Chapter 41
Atlas
“I don’t care how fucking tired you are! Find her!”
The other end of the phone is silent for a moment, each ticking second a testament to my patience. I know how I sound right now. Crazed. Unhinged. Like a fucking dictator. None of it matters, though.
Eve’s been missing for a week and we have no leads. None of us have slept, including my son who I hear screaming at Roman in the other room.
Seems like his patience has run thin.
Roman’s been busy kicking in warehouse doors and threatening anyone who’s ever even seen Wade with a knife to the throat. I’ve never seen my cousin lose the light in his eyes until the day Eve went missing. Even being exposed to the horrors of growing up with my father never snuffed it out.
Kortez has been locked in his room at Wylder’s, searching through footage from every traffic cam, ATM machine, and doorbells from here to the state line.
Wylder is searching through Eve’s things, trying to pinpoint anywhere Wade has ever mentioned or they’ve ever met.
And me…I’m waiting on my men to do what I pay them to. I have my personal team working to track down Vivianne. She disappeared right along with her brother, but she’s not used to being invisible and that means she’s going to slip up.
“Jax.” The line stays void of any voices, but I hear a keyboard tapping in the background. “Jax, I know you fucking hear me!”
“Jesus, fuck, Atlas. Give a man a fucking minute will you.” The tapping continues and I have to huff out a laugh.
“You better be glad you’re family or I’d have to put a bullet in you for that.”
Jax married Roman’s sister, Naomi, seven years ago after they met at one of my father’s parties.
He’s the son of one of my father’s capo’s, Raul, and despite his father’s connection with my own, Jax belongs solely to me.
He got boots on the ground mere hours after I called him with the order to find Eve, knocking out any property connected to Wade or Vivianne with a list courtesy of Kortez.
“If you’re quiet for five minutes you may actually thank me.”
I allow him his time, knowing any information he’s working on has to be important enough for him to call. Of course, he had to begin the conversation telling me how tired he is and test my resolve before giving me any news.
“Why did you call me before you had anything concrete?”
“Because I know I have something and I didn’t want to waste time. Now shut it.”
The screaming in the other room stops moments before the spare room door flies open to show Abel standing there with angry tears in his eyes.
“I hate him, Atlas! Why won’t he tell me where mom is? Why won’t any of you?” His screaming is directed at me now, as it usually has been the last week.
I set my phone down, placing Jax on speaker and muting my side so he won’t hear me speaking to Abel. I don’t mind my men hearing the softer side of me because I believe it’s important that they see me as a human and not a monster, but this moment is just for me and my son.
“Abel, -“
He gives me a sharp shake of his head. “No! I’m not a baby anymore, Atlas. I deserve to know.”
He’s right, he’s not a baby. He’s nine. The age I was when I killed a man for the first time. I don’t want that for him, though. If he wants in this life when he gets older then that’s a conversation we’ll have with Eve but for right now, I need to preserve whatever innocence I can.
I open my mouth to speak but he must sense the lies in my eyes, my boy is more perceptive than I wish he was.
“No more lies. Please.” His voice breaks and my heart cracks right along with it. He approaches me, walking around the desk with his Pokémon slippers dragging across the floor until he stops directly in front of me. “Dad, please.”
I don’t know what does me in more. It could be the anguish in his voice, or it could be the fact that he called me dad for the first time. Either way, it makes me open my mouth again, this time to tell him the truth.
“Your mom is – “
“Atlas, does Jacksonville mean anything to you?”
Jax’s words cause me to grab my phone, Abel looking at the tiny device like it could answer all his prayers. I quickly unmute myself, “What’s in Jacksonville, Rosco?”
He mumbles, the soft sound followed by a grunt. “It could be nothing but…”
“But what!” He’s testing me again. I know whatever comes out of his mouth next could change everything.
“One of Aldo’s old warehouses came back online. From the security cams, it looks like there’s been packages being delivered for the last two months.”
The keyboard starts clacking again on the other end, so I turn to Abel, his eyes wide as he listens in on my conversation. He couldn’t know what this means but he can tell it’s something to be excited about. “Go get the others, please. Tell them I said now.”
His eyes turn hopeless as he nods, “Is it mom? Is she in Jacksonville?”
I give him a small smile, reaching over to ruffle his dark hair. “I don’t know yet, Bel, but I promise we’ll figure it out.”
He returns my smile before running out the door. I hear his footsteps on the stairs as he leaves to search for the others.
Jax’s voice almost startles me as it comes through the speakers.
“Most of the packages seem to be décor, like if someone was trying to build a really ugly bedroom. They’ve all been addressed to a Vivianne.
We never paid much attention to it before because we were only watching for Wade’s name.
” He snorts and I can practically see him shaking his head.
“The packages stopped about a week ago. I’ve got the name of the delivery company, someone off the books by the look of it. I’ll send it over.”
Jacksonville. What the hell was Wade doing in one of my father’s warehouses? Did we have it wrong? Has Wade and my father been working together this entire time?
My phone beeps with an unfamiliar address plus a name and phone number. “Got it. Call me if you find anything else.”
The phone beeps at the same time Roman rushes through the door with Kortez and Wyld hot on his heels. I see Abel’s head peaking between them, anxious to hear what I have to tell his…what is he going to call them?
This is not the time.
They all file into the room, Roman and Wyld sit on the bed on the opposite wall while Kortez props his shoulder up against the doorframe. Abel comes to stand beside me, his small hand searching for mine and squeezing when he finds it.
“What did you find?” It’s Wylder that speaks, his voice calm and collected despite the chaos raging around us.
Kortez holds his knife in his hand, flipping the blade around and catching the handle on every spin.
Roman looks like he’s about to combust, his body shaking as he rocks back and forth on the mattress.
They’re all looking to me for answers. Luckily, this time, I have some.
“Jax found something, an old warehouse in Jacksonville my father had shut down. He also gave me the name of a driver who had made some deliveries there. Kortez, see what you can find.” I toss him my phone, watching as he catches it with his free hand and reads the text that came through.
White covers his knuckles as he clenches the device. “This is where she is?”
“I think so. It’s an old spot of Aldo’s but…I think this is it.”
Abel squeezes my hand again and I do it in return, but my eyes are cataloguing the way Kortez is reacting to the message.
The knife begins to slip from his hand and he catches it with a grip around the blade, blood immediately pooling between his fingers before it drips to the ground.
Abel gasps next to me and manages to break me out of my trance.
“Kortez!”
His eyes shoot to mine, then over to Abel and back to me. “She’s there. I don’t need to look into the driver.”
I narrow my gaze, suddenly feeling like the man who’s had my back for the last ten years is not the man I thought he was. “How do you know that, Kortez?”
He tosses the phone back to me as more of his blood drips down staining Eve’s beige carpet. “I’ll tell you on the road.”
When he walks out the door, I’m not the only one left speechless.