Chapter Twenty-Seven
Feralyn
Six Months Ago.
My heartbeat trampled across my nerves and pounded in my ears. Panting like I was three miles into a run, I uselessly looked out the front window toward the driveway.
I probably shouldn’t have left that safe house in the Everglades last night, but the isolation out there was more suffocating than the muggy air.
I hated whenever Helios or Ares insisted I go there.
Thankfully, it’d been a rare occurrence over the years and usually only happened when they both were going to be out of the country or unreachable, but I didn’t see the point.
This house had a secure panic room. Which was why I came back here last night.
But now, from my vantage point, I couldn’t see the end of the driveway without pulling up the security cameras. Which technically didn’t make this any better of a view than I’d had in the Everglades. But either way, I didn’t need any security feeds to know something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
Helios and Ares had been gone for days, but Helios hadn’t called. And Helios always called.
Clutching my cell like it was my lifeline, I dialed his number again, but it went straight to voicemail. Hanging up, I tried Ares. Same thing.
Then I did what I’d been doing for the past thirty-six hours.
I hacked into the security camera feeds at both Miami Executive Airport and Opa Locka Executive Airport, exactly how Ares had taught me.
But Helios’s Cessna Citation Longitude hadn’t landed at either airfield.
It hadn’t landed at all. Thirty-six hours ago, it’d gone off the radar.
Pacing across the front of the house, I thought of my one emergency option.
I’d never called the Paragon Operations number. I’d never had a reason to. But Helios had made me memorize it years ago. He’d said it was both my security blanket and my in-case-of-emergency call. He said I could call it anytime I needed anything.
Technically, I didn’t need anything right now.
But I was desperate to know if Helios was okay. If Ares was okay. But this felt like…. I didn’t even know how to describe this, except to say that I felt it.
My shoulders were aching, my back was sore. All of my muscles were tight like something was very, very wrong, and I couldn’t shake it. I also couldn’t get my panic under control, not even with a run. After seven miles on the treadmill, anxiety was still coursing through my veins.
Helios had been gone for longer stints than this before. Sometimes he was gone for over a week, usually with Ares. And not that Ares wasn’t in and out of the house all the time when he was here, but Helios wasn’t.
And this was just different.
I glanced at my phone. Then I was holding my breath and swiping to dial when the security panel in the entryway beeped with an alert.
Shoving my phone into my pocket, I jogged over and pulled up the camera feeds.
The front gate was open, and one of the armored Paragon Operations’ Yukon Denalis was pulling in with Ares at the wheel and Helios in the passenger seat.
A cry of relief escaped, and I was running to the garage to open a bay door for them.
Ares drove in, then he opened his door with a warning. “Give us a minute, Feralyn.”
Standing on the steps, my gaze locked on Helios, I saw that his eyes were closed and his head was leaning back. Panic seized my chest and constricted all the air in my lungs. “Is he okay?”
“He will be.” Ares got out of the SUV slower than he usually did.
I looked at him and saw it. Bruises on his face, holding his body like he ached, his face pinched when it was usually void of all expression—oh God. Ares was injured.
They both were.
I didn’t give Ares a minute. I met him at Helios’s door and tried to sound as calm as I possibly could. “What happened?”
“He took a few rounds to the shoulder.” Ares opened the passenger door before I could absorb the shock that Helios had been shot.
In eight years, nothing like this had happened.
Helios threw a glare at Ares. Then he looked at me and gave one of his narrow-eyed, dominant stares. “I’m fucking fine, Haven, but you were supposed to wait at the safe house until I came for you.”
Pain in his eyes, wearing a sling, he wasn’t fine. He wasn’t even close to fine. If he was, he would’ve already been out of the vehicle, dumping his equipment, pulling me into his arms, then asking what I’d cooked—right after he scolded me one more time about the safe house.
But he wasn’t doing any of that.
Forcing down choking fear and threatening tears, I moved closer to Helios.
“I’m sorry about leaving the Glades, but I was careful driving back.
” I’d looked for a tail the whole time. I always looked over my shoulder everywhere I went.
“What can I do to help?” I glanced at Ares. “Are you injured too?”
Holding the door for Helios, Ares didn’t look at me. “I wasn’t shot.”
It wasn’t what I’d asked. “But you’re banged up too.” Badly, from the looks of it.
“We’re both fucking fine, Haven,” Helios more warned than reassured as he stood to his full height, shifting slower than I’d ever seen him move. “Right, Ares?”
