32. Finley
Finley
As I ran through the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountain, I caught a familiar scent that made me pause.
I knew it was someone from the pack, and while it wasn't a scent I knew well enough to match to a specific person, the hint of soil that I'd become all too well acquainted with gave me a clue.
Using all the tricks I knew and learned from our game of hide and seek, I gave them a wide berth as I followed the scent.
When it became strong enough for me to know I was near where this person was waiting, I shifted back so I could climb up a tree and get a better look at my surroundings.
Finding one that towered above the rest. Out of curiosity I focused on my hand willing my body to just change my nails into claws, amazingly it happened allowing me a better grip as I climbed.
Reaching as high up as I could go, I looked over the scene.
In the clearing I found three people dressed in black along with another woman dressed in simple night clothes sitting on a rock.
I was right about whose scent it was—Peggy.
Now it made me question everything that I was thinking.
Had she sold me out, or was she helping the Organization in order to get me out of the picture.
Peggy might be spiteful, but I didn't think she was enough of a mastermind to manage this all on her own.
Now whoever was working with her knew me well enough to know how I would react to the message and what the pack would do in the event of an emergency.
It would seem Peggy provided them with the inside information on the pack, but who was the one giving them information on me?
Dropping out of the tree, I shifted at the last moment, easing my landing and muffling the sound of my descent.
My wolf wasn’t pleased with me at all at that moment, but it would seem being free from my alphas gave me enough control to tamp down her urge to run.
Slinking through the underbrush, my wolf and I worked in tandem to keep hidden.
It was easy to persuade her to keep us from being seen.
The trick would be what happened once I revealed myself to those waiting for me.
"You said they would have the women and children in the tunnels by now. What's taking her so long?" a female voice demanded in a harsh whisper.
Peggy glared at the person. "You people are supposed to be the experts on her seeing as you're trained just like her. She's an assassin. What makes you think she would just fall into this plan so easily?"
"She's an omega now. Isn't she supposed to follow orders like a good little puppet?" another voice asked, this one male.
"That's the thing, isn't it? She is an omega, but she isn't acting like a real omega.
She has far more spirit, and the fact that she has more than one mate—there's no way that's all she is," Peggy sneered.
"I want her gone and never coming back. Do you hear me?
This pack doesn't want her, so you better be serious when you say the Senate has work for her. "
The Senate?! Why on earth would the Senate be looking for me like this? All they'd have to do is ask to meet with me. As a super, I'm under their jurisdiction anyway.
"You leave that to us. We just need her to get here," the man snapped.
"She's here already, has been for a little while," a silky woman's voice cut in, one that I knew right away.
Tabitha was the one person I might have been able to call as friend if we hadn’t been separated right after our training.
We were brought together for a joint mission that went off without a hitch and ended up with better results than anyone had expected.
Tabitha was just as lethal as I was, cold as the arctic when it came to doing her job, and one of the only people I respected as much as Miranda.
If she was here to pick me up, then this was a serious matter indeed, so I took a deep breath, stepping out of the shadows and into the open.
"Foxtrot-seven-nine-five, report," Tabitha ordered.
I was pleased to see that my wolf was not at all fazed by her order, cautiously taking in everything that was going on around us. My plan was to fulfill what they believed about omegas until I was able to ascertain why I was getting called out.
"Following orders that I received via a note and awaiting further orders, Tango-eight-one-three," I responded, bowing my head to avoid meeting her gaze.
"Blakely, give her something to wear. I can't have you gawking at her the whole time," Tabitha directed as she turned to Peggy. "You are no longer needed. Remember, we’ll know if you speak a word of what has happened here tonight. Do you understand?"
Peggy nodded and headed off into the woods without a word.
Blakley begrudgingly shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to me.
I easily caught and slipped on, zipping it up to my chin so as to not cause the man more problems. It also made my wolf feel better as well, not happy that a man who wasn’t pack or our mate seeing us so vulnerable.
"Foxtrot-seven-nine-five, you are hereby reinstated into the Organization on authority of Mike-zero-zero- five.
The Senate has requested that you continue the mission you failed by giving you another target and a team," Tabitha informed me.
"I will be overseeing this so that there will be no further mistakes. If you fail this one as well, then you will forfeit your life, mate to a senator’s son or not. "
"I understand the situation," I said, nodding my agreement. "What is my target?"
"Not here. You will come with us to the safe house where I will give you all that information; we can't risk anyone finding us here," Tabitha explained before she turned on her heel and marched into the woods.
The other two looked at each other and followed, leaving me one last chance to decide if I was going through with this or not.
If I went back to my mates and explained everything that happened, would it make any difference?
Tabitha already told me that Zander's mother would have no say in the matter, meaning Zander would have even less power even though he was my mate.
What would they do if they found out I was an elf?
No, better to save that card for the last chance because I didn't plan on letting this next target get away.
Tabitha led us to a blacked-out hummer, and I climbed into the back where I found a backpack filled with everything I would need.
My favorite bodysuit, knives, guns, and my go-to poisons, stored in syringes and ready for use.
That showed me that Miranda and Tabitha had no doubts of my loyalty to the Organization and completing this assignment.
Tabitha drove us to a small airstrip that looked like it was used more for the forest rangers, but a twin jet plane big enough to fit the four of us was waiting.
Well, that explained why Blakely was here, considering he was a pilot, but I still couldn't place what the other woman was up to.
She didn't at all sound pleased to be working with a super.
