Chapter 6
Chapter six
Raegan
“Rae! Thank fuck, you’re awake! Are you feeling okay?”
I’ve barely opened the door before I’m swallowed in Dane’s arms. “Yeah.” I hug him back, relieved that he’s here. I’m anxious to learn why, considering how unstoppable Charles had been. What happened after I’d passed out? We’re in the Loft, but is it safe here anymore?
“What do you want to eat? I’m sure you’re starving.” He laces his fingers with mine and walks me to the kitchen. Jack’s already sitting on the counter that separates the kitchen from the dining area, eagerly awaiting whatever food is prepared.
“Make whatever’s quickest,” Aiden answers as he leaves his room. “I need to know what happened and how we’re still living here. Where’s Kellan?”
Dane kisses my head before releasing me to rummage through the pantry and fridge. “French toast will be quick and easy.” He starts pulling out the ingredients and heating up the griddle. “And Kell will be here in a few. Cibrina’s been keeping us busy the last few days.”
I spot the fresh pot of coffee and pull down four mugs.
Jack’s the only psycho who doesn’t drink it.
Dane notices and brings me the creamer as Aiden joins us in the kitchen, leaning against the cabinets with his arms crossed.
“Seeing as Kell already knows what happened, do you mind filling the rest of us in?”
Jackson speaks up first. “Raegan fought Charles after he threw you out to sea.”
Aiden’s gaze swings to me, and I hand him a filled mug.
“I lost. Completely.” I take a sip of the hot coffee, hoping it’ll warm the sudden chill from the memory of that moment.
How I’d given it my all, and he’d still laughed in my face as if it was nothing.
All that training, all my confidence in my gift.
.. shredded by that triumphant laugh and the way he easily incapacitated me.
“It was a good test of your gift against his,” Jack muses.
“One I clearly failed,” I mutter, setting my mug down.
He pokes my forehead, and I frown, rubbing that spot. “No. It showed us more of what he’s capable of. How he fights.”
“And?” Aiden questions.
Jack shrugs nonchalantly. “Attacking him head-on with power may not be the way to win against him, but I still think her gift can do it.”
“How?” I demand, incredulous. “I’ve never been able to pierce through Kell’s gift.”
“Charles’s gift is an imitation. It’s imperfect. There’s a weakness to it if we can find it.”
“Jack. I threw everything I had at him. Everything. I can’t beat him.”
He smiles, tucking my hair behind one ear. “Don’t give up, little one. He wins the second you do.”
Fuck. He’s right. But I’m not sure what more I can do against him that I didn’t already try.
Aiden looks between me and Jack, probably reading my uncertainty. “We’ll consider that as a possibility, but we need other plans to try against him—”
The door to the Loft slams open. “Where is she?!” Kellan bellows, charging inside and immediately looking around.
The second he sees me, he storms over, lifting my thighs around his waist and crushing me in a kiss.
I throw my arms around him, a soft sigh falling from my lips now that we’re all together again.
“Get out of the kitchen, Kell!” Dane snaps. “Before you break something or bump one of us into the stove.”
He carries me with him to the living room, pressing me back against the wall. Kell grabs my hair and pulls my head to the side, baring my neck to him before he pinches the skin between his teeth. I release a startled shout at the sudden burst of pain before he’s sucking it away.
“Kell, what the—”
“You scared the fuck outta me, beautiful,” he growls into my neck.
“I didn’t want to believe anything that bastard said, but seeing him after you’d been fighting.
.. there was a split second when I thought it.
When I thought you’d died. And my heart almost gave out right then and there.
” His chest heaves as if he’d run up here, but the elevator’s the only way to the Loft.
“And then when I saw you lying unconscious in that puddle...”
I grab his face with both hands. “It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m okay.”
He yanks me into another bruising kiss that rattles my bones and has me seeing stars. “Kell,” I gasp for air before his lips are on mine again.
“Let her breathe, for fuck’s sake!” Dane yells. “She’s still recovering!”
Kellan smacks his hand against the wall over my head and finally withdraws, his shoulders shaking as he catches his breath.
