gut. “Are you trying to tell me that you think the Serbians were framed?”
“I’m not a hundred percent… but it’s almost too good of a coincidence to ignore. There’s one thing I’m worried about though, all of that shit wasn’t what actually started the war, no, what started the war was a—”
“Kidnapping,” I finished for him, my voice hoarse.
“ No ,” Rhodes growled next to me as he leaned forward and muttered something to the driver.
The car started to accelerate.
“The kidnapping of Aine Keane was what started the bloodbath that took out an entire generation of young made men and now we know that it was seemingly orchestrated by the Russians, so Edison, I just have one question for you: where is your wife right now?”
“Where’s Perrie?” I barked at Oona as soon as we were through the front doors, my feet already turning in the direction of the East wing.
The panic I was barely keeping a rein on was threatening to bubble out of me in the form of a scream and I turned to the shocked housekeeper again. “Where the fuck is my wife, Oona?”
“She’s in her room where you left her, Master Edison, why? What’s happened?” Oona asked, falling into a hurried step beside me, her wrinkled brow drawing together as she glanced between me and Rhodes who’d gone stonily silent ever since I hung up the call with Shuuhei Saito twenty minutes ago.
Yanking the door to the long hallway that led to the tower open, I turned to her again. “When was the last time you checked on her?”
“Just after you both left, so maybe two hours ago? Edison Keane, you tell me what is going on right now or I swear I will put bleach to all of those black suits you love so much.”
“My mother wasn’t kidnapped by the Serbians. She was kidnapped by the Russians.”
Even as I said it out loud, it all made complete sense. My mother’s worst nights had been those where we couldn’t convince her that she was safe and that the people who had taken her had been wiped off of the face of the planet years ago.
I remember being a little boy watching Oona try to soothe her for hours, dodging vases and anything else my mother could throw, and my mother insisting that they were still out there. That they were just waiting for her to let down her guard before they would come for her again.
We’d all just written it off as the ravings of a crazy woman.
But now I knew better.
“ Oh ,” the word left Oona in a ragged sigh. “Oh no.”
Crossing through the humid greenhouse, I flew up the stairs and into the open door of Perrie’s room.
It looked untouched, the swathes of nesting materials that made up Perrie’s nest still in the same configuration as we’d left it only a few hours before.
“Perrie?” I called and was met with silence.
No, no, no, my inner alpha howled as I grabbed the first bit of nest and pulled and then the next, tossing it behind me as I dug in looking for my omega.
Every bit of the space smelled of her sweet strawberry scent and I inhaled it raggedly as I searched in vain.
Perrie would scold me later for ruining her perfectly crafted nest—it was something she’d been meticulously putting together for the past week, humming under her breath while I sat in the chair by the window watching her instead of doing the work I would bring with me.
It was a sign her heat was coming soon, even if she hadn’t realized it yet.
And now the empty nest was a symbol of what I’d lost. What we’d lost.
“Edison,” Rhodes’ soft voice cut through the blazing fear that had set my mind alight. “Edison!”
This time the other alpha grabbed me and dragged me by my waist away from the destroyed nest.
“She’s gone,” I whispered brokenly to him, turning to find his dark eyes full of pain. “And I don’t know where.”
“We’re going to find her, Edi, I promise,” the other alpha swore, pulling my face into his neck.
I clung to him, inhaling the last bits of Perrie’s scent still on his skin from earlier.
“We’re going to find her,” I murmured into his skin, “but what state will she be in when we do?”