Chapter Thirty-Two
C row kicked open doors, searching beneath beds and in closets.
Fuck!
Nothing.
Still no sign of Rebel.
He yanked at his hair and headed back to check a closet one more fucking time. Maybe they’d missed something? The place smelled like a cleaner, that Pine-Sol stuff and some kind of scented plug-in his mom used to use when he was little. He hadn’t minded the smell because his mom kept the house nice and clean.
Crow grimaced, this was no time for a trip down memory lane. Moving the clothes aside, he searched beneath.
“Rebel?” he called out just in case the man was hiding in there somewhere.
But still nothing, plus there were no signs Rebel had been in this room.
They had almost cleared the whole house and Crow felt nothing but dread.
“Got him,” Rogue spoke through the comms.
Relief wash over Crow, making him lightheaded, and he hauled ass out of the room and back down the hallway.
He spotted the big assassin standing in the doorway of a bedroom.
Was Rebel alive or dead?
With his heart in his throat, Crow moved past Rogue and entered the bedroom.
Standing against the far wall with a gun pointed at them stood Rebel. In one hand, the gun, in the other, a chain that was also cuffed to his ankle. The clothes Rebel wore hung on his slender frame.
When Rebel caught sight of him, the boy seemed confused at first. Then the tears came hot and fast.
Crow closed the distance between them, and the fucking world righted itself when he pulled Rebel into his arms.
He thanked all that was good and holy that might have been instrumental in keeping Rebel safe.
“I thought you were dead,” Rebel choked the words out, his voice thick with tears. The gun and chain toppled to the ground when Rebel tightly gripped his shirt.
“I’m here.”
It was the only thing Crow could whisper around the tight knot of relief.
Rogue watched as the tall blond held the young dark-haired man as if he were the most precious thing on earth.
He’d overheard Crow tell Rip he wanted Rebel to live a better life.
Watching them now? Rogue couldn’t imagine a better life than that.
“Happy ending?” Wrath said and Rogue turned and gave his lover a wink.
“Kind of.”
“Is Lincoln dead?” Wrath leaned to glance past him and into the room, searching for a dead body.
“No, he’s not here.”
“Well, fuck.”
Crow eased Rebel away and looked him over, running his hands over the younger man’s shoulders, arms, and hips.
“Did he hurt you, did he touch you? Did he…” Crow couldn’t voice the word rape.
He couldn’t because he didn’t know what he’d do if the answer was yes.
“No, he didn’t.” Rebel moved into his arms.
“He didn’t what?” Crow asked.
Rebel needed to spell it out for him.
Crow had to hear the words.
“He didn’t touch me or rape me.”
Crow lost his breath and squeezed until Rebel made a slight grunt.
“Sorry,” he said gruffly.
Rip kept his gun steady on Lincoln. Rogue’s confirmation that they’d found Rebel had come in over his comms a few minutes ago and just seconds before Lincoln had snatched Boston.
Azrael only had maybe two minutes to get Rebel out there in exchange for Boston.
“You can’t just take people,” Rip told the guy, wondering if he took a shot if the bullet from Lincoln’s gun would fire into Boston.
Without a doubt, it would. The barrel was pressed to Boston’s temple.
“Hey, we found…” Wrath’s voice trailed off.
“Stay the fuck back and bring me Rebel,” Lincoln said and Boston gasped as his head was yanked back and the gun pressed harder against his skin.
“Okay, just calm down. Azrael will bring him,” Rip said.
It was uncanny how it happened.
The next moments were something that Rip would remember for the rest of his life. And he was damned sure he would tell the story for years to come.
He didn’t know how Azrael had done it, but the tiny assassin came up from the ground behind Lincoln.
With a knife in each hand, Azrael plunged one into Lincoln’s back and the other simultaneously up through the wrist holding the gun.
There was no way for Lincoln to pull the trigger after that.
Jimmy howled and Boston was free.
Rip rushed forward and yanked Boston up in his grip and shoved him behind him. He was ready to fire, but Azrael was dancing around Lincoln with those fucking knives.
Azrael’s hair flew around his head as blade after blade sliced and diced at Jimmy Lincoln.
When the man fell to his knees, gazing at him with shocked wide eyes, Azrael moved up behind him and caught the man’s hair in one fist. He pulled Lincoln’s head back and sliced with the knife, opening the man’s throat.
Lincoln fell forward, dead before he hit the ground.
