by Anya Nowlan
“Found it. About halfway down, you should take a left and a right,” he said into the comms, mentally picturing the possible map of the cellar floor of the four-story building they were in.
They didn’t have any maps, just guesses. The Arctics, like The Firm, had safehouses all over the place. Most of these were nothing more than fancy storage buildings, there for teams to rest up or gear up, and this one was much the same. The only thing that set this one apart was that Squad Six knew where this one was, and even better, they had a good guess as to what could be hidden within its walls.
Information. The most valuable possession they could think of right now.
This better fucking be it. We’re running out of time.
It was another thirty seconds before Tex showed up, looking deathly calm as he often did during missions, all the loud-mouthed joking and squabbling he was usually known for brushed away.
“You think this is it?” he asked, though he was already rummaging through the pouch on his belt, pulling out a small amount of explosive putty and a trigger.
“Has to be, we don’t have enough time to go look for anything else,” Grim said, knowing how damn gloomy that sounded.
He stepped aside, keeping an eye on both directions as Tex worked his magic at the door. The moment he blew it, Grim was sure the place would be teeming with guards. They maybe had a minute or two to get what they needed and get out.
“On three… three, two, one,” Tex counted, both of the men averting their eyes and covering their ears as the small explosion went off, making the door rattle for a moment before it collapsed off its hinges, falling inward.
Tex was in first and Grim followed, pulling out a small, portable computer as he approached the server racks. He’d been right in his assumption. The location he’d found looked like the closest to the air conditioning vents, easiest to keep cool, which was needed for servers that size. The whole room was riddled with them. There was a whole lot of juicy secrets hidden away on those drives that would make it a lot easier to fight The Arctics in general.
But tonight, they only needed to know where the fuckers were.
Grim connected with the servers through a cable, attaching the other end to his computer as Tex stood guard. It was easy enough to bypass security as The Arctics obviously weren’t expecting anyone to backdoor them in quite that way. Grim bit the inside of his cheek, seeing the countless folders and stores of data he would love to get his hands on. Time was of the essence and he couldn’t get lost in all that was available, and instead had to keep his eye on the prize.
His stomach was in knots, thoughts of Dylan and Dante suffering so clear in his head that it made him want to gag. But his hands worked firmly, tapping through folders after he found what he was looking for. Research and Development, prime sites in the Americas. Locations where he could hope to find more of PX-45 before it was too late.
He copied the file quickly onto his computer and then backtracked, hiding his activity in the logs as best as he could, wiping what evidence he’d left.
There was no doubt in his mind that The Arctics’ computer monkeys would find out what he did quickly enough. His only hope was that they could be faster.
“Got it,” he said, standing up at the very moment that heavy footsteps rained down the hallway.
“About fucking time,” Tex growled, spinning out of the room for a second and taking three precise shots, which was answered with a hail of rapid gunfire from his opponents.
Grim tucked the computer away, tiny as it was, and picked up his gun as well. He was at Tex’s side when the man ducked back into the room.
“Think I got two, and there’s two more,” Tex said, his eyes flashing gold.
“Good,” Grim said, picking a smoke grenade off his belt. “I feel like killing something today.”
He threw the grenade outside the door, and the corridor erupted in a haze as both of the Squad Six shifters pulled on their gas masks and stepped out. Grim was on top of the remaining soldiers before they knew what hit them, shooting one in the face and hitting the other a fraction of a second later in the gut with the butt of his gun, before dropping the rifle and grabbing the man by the neck.
The man was slammed against the wall once, twice, landing face-first every time, and on the third collision, Grim heard the satisfying pop of muscle and tendon coming loose from bone, the blond man’s head snapping back and lolling to the side uselessly. Grim scooped up his rifle and wordlessly the two ex-SEALs ran out of the building, sure to encounter and kill more Arctics on the way.
As they’d always intended to.
***
“The whole thing smells fucking rotten to me,” Thatch said, rolling his shoulders back as they rattled in the back of a nondescript van toward a small private airport.
There would be a plane waiting for them there, organized by a man Dutch had once known in the service—a small-town sheriff now called Diesel. The pilot was a tiger shifter called Slate, who had both the good sense to shut up about things as well as pilot a plane well enough. Having friends came in handy at times like these, when a man couldn’t particularly depend on the company he worked for.