He sets me down, and I lean into him as oxygen refills my lungs, and I wait for strength to return to my legs.
He wipes a hand over his face and then strokes a thumb along my cheekbone. “Sorry, beautiful. You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Explain,” Aiden demands from the kitchen, and Jack does, updating him on my near-death experience with Charles and how I’d almost drowned.
Like him. By the time he’s finished, I’ve returned to my coffee and taken a seat at the dining table with it.
Kell leans against the back of the living room couch, and Dane is plating the last of the French toast.
Aiden lifts his hand, opening and then fisting it. “I need more metal.”
Dane nods. “The usual source for your titanium is apparently dealing with some other issues right now that have wiped out their stockpile. I’ve been calling around to see who else has anything in stock to buy whatever we can get.”
“That has Charles written all over it.” Kellan crosses his arms. “But it’s old news. Now that he thinks you’re dead, we’ll have to get it from somewhere further away and he wouldn’t suspect.”
“Have the other attacks on the Guild stopped at least?” I ask, realization sinking in that we might actually have an advantage now. He thinks Aiden and I are both dead. We may as well be invisible to him, so long as we don’t do anything to draw his attention.
“Cibrina’s been keeping up the ruse that you’re both missing with a search party that, of course, turned up nothing,” Dane explains while taking a seat at the table.
“Detective Unger won’t be able to try taking Aiden down for Thorne’s murder with no Aiden, so we should be getting a break from him.
We’re waiting on the results of the tax audit, and the offshore account is still frozen. ”
Kellan points his fork at Dane after swallowing a mouthful. “The shit articles about the Guild were taken down, and there haven’t been any reported attacks on Guild members at jobs or while they’re out.”
Dane scoffs. “Yeah, well, the damage has already been done. Our job options are lower than they’ve ever been.”
“Let the PR company deal with that now,” Aiden reasons. “What else? Charles threatened to take the Guild after my death, so I’m surprised we’re all sitting here right now.”
“Oh, he came here right after his fight with Rae. He was looking for me and trying to convince the members to flip their loyalty to GE.”
Aiden thumbs the rim of his mug. “I imagine that didn’t go to his liking.”
Kellan snorts, but Dane continues, “Nope. I think he’d hoped his charm would win them over without the hassle of brainwashing, but he doesn’t understand what the fuck loyalty means.
He’s still holding out for the Guild to turn to him, though.
Once the month ends, he expects us to be out of money and desperate for a leader.
And if we still refuse his offer, he said he’ll officially declare us enemies.
I’m not sure if he’ll bother with brainwashing this time around.
I think he meant it as a threat to take us out for good. ”
My stomach turns at the thought, and I swallow the food down before it can stick in my throat. “So, how much time does that give us?”
“Three weeks,” Jack answers from the kitchen counter, one foot up and the other dangling.
“How many board members do we have left to find?” Aiden asks Dane, referring to Gifted Enterprise’s leaders after Charles.
“Two. But they’re just elects.”
Aiden frowns. “I still want them. If they know enough to almost be on the board, then they know too much. We’ll see if Reid can help us track down the last two so we can move on to them.
We’ll split our fighters into teams to take out all ten board members and elects at once.
” He curls his long fingers into a fist on the table.
“We’ll have to attack Charles immediately after.
Regroup in one place and then go after him before he realizes what’s happened. ”
“That the Guild isn’t choosing him,” Dane fills in, and Aiden dips his chin.
“Everyone in the Guild will be in more danger until we kill Charles.”
Kellan chuckles darkly. “No pressure there.”
Aiden continues, “Once he’s dead, there won’t be anyone to step in and take his place with the board gone. The company will fall apart without its leadership, and we can finally get rid of every last trace of Gifted Enterprise.”
“As good as that all sounds, we still have to figure out how to kill Charles. Without losing anyone,” I argue.
Aiden looks at all of us. “We have less than three weeks to come up with a plan—with multiple plans. We’re not depending on only one with him. We’ll have so many that we’ll guarantee our win.”