Chapter Four Reed
Chapter Four
Reed
Rome, Italy
I capped the bottle, returned it to the marble vanity, and surveyed the rest of the bathroom. The suite she’d checked in to was upscale. Modern, but with an old-world feel. Fitting for Hollis’s bank account and way outside the capabilities of my own.
“Anything in here?” Ryder’s voice caught me off guard, and I quickly spun away from the shower and toward my team leader.
“More of her stuff left behind, like she planned to come back. And no aftershave, cologne, or sign of any dude staying with her.”
Ryder remained in the doorway, arms crossed. “Her weapons’ case was in the living room closet. Gideon knew the code. It was empty.” He motioned with his head, a silent command to exit the bathroom.
I followed him into the bedroom I’d already checked out and glanced at the king-sized bed. Hollis’s designer clothes and lingerie were haphazardly thrown on top of it. Her suitcase was open and sitting on the bench at the end of the bed. A knife had been taken to it.
I nudged the bag, doing my best to stay in operator mode to combat the worry piling up inside me, but it was becoming harder and harder to act unaffected about her disappearance.
“They were looking for secret compartments.” This was all the evidence we needed that Hollis didn’t go dark on purpose.
Gone was any hope I’d clung to that she’d gone off-grid on purpose.
“Someone clearly beat us here. Either Hollis told them where to find whatever it is they were looking for, which is doubtful—”
“Or she’s on the run, so they can’t ask her themselves,” Ryder interrupted.
“She’s resourceful. She’d have made contact somehow if she managed to get away from whoever had her.” I dragged the back of my hand up and down my jawline as I ran through scenarios in my head, none of them good. All of them ended with me losing my mind.
Realizing I was staring in a daze at a black silk bra on top of the pile of clothes, I turned toward the doorway, finding Gideon now joining us.
He seemed far too okay, given his sister was missing. It irritated me to no end how unbothered he seemed to be. Ryder would be losing his mind if Audrey had gone off-grid.
“Anything?” I asked when Gideon remained scrutinizing me as if I’d been the one to butcher the Prada.
He straightened, hands sliding into his slacks pockets. Because why wouldn’t he wear a suit on a mission? Why wouldn’t he continue to act like he was going to attend a board meeting instead of rescuing his sister?
Did I care more about this woman than he did, even though she drove me crazy? Or was this family incapable of showing their emotions? Did it get bred out of their DNA?
He finally spoke up. “Not much. She was scheduled to check out tomorrow. I just talked to the hotel manager. She remembers her since she’d checked in to their best room. She said she’d been alone and didn’t recall ever seeing anyone with her in the time she’d been here.”
“I assume you’re having the manager discreetly ask more of the staff about her, too?” I followed up.
Gideon nodded. “My brother also checked hotels throughout the rest of Italy. No rooms booked anywhere else under her name or any of her aliases. It appears Rome was her only scheduled stop.” He gestured to the living room, and Ryder and I followed him out.
Alex and Julian were the only other two in there. Gideon had ordered his cousins, along with Trevor, to chase down leads in the city—talking to contacts their family personally knew.
Julian was tapping away at his wireless keyboard like he was casually cracking into the Pentagon. I mean, hell, maybe he was.
I went to the open balcony doors as my phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t know why, but I found myself stupidly hoping it’d be Hollis.
Not her. A group text from Ryder.
I looked up at him sitting on the burgundy velvet couch, and he gave me a subtle nod.
Ryder: Got the dossiers from C. Sending the decrypted files now.
Ryder had put in a request to Secretary Chandler to have Gideon’s and Julian’s operator files sent to us so we’d know a little more about who’d have our sixes out here.
I turned from the room when a screenshot came through from Ryder.
Gideon Eduard Avery Wyndham d’Aragon
Nationality: Dual (UK/US)
Branch: SAS, later NATO Tier 1 Black Cell (not formally recognized). Honorably discharged at 34.
Clearance level: Classified Access
Known Aliases: Gideon Wyndham, Gideon Avery, G. d’Aragon, The Gravedigger (internal use only), The Enforcer
Confirmed Sanctioned Missions: 33
Kill Count: Redacted
I discreetly glanced at Gideon. He was near the suite’s main door, speaking rapid-fire Italian as if the man was native born. He’d mastered more than one language, and from the looks of his file, more than one way to kill a man.