Or maybe it had just been Peggy; she did seem to have that effect on people.
Knowing that it would be go-time as soon as we landed, I leaned against the window and tried to get as much sleep as I could.
I took this time to drown out all the noise and emotions my conscience and wolf were throwing at me.
There was nothing I could do at this point.
I'd made my choice, so I needed to see it through to the end, putting this all behind me for good. Images of my mates’ faces appeared, but I gathered them all up and locked them away in my mind so that I wouldn't be distracted by them. All the lessons and meditation work that we did through training came to the forefront of my mind. I was no longer Finley the omega. No, I needed to be Foxtrot-seven-nine-five, one of the Organization’s top assassins.
By the time we landed, the dawn light starting to peek over the horizon, I knew that I was ready for whatever was going to come my way.
Shouldering my backpack, I noticed the sign on the airport said we were in the lower part of Florida.
An SUV was waiting for us, which Tabitha climbed into the driver's seat taking us to our next destination. We pulled up to a small house in the middle of swamp lands away from prying eyes. I say house, but really it was a shack that looked like it was falling apart from the outside. On the inside was a whole different story. It was stocked with canned and dried rations, a secure satellite hookup for us to work from, and enough cots for six people. I could tell right away that this was not an Organization safe house; this had to be something the Senate provided for us. The Organization wouldn’t have a safe house this high tech or for so many people since we never worked in a team larger than two people.
"Take a seat. We have a lot to cover before we make our hit tonight," Tabitha stated as she set up her laptop.
As I sat, I was able to take in the two people I didn’t know well that I was being forced to work with on this assignment.
Blakely was a mature man in his late forties, early fifties, with salt and pepper hair, dark brown eyes, and a muscular frame.
By the crew cut and his posture, my guess was that he was ex-military.
The woman was harder to gauge, but she was roughly around my age, probably older by the wrinkles around her eyes and the weathering of the skin on the back of her hands.
Her thick black hair was in a tight bun on the back of her head, and she wore black fatigues like Blakely did, making me think military, but I could be wrong.
The air that she had around her made me think intelligence, like CIA or FBI, trained but not one to be out in the field.
"Vicky, inform Finley who her target is," Tabitha ordered as she continued to set things up.
Vicky frowned at the order, but when Tabitha all but ignored her, she turned to me.
"Your job is to take out Rupert Sutton, the billionaire who owns one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the States. Mr. Sutton is also a member of the Dark Ring, a much more substantial member than Delilah was. He’ll be leaving tomorrow night to host an auction for kidnapped supers of all kinds.
The plan is for you to persuade Mr. Sutton into telling us where they are being kept so we might free them before ending his miserable life. "
"Easy enough," I answered, turning to Tabitha. "Why the extra people?"
"As I said, you’ve lost the trust of the Senate and the Organization with your failure," Tabitha answered bluntly. "They’re here to ensure that things go according to plan or to bring back your head if it doesn't."
How comforting.
"Where is the target located?" I asked, moving on.
"Mr. Sutton has a home in Palm Beach. It’s a large estate with lots of space to hide supers. Blakely is going to get you close by boat, but you'll have to swim the rest of the way." Tabitha turned to Vicky next. "What's the status with security?"
Vicky grabbed the laptop and quickly pulled up the blueprints of the house.
"We strongly believe that the supers might be in his own home with how advanced his security is.
I'm sure it's nothing that you can't handle, but it will be a lot of perfectly timed movements since I can only bring down certain parts at a time.
There was already a planted notice stating that the security company was doing upgrades.
That way, we can account for any potential bugs in the security features throughout the night.
According to information from the city permits office, Mr. Sutton paid off one of them to get an addition put on his house under the pool.
He was persuaded to give me the plans, and it would be the perfect spot to keep supers locked up.
It's reinforced steel with three feet of concrete, making it impossible to dig into or out of, also helps with keeping any noise to a minimum. "
"Alright, do you have the steps laid out for me?" I inquired as I studied the floor plan intently.
"You'll have an earpiece that will allow me to keep you on track, but here’s the rough outline of what you're going to do," Vicky shared, flipping to a new tab with a detailed outline of the event.
We all worked on perfecting this for the rest of the day.
I tried to stay as focused as I could on the work but in the back of my brain my wolf gnawed at me with worry.
Why would they seek me out specifically?
I mean I know the first job was botched but the Senate was fully aware that I was an omega and no longer with the Organization— so why me?
What was even stranger to me was that the Senate had sent their own people on top of Tabitha being in charge.
This whole thing didn’t sit right with me but I knew I didn’t have the option to say no.
Tabitha was a harsh taskmaster and my only break was for a quick meal before I was put through the paces again and again until I could do it with my eyes closed.
I understood why this was such a major play for the Senate because if I fucked this up again, it would show their hand in going after the Dark Ring.
Two members in the matter of a week, supers freed to tell their story to others...
It would be their worst nightmare, forcing the Dark Ring out of the shadows.
I was too tense to eat dinner, and I could almost feel Mason glaring at me for not eating enough.
He'd been the one to personally take on getting some extra meat on my bones. That simple lapse in judgment, thinking about my mates, almost undid all the work I’d put into locking them away for the time being.
Once this job was done, I could prove myself and return to my budding family to grovel at their feet for leaving them like I did.
There was no way they weren't freaking out or fighting over the situation, especially after finding out the whole thing was a false alarm.
Taking a deep breath, I looked out the foggy window of our shack and locked them away once more. I had a job to do and supers to save.