“Right,” Ares agreed, not moving away from Helios.
“Jesus Christ,” Helios cursed at Ares. “I don’t need a fucking spotter or help getting out of a damn car. Stop scaring her. It was a couple fucking rounds. We’ve both had worse.”
Ares didn’t say anything, but he also didn’t back off.
Shaking his head, Helios sighed. Then he looked pointedly at his brother. “I’m good. Give me and Feralyn a minute.”
“You going to tell her?”
“Yeah.”
Ares nodded. Then he kissed my forehead and walked into the house.
I didn’t realize I was standing there wringing my hands until Helios held out his free arm. “C’mere, Haven.”
I walked right into his good side. Then I burst into tears.
Helios swiped my hair from my face and pushed it over my shoulder, then he pulled me in close and wrapped his arm around me. “Ssh, Haven. We’re good. It’s all good. I’m gonna be fine.”
Choking on sobs, I had to ask. “What do you need to tell me?”
“In a sec. Get those tears out. This isn’t worth a damn asthma attack. It’s good news.”
I wanted to believe him, I did, but he’d been shot. Shot. That wasn’t good news. That was terrifying. “I knew something was wrong when I didn’t hear from you. You always call.”
“I know.” He stroked down the length of my hair. “Sorry about that.”
“And you didn’t come home on your Citation. I looked for it.”
“Hitched a ride on one of Alpha Elite Security’s jets.”
Alarm coated every inch of my nerves as I stared up at him.
“I thought you didn’t work with that security company?
” Helios had told me about the owner, a former SEAL, Adam “Alpha” Trefor.
How AES was an elite military contractor, and most of the men were former SEALs.
“I thought no one was supposed to know about you and Paragon Operations?”
That’s what Helios had said eight years ago when he’d taken the job with Nix “Phoenix” Erikson, who owned Paragon Operations.
Helios had sworn me to secrecy. His life depended on it.
Same as I’d never told anyone when he’d been with the Unit, I’d never told a soul he worked for Paragon.
Not that I had anyone to tell besides Ares, but now Ares worked with them too.
“It’s fucking fluid.” Helios grasped my chin. “All you need to know is that it’s over.”
Not processing it yet, I stared at his eyes, his jaw, his lips.
“You hearing me or just giving me those amber eyes, woman?”
I blinked. “I’m sorry.”
“No apologies.” His thumb swept across my cheek. “Do I have your attention now?”
He always had it. “Yes.”
“Good.” He said the last thing I was expecting. “The terrorists behind the trafficking ring that took you are handled.”
My world ground to a halt. “What?”
“It’s over, Haven.”
“That’s….” Eight years ago, he’d said the traffickers who’d taken me were all dead, that I was safe. Then he’d told me ISIS was behind them.
I wasn’t ignorant. I knew cutting off the head of the snake was impossible.
That extremist terrorist groups were like anthills.
Step on one, and they spread. Helios had said you couldn’t dismantle ISIS, but that I was safe.
I watched the news. War had been waged. I knew he was right, on both counts, or at least as right as he could be in an unpredictable world.
But I still never took a full breath. I still didn’t go anywhere without constantly looking over my shoulder.
Even in the temporary moments where I’d forget the past, the times I had good days, it still lingered. Like a tick. Like a bad omen you couldn’t see or touch or hear but knew was there anyway. “Th-that’s not possible.”
Helios’s huge hand slid to the side of my face. “I can’t give you details, and we’re never gonna speak of this again, but trust me. They’re dead, Feralyn. Every last motherfucker. Eliminated.”
Tears slid down my face. “It’s really over?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Helios didn’t lie. He would withhold the truth if he had to. He would skirt around details. He would outright just not answer you, but he had never lied to me. “Thank—”
His fingers covered my lips. “You’re not fucking thanking me. I don’t want gratitude. I don’t want you worrying about my shoulder. I don’t want you fucking dwelling on any of this. I want you to live, Haven. Understand?”
Not trusting myself to speak in that moment without flooding him with emotions, I nodded.
“Good.” He dropped his hand and tipped his chin toward the door into the house. “Come on. I need a fucking shower, some chow, then sleep. Did you make dinner yet?”
I hadn’t cooked since he’d been gone. I never did when both he and Ares were away, but especially not when he was gone. “I’ll cook while you shower.”
“We got steak?” With his arm around my shoulders, he steered me into the house.