Another buzz. Julian’s file this time. Not helpful, either.
Julian William Avery Wyndham d’Aragon
Nationality: Dual (UK/US)
Branch: Redacted
Clearance level: Cryptologic Umbra
Known Aliases: Redacted
Confirmed Sanctioned Missions: Redacted
Kill Count: Redacted
Expertise: EMPs, biometric hacking, nuclear grid override, anything cyber-related
Status: Presumed dead—no remains recovered
I had news for the powers that be who’d created their files: Julian was very much alive, which Secretary Chandler also clearly knew, and now we needed to keep his sister that way.
Alex: A whole lotta nothing we didn’t already know. Guess we just trust them?
Ryder: I’m sure they feel the same way about us. We’re the outsiders this time.
Trevor: True.
Alex: Can you do that, Reed?
I stole a look at Alex hovering behind where Julian worked.
Me: I’ll do what I have to.
I pocketed my phone, not in the mood for a lecture via text or in person.
I opened the doors wider to take in the evening view of the city. The Spanish Steps were in my line of sight, along with several Vespas buzzing in the street below. The hum of chatter outside echoed off the ancient stone. The city looked timeless from here.
I’d never been to Rome before, but I’d always wanted to visit one day. Not for this reason, of course. Where the hell are you? I clenched my teeth, trying to keep it together. Spinning out wouldn’t do Hollis any good.
When a conversation in another language started up, I turned toward the two speaking. It was no wonder I had trust issues with this family.
“What language is that?” Because I had a damn-good ear for languages and didn’t recognize it.
Gideon’s scowl, or whatever the hell broody look he’d outmastered me at—which was saying a lot—landed hard. “Aramaic.”
“I thought that language was dead.” Alex scrutinized me, waiting for answers I happened to have.
“It’s a Galilean dialect. Mostly replaced by Arabic over the centuries, but it’s still in use. Borderline extinct, though.” I really did know a little too much about way too much.
Maybe I didn’t need puzzles after all since my brain was already fairly active with how much reading I’d done all my life. Or maybe my genes would get the best of me no matter what, so there was truly no magical prevention to keep my memory intact as I aged.
“Care to share why you were speaking in that language, and, from the sounds of it, so passionately?” Ryder stood, swiveling his hat backward as if ready to throw down if he heard something he didn’t like.
The look exchanged between Julian and Gideon, followed by their rapid back-and-forth in Aramaic again, didn’t exactly do wonders for building trust.
“We’re here to help. We can’t do that if you don’t tell us what’s going on,” Alex reminded them.
“Someone rewrote Rome’s digital history from the moment Hollis left the airport after her arrival up until two hours after her tracker went dark,” Julian shared in a hesitant tone.
“Remember what I said back in Charleston?” Gideon asked, eyes on me.
“Some things that die stay dead. Well, someone nuked half of Rome’s CCTV grid.
Wiped it totally out, and it’s not coming back.
Including the feeds from the hotel.” He let that information sit for a few seconds before continuing.
“Then they patched in archived footage to mask the loss, probably before anyone knew it was missing.”
I had no idea how they even knew that or could verify it, but they clearly weren’t guessing. “And who could pull that off?”
“Only two people on the planet,” Julian said grimly. “You’re looking at one, and a thief who stole my source code is the other.”
“I assume you have enough firewalls on your laptop to make the Pentagon jealous,” Alex said, and that was undoubtedly not an exaggeration. “So how’d they steal it?”
“There’s no way anyone hacked my hardware to get to my program. It’s just not possible. Someone had to have gotten close enough to my laptop to mirror it with some pretty powerful tech. A device more advanced than anything MI6 or the CIA have.”
“Since it seems much of the world thinks you’re dead,” Alex spoke up, “I take it you don’t hang out with the living all that often.”
“I keep my friend circle the size of a dot. Family and a few other teammates only. Even that’s pushing it, which means someone I trust mirrored my laptop.”
