Chapter Seven Hollis
Chapter Seven
Hollis
I’d spent the last two hours tossing and turning, flipping through blank page after blank page in my mind, only landing on movie plotlines and random facts in a slew of languages.
Gideon had shut down the conversation about our half brother and kicked everyone, including himself, out of the room so I could sleep.
Rest was as elusive as my memories, so I tossed the covers off and swung my legs around to the side of the bed.
Once my feet made contact with the honey-hued hardwood, I looked up at the camera and stated the obvious: “I can’t sleep.” I drew my hand beneath my chin, a command to kill the feed. My patience wasn’t tested, because the light turned off a few seconds later.
Satisfied to be alone-ish now, I stood with relative ease, grateful the effects of the drugs seemed to have worn off, which meant I should be able to walk unaided. Or run, if the tattoo of the same family crest Julian and Gideon had wasn’t there.
I walked across the ballroom-sized bedroom (only a mild exaggeration) to the full-length mirror wedged between two floor-to-ceiling windows.
The stranger I’d expected to find was staring back at me. Even when I lifted my hand, it was as if someone else was waving, not me. I curled my fingers around the wood frame to get up close and personal with myself.
My pupils were slightly dilated, fighting for space with my forest-green irises. The whites of my eyes were a little red, and my under eyes had a purplish tint competing with my otherwise tan face. Drugged, tired, and hungry were the probable causes.
I lifted my free hand to the curve of my cheek, then skimmed the line of my brow’s scar as if touching it might draw me back to the moment it happened.
Nothing came. Not a damn thing. I let go of the mirror and shifted my thick mass of dark hair out of my way, unsure who’d changed me. These clothes smelled and looked too clean for my coffin escape.
Also, talk about a reason to hyperventilate—waking up in a box. Yet my first instinct had been to fight. To get the top open and climb out of the six-foot hole I’d found myself in. My saving grace had been that the coffin hadn’t been sealed with a lock or by dirt.
Someone clearly had gone to a lot of trouble to take me, only to hand me right back over, and it made no freaking sense.
I smoothed my hands up and down my forearms at the goose bumps gathering as a result of my thoughts.
Arms to my sides, I abandoned my mission to eradicate the little bumps, remembering I was here to check for the tattoo.
I had on a white fitted tee that clung to my curves. Avery was printed in black script on the front pocket—and wasn’t that one of my many names? I peeked down my top, where my breasts were fighting against a too-small sports bra.
Thankfully, my black leggings were more comfortable and not riding up my crotch. I had long, toned legs. My feet were bare, toenails painted a nude color, which was a little boring for a woman who climbed out of coffins and ran down dark alleys like it was just another Thursday.
I checked my fingernails. Same color, but chipped. No sign of dirt under them after yesterday’s struggle, either. Someone both cleaned me and changed my clothes. Hopefully a female nurse and not one of those male doctors from this morning.
“Tattoo,” I reminded myself, becoming concerned at how forgetful I was.
I only had a few memories to cling to from the last twenty-four hours, and I couldn’t afford to lose those, too.
Shifting to the side, I lifted my shirt, my pulse quickening.
The so-called family crest was there.
It was real, like a brand, and I belonged to a secret society I didn’t remember joining.
What had initiation been like? Did it happen via the birth canal, or did I have to go through a series of tests to prove myself worthy?
I was getting ahead of myself, trying to fill in the blanks to the story of my life. If I wasn’t careful, I might mix up reality with movies I could frustratingly still remember.
Shirt back in place, I dropped my head into my hands, my temples throbbing.
“Get it together.” Get what together? You don’t know who you even freaking are.
My inner voice hit me back with enough sass to send my head upright, hands falling.
Talk about feeling split in two and not recognizing either half.
I needed answers. Something to click. I also needed to get out of this room.
I didn’t make it down the hall too far before I heard voices.
The carpet runner was thick beneath my feet, the scent of lemon oil trailing behind me as I tracked down whoever was talking.
I stopped outside an open door and listened in. There was a woman speaking, but she didn’t sound physically present. Over speakerphone, maybe.
I peeked around the corner, locating only one of four men I recognized. Jason Reed. The man who’d defied my broody-grouchy brother and also managed to steady my pulse with his presence.
Reed noticed me within a second and set his laptop on a coffee table and stood. “Hi,” he mouthed, brows slanting with the same concerned expression he’d hit me with in the bedroom.
A guy on the phone slowly turned around as if catching on to the fact Reed was distracted by someone or something. “I’m going to have to call you back. Love you.” He ended the call as the two other men in the room redirected their attention my way.
“Come in.” Phone Guy waved me over.
I scanned the space, uncertain whether it was the best idea to be alone with three strangers, even if the fourth man in the office was oddly familiar for some reason.
“It’s okay.” At Reed’s words, I took my first hesitant step across the threshold into the space, which appeared modern in comparison to the rest of what little I’d seen of the home so far.
Sleek furniture, smooth lines, and minimalistic black-and-gray everything. Even the book spines on the shelves were color coded and divided into three categories: gray, grayer, and grayest.
“Hi.” That awkward hello was for Reed and him alone. How do I know you aside from punching you on the street? He smiled while running a hand through his hair.
“I’m Alejandro Rodriguez.” Phone Guy broke through my staring contest with Reed while offering his hand. “You can call me Alex.”
“And who are you to me?” I folded my arms, remaining close to the doorway since there were still three obstacles in my way to the only one I seemed interested in talking to.
“I’m married to your best friend, Audrey,” Alex said as if that’d explain everything.
Nope, it explained absolutely nothing.
Another man stepped up alongside Alex and tugged at the brim of his black ball cap. “Audrey’s my sister. I’m Ryder Lawson.”
