Chapter 39 #2
Then again, the body count was getting higher. Maybe there was a lack of control there. One we just weren’t allowed to see.
Beckett finally stood and walked away from the couch, his hands flexing at his sides. “It’s not you, the heir,” he said after a few moments. “You said daughter.”
“He had another child, I assumed you knew,” Azrael answered, standing.
My heart skipped and my eyes swung his way, my brows lifting. “Another?” What the fuck?
“Keep up,” Azrael hummed, completely uncaring of my reaction.
I pressed my lips into a thin line. How the hell would I have ever guessed that he was Malachi’s kid too? Clearly nobody else knew. Did they?
No, it would have been mentioned, and I can understand why he wouldn’t want anyone to know, but how was I supposed to take that? I was going to have to tell Everett, he had to know that.
Ev was not going to handle it well.
“How many contingency plans do you have?” Beckett finally asked.
“Three,” he answered. “One in which we free her, one in which she dies, and one in which we both die. In the case that we both die, everything I own, everything that has anything to do with me, will be completely destroyed.”
So dramatic but also concerning. This would imply that he had sat down and considered a world without her.
I wondered if that had happened on the day he killed all 22 of the Blackheart’s prisoners, leading to an argument between he and Havoc in the basement.
“What about one in which you are both captured?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Or one in which she is out and you’re captured? ”
“You should know better than anyone, rose, that I can’t plan for someone else. In those events, it will be up to you or her to figure out next steps. You know the basis of the plan, go from there.”
If they were both captured, we would have to rethink the way we were all split up in order to finish the mission. If it were up to me, Rae and I would go to the church here, secure those Azrael and Scarlett wanted to kill, and handle everyone else.
What about the other option? Who would control the narrative then? I know Scarlett would want to, but I had no idea how far gone her mind would be—
“You’ll remain with Scarlett if something happens to me,” Azrael told me, pulling something out of his pocket as he turned for the desk. “I don’t care what your Claim wants, or how overprotective he is over your precious little secret, you’ll be safest with Scarlett and vice versa.”
I watched him carefully as I made my way over to the desk.
Was it that he trusted Scarlett over Everett, or did he trust his training more than Malachi’s?
Everett would keep me safe, I know he would, but I could keep myself safe too.
I wasn’t a stranger to protecting a child, and they all knew that—
It wasn’t me he was considering but her, I realized. He was trusting me to take care of her.
Azrael spread out a map of the U.S. on the table as we joined him.
It held red X’s where the churches were located, and our names under the ones he wanted us to go to.
We still hadn’t gotten any emails from Havoc, but I assumed it was due mainly to Scarlett getting taken.
We had to keep pushing back our plans, keep searching, keep adapting.
It looked like Everett and I had been assigned to a church in Oklahoma.
I studied the map. “There’s a church in New Rochelle?”
“None of you are very perceptible,” Azrael said, earning a frown.
Beckett and I locked eyes. New Rochelle was not far from New York. It was a little shocking that Grey never caught wind of any underground trafficking or at the very least an advertisement that seemed a bit off. I knew he was busy, but that busy?
“They’ve each been paired off,” Azrael explained.
“Grey and Emily,” he went on, pointing to each church, “Jack and Rae, Olivia and Everett, Evelyn and Zo, Raine and his kids, the Blackheart brothers, and then the three of us.” He pointed to the church in Seattle.
“Scarlett, Poppy, and I. The issue is glaring.”
My eyes shifted to the middle of Washington where a circle had been placed over the Training Building.
“Malachi,” Beckett stated.
“And the Elders,” Azrael added. “We still don’t know who they are. They could be trusted members of his faithful followers or simply men he hired for the church.”
“How do you hope to find them?”
Azrael straightened and pulled out his watch. He clicked it open, watching the secondhand tick tick tick before snapping it shut. “Scarlett.”
Beckett frowned. “The longer we wait, the worse things will get, you understand that.”
“We’ve searched the woods. We’ve searched the cities. We haven’t been able to find where they’ve put Absolution.”
“Who have you interrogated?”
“They killed the transporter already,” Azrael revealed, causing me to straighten.
“What?” I asked. “You never told us that.”
He barely spared me a glance. “Not long after they started shutting down the branches, they also killed their other transporters, we looked. Had any members continued to come here, I would have grabbed one to interrogate myself, but they stopped coming.”