“Someone you trust,” I said bitterly. “The kind of person that’d know about your trackers and the chain.”
Gideon kept his eyes tight on his brother. “I can think of someone who was at your place in Singapore last month that has the ability to do this.”
“Not possible,” Julian shot back. “He’d never hurt Hollis, and you know that.”
“Who the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.
Julian’s eyes slowly cut my way as he revealed, “Tristan.” He shook his head while tacking on, “Our half brother.”
Another brother? I immediately pivoted, attention shooting to Ryder in question. How come we don’t know about him? We’d been operating under the assumption there were just the four siblings: Hollis, Julian, Gideon, and Lyra.
Now I couldn’t help but think back to Gideon’s comment from yesterday in Charleston. He’d said younger brother when referring to Julian. Most people didn’t add qualifiers unless they had more than one, and it hadn’t dawned on me until this very moment.
“Hollis never told Audrey about a third brother,” Alex said, breaking through the quiet. “And there’s no mention of a Tristan in our files.”
I didn’t miss the daggers Gideon was shooting Julian. We weren’t part of their secret society, so he clearly wasn’t a fan of us knowing about their fifth sibling. Too late now.
“We didn’t know he was our brother until later in life.” Gideon peered at Ryder, clearly knowing his backstory with his sister, assuming he could relate.
Doubtful the circumstances were remotely the same.
“What if Tristan was the one Hollis was meeting up with, and she lied to Audrey because Audrey doesn’t know about this half brother yet?” Alex suggested when everyone remained quiet—but that wouldn’t explain why Tristan would steal Julian’s program and use it to alter the CCTV footage in Rome.
“Do you think it’s possible Hollis was working with Tristan?” I asked.
Before I could continue with my theory, Julian yanked the laptop toward him. “Her tracker just went active.”
And my heart was going to explode from my chest. “The chain was removed?”
“Must have been.” Gideon quickly rounded the desk to view the screen. “She’s in the Czech Republic.”
“At a monastery,” Julian shared, typing fast. “It’s abandoned. Seized by the government fourteen years ago.”
Gideon braced both hands on the desk. He said something in Aramaic to his brother, but all I could catch was Tristan’s name. “We no longer need your help. This is clearly a family matter.”
Is he out of his mind? I started his way, stabbing the air. “I made a promise to his wife”—I motioned to Alex—“to bring your sister home. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Maybe because I also cared a lot more about her than I’d ever admit to myself or out loud.
Julian kept working like none of us existed, so I was surprised when he stepped up to bat for us. “Let them come with us. You and I both know Hollis didn’t go behind our backs to work with Tristan, which means she’s in danger. She needs us. All of us.”
I knew I liked you for a reason. “Does Tristan have one of those trackers, too?”
“No, but he knows about ours.” Gideon pushed away from the desk, standing tall while rolling his shoulders back. “But if he’s somehow connected to what happened to her, we’ll find him.”
“How?” I asked. “If your brother is the one who stole Julian’s program, then he can vanish off every digital mainframe on the planet and become as dead as Julian’s been pretending to be.”
And here I thought our team was done fighting dead men and ghosts after the op involving Audrey.
“There’s also a chance Hollis’s tracker was reactivated as bait,” Alex pointed out. “To draw you two out. What if whoever took Hollis is also hunting the rest of your family, and that’s why they removed her chain when and where they did?”
“In that case, it wouldn’t be our brother. Tristan could walk into any of our houses and put two in our heads before we’d ever see it coming,” Gideon grated in a low voice. “So if he’s tied to this somehow, it’s not to bait and kill us. Or our sister.”
“Fair enough,” I grunted in frustration. “Maybe it’s someone else you mistrusted. Either way, we stay on guard when we get there.”
“Obviously,” Gideon hissed, but at least he didn’t push back on the we in my statement.
From where I stood, if there was even a remote chance Hollis was in the Czech Republic, then that was where I was heading, and no one could stop me.
Not waiting for orders, I went over to my weapons’ bag in preparation to go after the only woman in my life who’d ever managed to get under my skin—the same woman I knew damn well I never wanted to live without, not even as the pain-in-the-ass friend of a friend she was now.