Chapter five
“You realize this is probably a trap, right?” Xander asked from where he was hiding on the floorboard in the back seat of Mike’s SUV. “Roman wants you dead as much as he wants this flash drive.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike said, checking the clock on the dash for the dozenth time as he drove, afraid he wasn’t going to make it to the museum in time. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I have to show up for the exchange anyway. I need to get my son back.”
“I get that. But you can’t be so focused on Kal that you forget how dangerous Roman can be, especially if we’re right about him being a supernatural. He’s depending on you being distracted.”
Mike ground his jaw. “You don’t have to remind me about what kind of man I’m dealing with. I’m going into this assuming he’s going to try to kill me. I’m not going to let that happen. I have a son to get to know.”
“We’re in agreement on that,” Xander said. “And while I probably shouldn’t be asking you this before confronting Roman, have you thought about what’s going to happen with you and Lark after we get Kal back?”
Mike didn’t say anything for a moment. Xander was right. This probably wasn’t something he should be talking about before facing off against Roman. But he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t been on his mind.
“Yeah, I’ve thought about it. But honestly, right now I’m trying to compartmentalize and focus all my attention on getting Kal back safely. I can’t waste a lot of bandwidth on anything else.”
So, why was he thinking about it?
“Is it bizarre that a part of me still wants to make a life with Lark?” he asked quietly, turning onto North Harwood, the street where the museum was located. “Why would I want to have anything to do with her after what she did? I should be furious with her.”
“No one would blame you if you are. I can’t help wondering why you aren’t, though.”
Mike frowned, not sure where his pack mate was going with this. And more importantly, not sure he wanted to know.
“I mean, by all rights, you should be mad as hell,” Xander continued. “Most people would be. Which means there must be a good reason you’re not.”
“Such as?” Mike prompted when Xander didn’t elaborate.
“Such as maybe you and Lark are soul mates,” Xander said carefully, as if he expected Mike to blow up at the mention of those two words.
Mike considered denying it, but when he opened his mouth to do just that, his inner wolf let out a howl that had him quickly changing his mind.
“I thought we were soul mates even before I was a werewolf, back when we first met,” he said softly.
“I mean, it would explain why I was never interested in having a relationship with anyone else after Lark died, or left, or whatever. Once she was gone, there was this big gaping hole in my chest that would never heal up. I thought I’d found my soul mate, and then lost her.
I didn’t think there would be a happily ever after for me like you and everyone else in the Pack. ”
“Except now there could be,” Xander pointed out. “Assuming you can look past everything that happened. Do you think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know,” Mike said honestly. “While you’re right about me not necessarily being furious at Lark, that doesn’t mean I’m not mad.
She stole a decade of my happiness away.
Hell, she probably wouldn’t even be here now if Kal hadn’t been kidnapped.
That’s hard to get past, even if she used to be my soul mate. ”
“Used to be?” Xander popped his head up from the back for a moment, doing a double-take. “What do you mean by that? If Lark was your soul mate then, she’s still your soul mate now.”
“Is she?” Mike countered, relieved to see he was closing in on the museum.
Another quick look in the rearview mirror confirmed Xander had gone back to hiding again.
“Gage is the one who told us that just because two people are soul mates doesn’t mean they’ll end up together.
Free will plays a part in the relationship.
If you believe a werewolf can form a bond with another person by the things they say and do, then it makes sense that you can break it by those same actions. ”
Xander didn’t have anything to say to that. Which was good, because Mike was done talking about it.
“I’m turning into the museum parking lot,” Mike said.
“Get Gage on the radio and make sure everyone is ready. I’ll have my earbud in the entire time, but will be limited in what I say.
I have to assume Roman will have eyes on me from the moment I get out of my SUV.
I’ll leave the keys in case I have to go somewhere on foot. ”
“Copy that,” Xander said as Mike pulled into an empty space and killed the engine. “Good luck.”