Azrael wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving behind a stain of blood.
“Az!” Boston rushed around him and tore over to the young assassin, clutching him tightly.
Azrael patted Boston’s back, holding Rip’s gaze across the distance.
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t Rip who spoke, but Rebel who stood in the doorway along with Crow and Rogue.
Winter came from the same direction as Azrael and Rip suspected that the man had given Azrael one of the knives.
The only one who could have come up behind the man in this situation was Azrael, because as stealthy as Winter was, the man was too fucking big to sneak up on someone in broad daylight.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re safe,” Azrael said, wiping both blades on his pants as if it were just another day at the office.
Rip had heard the stories of Azrael and of how the guy had killed his tormentor with a corkscrew and he wondered what the hell Real had been thinking by letting this one get away.
If anything, Azrael should be at the ranch improving on skills that were already excellent.
Rip made a mental note to talk to Azrael on the drive back to Dave’s place.
“Lincoln is dead,” Rip pressed his earpiece.
“Let’s move,” Stone’s voice came through the comms. “I’ll call the cleaners.”
Rip tucked Boston into the SUV and stepped back for Azrael to climb inside.
Only Azrael wasn’t with them. Rip shot a glance around the area, but the young assassin was gone.
As if he’d never been there.
Within eight hours after James Lincoln’s death, Dave deployed Phoenix to Russia. He hoped that they could eliminate a big portion of drug and human trafficking here in the US. And even if it were temporary, it would still be a very big win.
Phoenix hit the ground running with one objective.
To take out the head of the snake.
And that was exactly what Ghost, Frost, Fear, Lash, and Wild did when they gained entry to the home of criminal crime boss Slavic Balagula.
The hit was done quickly and quietly.
And when Phoenix made their exit, it was as if nobody had ever been there.
The next day’s news claimed that Balagula had died in his sleep.
Real went ballistic when Dave video called him and told him that Azrael had been involved in what went down at James Lincoln’s house.
He should have known the kid couldn’t stay the hell away from the op.
“What the hell happened?” Real asked Dave.
Dave sighed and shook his head. “You know he has a bad habit of reading in here.” Dave waved a hand around the study he was sitting in.
“Damn it. I thought Savage was keeping him busy with training and light jobs.”
Dave gave him a look. “Are you kidding? Azrael hasn’t ever done light jobs.”
Real felt like he’d gotten punched in the gut. “He lied to me.”
“It appears so.”
“Where is he? He’s not picking up his phone.”
Dave took a deep breath and the former SecDef’s next words shot a cold fear into him.
“He packed and moved out.”
“Where?”
“He didn’t leave an address.”
“Well, are you going to get him back?” Real demanded, rubbing at his chest.
“He’s nineteen and he is still working for Erebus, so there’s really no reason he can’t live on his own,” Dave said.
What? Real wanted to reach through the video and wring Dave’s neck. How could he be so casual about this?
How the fuck would he know if Azrael was okay? What if something went wrong on the job? What if he started…seeing someone?
Shit.
Fuck!
“I’ll talk to you later,” Real snapped and jammed his finger at the computer button that would end the video chat.
Dave smiled and turned to Stone, who had been sitting off-camera.
“What do you think he’s going to do?” Stone said.
“Who? Azrael or Real?”
“Real.”
“I think… I hope he gets his head out of his ass and realizes that Azrael is old enough to make his own decisions,” Dave said and took a sip of the iced tea in his glass.
“It would be nice if others got their head out of their ass too,” Stone said and stood.
“What—” Dave blinked and scowled. Had that been directed at him?
Stone stretched and the tight t-shirt the man wore rode up revealing ripped abs. “Go do…” Dave waved a hand at Stone. “Whatever.”
Stone’s deep chuckle followed him out of the room.
Real sat at the desk for several long moments, squeezed his fists, and then stood. He stalked out of his office and into the communications room.
“Sir,” Jeffrey Chambers, the Genesis techie and administrative assistant, stood.
“Get me a flight to California.”
“Um…can’t you just take the helicopter?” Jeffrey asked, confused.
“No, I want to go under the radar. Maybe I will take a break while I’m there.”
Come to think of it , Real thought, he hadn’t had a vacation in a long time . So that was exactly what he would do after he handled some recruiting business.
For months now, Real had had his eye on an assassin known only as Edge, who worked primarily out of California.
His trip to California had nothing to do with a certain young assassin.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.