Beckett found my eyes again, sadness in his own, and I understood why.
They didn’t need strip clubs and darkrooms anymore. They got what they wanted, which was good and bad. It meant that Thomas and his little friends knew exactly where Scarlett was, but getting to them was the problem. “Who are they using to take people to Absolution then?” I asked.
“They aren’t,” he answered bitterly. “Once they got her, all transportation to it stopped.”
Which was good and bad.
“Are they sleeping at the church?” Beckett asked, his eyes hardening. “Why not take them in their beds?”
Because if anyone saw, even a neighbor or some kid riding their bike down the street, it would get back to the church. Once that happened, Malachi would know about it and do God knows what to Scarlett.
Beckett looked from Azrael to me and back, his brows lifting.
“Azrael, no matter what happens, they’re going to make it hard on her because of you.
You knew that when you fucking Claimed her.
You knew the risks you were taking. She’s in danger now.
No matter what choice you make, she’s dealing with those consequences, and you know better than anyone that standing around is a choice. So fucking do something.”
Against my own reasoning, I found myself taking a slow step back. Never had I heard anyone talk to Azrael like that. I mean, I had heard the others yell at him, lecture him on being who he was, but nothing like this. It sounded like a father scolding his child.
Azrael watched him coldly for a long time before turning to me. “What do you think?”
I searched his eyes. It was a test. Perhaps wondering if things were changing now that I was pregnant. They weren’t. If anything, I was more protective than I was before. More intent on taking the ‘tar’ out of this world, as Scarlett had put it.
I lifted my chin and glanced at the map on the desk behind him.
After studying the red marks, I steeled my spine.
“You need to interrogate someone, the best person for that chair is Thomas. He took over his father’s job, didn’t he?
Which means he knows all the secrets, the names, how everything works.
He still runs the museum, so why don’t we pay the museum a visit? ”
One corner of his lips flicked up for less than half a second before he pulled out his phone and held it out to me.
I took it without hesitation, finding a video playing on it. It took me less than half a second to realize what I was staring at.
Not a video, a camera feed, and there were two people chained down in chairs sitting in the center of the room. One was a male, the other I knew far too well.
My heart slammed in my chest as my eyes found Azrael’s. “What the fuck,” I breathed out. “What the fuck!”
Beckett was instantly at my side, but Azrael remained where he was, not an ounce of feeling in his cold, hard eyes. “I am never not doing something,” he said simply. “It is the ignorance of all of you that assumes so.”
“Azrael, this isn’t just ‘doing something’.” My eyes widened. “Where the fuck is Evie?” I lunged forward, slamming the phone into his chest. “Where is Evelyn?”
He watched me for a long time, not bothering with reaching for his phone. “Vanessa, you’re coming with us.” With that, he turned, grabbed the map, and headed for the door.
I spun on Beckett, my entire body vibrating with betrayal and anger. “Tell me you got it wrong.”
He looked back at me. “Why? To spare Jack and Rae’s feelings? You know as well as I do, rose, feelings are expendable in this line of work. There was always a chance it would have been one of the three he latched onto us. It was idiotic of you all not to come to some sort of conclusion.”
“Hope is not an expendable fucking emotion,” I snarled as Beckett and Vanessa walked by me.
“It is, and I’m disappointed in you for not realizing that sooner.”
Fuck!
It wasn’t like I had any delusion of what was possible in this world. I had a pretty fucking good idea of what went on in the darkest depths, but goddammit, I was so sick and tired of the goddamn betrayals!
Azrael opened the door only to stop. There was a woman standing just outside, her trembling hand lifted, ready to knock.
I immediately stepped forward as Azrael stepped back, letting Vanessa see who it was.
The woman cleared her throat, meeting each pair of eyes before finding Vanessa’s again. “He’s back,” she whispered. “He’s looking for her.”
Vanessa, who had stepped up to the door, was quiet for a moment, contemplating. “Is she working tonight?”
“At Royal Knights,” she answered.
“Is Taliss there tonight?”
“Hmm-mm,” she responded.
“Okay,” Vanessa replied gently. “Get back to work, baby, I’ll let him know.” She waited until the girl disappeared before pulling out her phone. “I need to make a call, I’ll meet you in the back lot,” she told us.