Mike locked his handgun in the glove box, then took a deep breath and stepped out of the SUV. He hated going into this situation without a weapon, but he knew Roman would never let him keep it.
As he walked toward the museum, Mike forced himself to focus on finding and rescuing his son. Right now, Lark and any possible future they might have together needed to take a backseat to that.
“Okay,” Gage said softly through his earbud as he walked into the museum courtyard. “I have most of the Pack taking positions in a perimeter between two and three blocks from the museum, while Lark’s pack mates will be closer, some of them on the museum property itself.”
Mike’s gut clenched, his inner wolf pawing to come out and protect the woman he considered his mate. He didn’t like the idea of Lark being so close to Roman and his crew, either. But before he could say anything, her voice came over the radio.
“I’m staying back on the edges of the perimeter with Gage,” she said, as if sensing Mike was on the verge of losing it. “There’s too much chance Roman knows what I look like.”
Mike felt himself relax. He hadn’t expected Gage to give Lark access to a radio, but he was glad his boss had. Hearing her voice was exactly what he needed right then.
Since he wasn’t sure where Roman would approach him, Mike wandered around the courtyard, putting on a show of looking at the metal art pieces and wall murals while also keeping an eye out for Roman and Kal.
Taking his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans, he scrolled through the photos Lark had sent him, pausing on a close-up of their son.
He realized then that Kal looked a lot like Mike when he was that age.
Mike was so lost in thought he almost dropped his phone when it rang. The number Roman had called him from earlier was displayed on the screen.
“Game time, people,” he said softly before thumbing the green button and putting the phone to his ear. “Taylor.”
“Lift your jacket and shirt up, then turn in a slow circle,” Roman ordered without preamble. “I want to see if you’re carrying a weapon or wearing a wire.”
Mike didn’t bother to argue the request. Ignoring the stares his behavior generated from the people walking around, he yanked up his leather jacket and T-shirt, turning in a slow circle while at the same time trying to figure out where Roman was watching him from.
Unfortunately, there were simply too many places the man could be hiding, from the upper floors of the museum to the trees across the street from the courtyard.
“We good here?” Mike asked into his phone after making two complete turns while holding the bottom of his jacket and T-shirt up all the way to the top of his chest.
“Now pull up the legs of your jeans,” Roman said, apparently satisfied with the whole upper body thing and already moving on. “I want to make sure you don’t have a gun in your boots.”
Mike cursed but did as Roman instructed. He had to admit, the a-hole was being thorough. Thankfully, he’d changed out of his uniform into civilian clothes, or this would have looked even more weird.
He’d just finished lifting one pant leg, and then the next, showing he had no backup weapon shoved into the top of his boot, when two teen girls came running over holding their own cell phones.
“Is this a new TikTok challenge?” one of them asked excitedly. “Can you show us how to do it?”
Mike realized then how absolutely ridiculous he must have looked, spinning in circles with his jacket and shirt up and then standing on one leg to show the top of his boots. The only thing more absurd was that these girls wanted to do the same thing so they could put it on the Internet.
“Head north along Harwood Street on foot,” Roman said. “I want you on the north side of Warren Park in five minutes.”
Mike didn’t have a chance to ask where Roman wanted him to go because the man had already hung up, leaving him with two teenagers who clearly expected an answer to their questions.
Ignoring them, Mike turned and left the museum courtyard at a jog. Because, really, what could he say?
“I’m on the move,” he said into his radio. “You tracking me?”
“We’ve got you,” Gage said.
“Copy that,” Mike said. “Tell everyone to stay out of sight. Roman definitely has eyes on me.”
“Any idea where he wants you to go?” Xander asked in his earbud. “There’s nothing anywhere along Harwood that’d be a good spot for a hostage exchange.”
“No idea,” Mike said, keeping his head down as he spoke in case Roman was watching.
He reached the southwest side of Klyde Warren Park just as his phone rang. Mike didn’t have to wonder who it might be.
“Take out the flash drive and hold it above your head, then turn around slowly,” Roman instructed.