Okay, maybe we were getting somewhere now, but I kept my guarded position. “And you are?” I asked the only one with visible tattoos.
“Trevor Sloane.” A slight smile cut across his mouth. “I’m Audrey’s ex-husband, and the father of our son, Chase.”
“So Audrey connects you all, and she’s my best friend, so that’s why you’re here—because I was taken?”
Ryder nodded. “Quick study.”
More like still playing thirty-four years of catch-up. “What about you? What’s your relation to Audrey?” I peeked around the wall of three men, searching out Reed.
“The four of us operate together. I have no relation to Audrey.” Reed gestured with his head toward the others. “Outside of being her friend because of these guys.”
Huh. My shoulders slumped. Not the answer I’d hoped for or expected, given my strange feelings. “My brothers didn’t have any photos of me. Any chance you do?”
Alex produced his phone and closed the space between us. “Photos from the wedding. You were the maid of honor.”
“You also attended my wedding this year as a guest,” Ryder remarked as Alex began swiping through photos on his phone.
One after another, the pictures blurred together, making me a little dizzy. The woman in the photo with the bride matched the stranger from the mirror, but it was jarring to see her smiling, dancing, and so real. So not me right now.
At the tilt-a-whirl feeling happening in my stomach, I held up my hand. “That’s good, thank you.”
Alex turned toward the room and went over to the others, standing alongside Audrey’s ex-husband. “You two get along?” I had no idea why that was relevant, but out the question came.
“We do,” Alex confirmed, pocketing his phone.
I walked back a step, needing the doorway for support in case my legs embarrassed me and gave out. Shoulder to the interior frame, I crossed my arms, scanning the four men, waiting and hoping for something to click. “And you all work together. How so?”
“US military, but not in the traditional sense.” Ryder’s response was about as vague as my brothers’ not-the-Mafia answer had been. “Delta Shield Security. All formerly in the Unit, except Trevor,” he added. “He was a SEAL.”
Unit? Is that another name for Delta Force? “What about me? Did I serve? Is that why I feel like my body is a weapon in itself?”
Ryder smirked, then took the lead as everyone quietly hung back, which had me assuming he was in charge. “No, not military, but you do take on missions for the government. Not just for the US and the UK.”
Missions? I didn’t bite the bullet and ask for more details. At least their story seemed to be in line with Julian’s “we’re the good guys” remark. “And you helped my brothers locate me yesterday?”
“We did.” Ryder again, when I wished it was Reed answering.
“Do you believe Tristan is in danger, or that he did this to me?” I bit the bullet on that one, unable to keep the question at bay any longer.
Ryder turned to the side, eyeing the camera in the corner of the room.
The light was on. “We don’t know anything about your brother to offer our opinion,” he said steadily, turning his face to mine again.
“We only learned you had a half brother while in Rome yesterday. Apparently, you didn’t know about him until later in your life, either. Well, so Gideon said.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that last bit of news. I stood unassisted by the doorway as I tried to read between the lines of what else Ryder had said. “You don’t regularly work with my brothers, then, do you? Not part of their, uh, club?”
“Aside from this week, once in February.” Reed spoke up that time, and the sound of his voice somehow relaxed the tension in my body I’d been riding like a wave while waiting for the inevitable crest and crash to follow.
“And the government let you take on my case because you’re Audrey’s—”
“Our commander in chief values your life,” Ryder interjected, offering an almost diplomatic answer.
“We’d have come even if he didn’t ask us, though,” Reed added in a no-nonsense tone, eyes tight on me like he had a million things he wanted to say but no plans to say any of them.
“How long have we known each other?”
I’d only meant that for Reed, but Alex answered instead. “You’ve actually known Audrey longer than any of us. Well, aside from Trevor, of course.”
“Wait, even you?” I asked Ryder, since didn’t he say he was my best friend’s brother?
Ryder rested a hand on his chest. “I only found out I had a sister this past Christmas. I met her and her son, Chase, then.”
“Oh, wow, that, um . . . sucks.”
“You met my sister while you were undercover eight years ago. You gave her the name Hollis and didn’t tell her the truth about who you were until you had no choice on an op this past February.
You started preferring that name to Celeste, as well as the person you tend to be around her instead of, uh—”
“I lied to my best friend about who I am for that long?” My gut twisted with guilt.
“You had your reasons.” Ryder opened his palms to the room. “Like to try and keep her safe from this world of yours. But when Audrey was placed in danger this February, you helped us keep her safe. You had no choice but to tell her the truth then.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but an intruder to our get-to-know-you conversation beat me to talking.
“They’re about to pull up.” The deep, growly-ish voice behind me had to belong to Gideon. “And as for you four, you shouldn’t be discussing the case with her, especially not without my presence.”
I turned to face Gideon, my spine tingling and right-hook fingers itchy to swing. What was with the compulsion I had in wanting to slug my own flesh and blood? “I’m not a prisoner, correct?”
“Of course not.” He propped his hand up on the doorframe, eyes sharp on me. “But they’re outsiders.”
I crossed my arms, feeling a bit stronger standing my ground with four elite operators behind me. Something told me they’d have my back.
Gideon lifted his head, straightening his posture while tossing out the order. “Do me a favor and don’t bring up Tristan to Mum or Dad yet. Let me talk to them first.”
I didn’t even know what to say or ask them, because I barely knew a thing myself.
“The only person I want you focused on is yourself, got it?” His tone of voice that time was as layered and complex as I suspected he was.
“And what will you do next?”
“Kill the bastards who did this to you . . .” He paused for a beat, his gaze flicking to the operators in the room. “And leave a trail of bodies behind so everyone knows never to screw with my family again.”