Jaw tight, Mike reached into his front pocket and closed his fingers around the generic black flash drive he’d picked up from the supply room at the SWAT compound before leaving.
This was the part of the plan where everything could fall apart in the most catastrophic way.
He only vaguely remembered the various drives he’d been responsible for delivering all those years ago for Roman.
Some of them could have looked like the one he’d grabbed.
But if it didn’t, things could get ugly fast.
He held the thumb drive up and held his breath.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” Roman said. “A man on a motorcycle will pull up to the curb in exactly sixty seconds. You’ll hand him the drive and once I confirm the data on the drive, I’ll call you with a location to pick up your son.”
“You can’t let him have the flash drive!” Lark said desperately in Mike’s earbud. “Once he figures out there’s nothing on there, he’ll kill Kal.”
Mike didn’t need Lark to tell him that, but he understood all the same, practically feeling her panic over the radio.
“No deal,” Mike said firmly into his phone. “You get the thumb drive when I get my son. Not one second before. And if you continue to threaten to hurt or kill my son, I might get mad and crush this tiny piece of plastic in my hand.”
“If you do that, your son will be dead,” Roman said coldly.
Mike winced as he heard Lark whimper in despair. Regardless of his confused feelings about her right now, it still hurt to know she was so afraid.
“And you’ll be without the data on this drive you’re clearly desperate to get your hands on,” Mike growled.
The silence over the phone was heart-crushing, and over the radio, Mike heard Lark hyperventilating.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way,” Roman said. “Go north another block, then turn east on Woodall Rogers.”
Mike took off running before Roman even hung up.
The next twenty minutes turned into a frustrating wild goose chase as Roman made him run all over the place with no clear purpose, other than to check to see if he was being followed. Which, of course, he was, but his people were good enough to keep their distance.
Since he had no idea where Roman’s little game was going to end, all Mike could do was keep running. His heart sped up every time his phone rang, like some kind of weird Pavlov’s dog experiment, and when Roman finally told him to stop, he’d gone almost five miles.
“Stay right where you are,” Roman ordered.
Mike slowed to a halt, taking in the paved walkways, park benches, open green spaces, and small clusters of trees along the perimeter of the area as cars zipped by along Interstate 345 off to the east.
“Head toward the monument on the southwest side of the park,” Roman said, his tone making it clear it wasn’t a request. “And don’t think of doing anything stupid like hiding the flash drive somewhere along the way. I’ll have eyes on you the whole time.”
With that, he hung up.
“I’m on the northwest side of Griggs Park,” Mike said softly into the radio. “Everyone get ready. I think Roman is going to make his move.”
“Copy that,” Gage said.
As Mike strode along the walkway, he picked up the same sharp, chemical odor on the breeze he’d smelled in the warehouse.
Roman.
But a few steps later, he picked up another scent.
This one was new to him, but, at the same time, completely familiar.
It took him forever to remember where he’d smelled it before, until he finally remembered carrying an infant Kal back and forth across the living room of their small home late one night when his son couldn’t sleep.
Kal had been resting on his shoulder as Mike gently rubbed his back, trying to soothe him.
“Kal is definitely here. I can smell him,” he said. “Everyone be ready to move on my word. The number one priority is keeping my son safe.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Lark asked, her voice full of hope. “It’s been a long time since you smelled him, and you weren’t a werewolf back then.”
“It’s him,” Mike said firmly. “I’m sure of it.”
“Everyone start converging on the park,” Gage ordered. “Remember, Roman might be some kind of supernatural, so we don’t know what we’re going up against. Be careful.”
“Keep our son safe,” Lark told Mike, even as his pack mates began to coordinate their approaches to the park. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Mike started to tell Lark to stay where she was, worried about her being in the middle of all of this, when Roman came into view, Kal at his side, and three big, mean-looking men flanking them. And all three of them had that same weird chemical odor Roman did.
Crap, they were supernaturals, too