“Yeah? A certain ‘eau de Arctics’ catching you wrong?” Tex asked with a chuckle.
It was always odd listening to Tex and Thatch discuss The Arctics. Being werewolves themselves, they seemed to take everything the group did almost personally. As if every single rotten thing one werewolf did reflected negatively on the whole bunch of them.
It was one of those rare moments where Grim got to be glad that there weren’t that many cougars out there. At least there was no one to judge him beside himself and his brother most of the time.
And Kelis now.
“No, well... yes, obviously, but that’s not what I mean,” Thatch said, scrunching his nose.
“So what do you mean?” Grim asked, rousing from his dark musings.
The computer was in his hands, though he’d already sent the files ahead to Grant to see if they could determine anything useful from them with Dutch and Connor. He had to hope so. Getting them had been a pain in the ass but even more so, he knew he was running out of options. They all were. Dylan and Dante were getting worse by the hour.
What if… no. I won’t let that happen, he thought resolutely, whisking the moroseness of his train of thought out of his head.
“I mean, think about it. The Arctics have been pounding their drums about creating super shifters and super wolves for ages now. Year after year, we keep catching them doing shit. The Jonah guy and his research, then the shit Madeline almost got killed over, and Haygrove, obviously… Detroit was the worst, I think, considering how many people it touched. But now, with the gasses? They could pump that shit into the air and every shifter baby that was born and their parents would be slaves to The Arctics’ cause, if they were dependent on it.”
“What’s your point?” Grim asked, feeling bile and anger rise in his throat.
Not at his friend and squad mate, but at the fact that he already knew they were up shit’s creek without a paddle. He didn’t need the extra reminder.
“My point is, you know who always knows about this shit? Spade. I think this should be making a whole lot of fucking more bells ring in The Firm than it is currently. This should be our number one concern, not weeding out some Middle Eastern idiots or getting rid of another batch of shitty heroin dealers. But for some reason, it’s not.
“I’m willing to bet you that most of the powder we scooped up at Haygrove went missing before we ever got there. The tech himself said there was more there than what we can account for. It’s like the motherfuckers tapped into whatever The Arctics are doing. I’m willing to bet that it won’t come as any surprise to him that your kids are hopped up on this shit.”
“You think Spade knows an antidote or something?” Tex asked, cocking a brow.
“Maybe not that much, but I’m sure he knew what was going to happen before those kids were ever born. And if The Firm
catches onto what we’re going to do, then you can bet that most of whatever we find will go ‘missing’ again,” Thatch said, his face stern.
Grim considered this for a moment, feeling the muscles in his neck twitch. Spade was an asshole and while there was never any love lost between the tall intelligence officer and Shifter Squad Six, there had been times when Grim had thought the man almost acted out of compassion. But with that guy, he couldn’t really tell.
But Spade had better hope that he wasn’t hiding anything from Squad Six this time. Grim wasn’t over killing a smug prick for lesser offenses, and if the lives of his children were at stake, he was willing to go to any lengths necessary.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kelis
It felt like Kelis hadn’t stopped crying in days.
Going from scarcely thinking about a family, to having two sons on her own, to finding their fathers again, only to come very close to losing her boys, had taken such a toll on her it was becoming nearly impossible to function. Ever since Grim had left for Canada—on a mission he wouldn’t talk much about, but that required half of Squad Six to go with him and for Grant to hug him like there was a chance he might never return—she’d been sitting by the beds of her sons.
She didn’t know whether she was supposed to be praying for her boys first, Grim, or all three of them at the same time. But when Grim returned, looking as somber as when he’d left, at least that little bit of relief had made her take a breath again.
Both Dylan and Dante were on life support now, with chemically-induced comas putting them into a deep, hopefully restful slumber and tubes breathing for them. It was horrific watching her sons like that, and being completely helpless all the while.
It felt like she was waiting for the end, just counting down the minutes. Spade hadn’t shown his face since the conversation she’d had with him when the Aldrochs burst in, and Doctor Reynolds was looking less and less encouraging every time she saw him. It all felt oddly cathartic after a while, like the feeling she imagined a person lost at sea must have had when the end seemed impossibly near.
If she lost the boys, she knew she’d lose herself too.
“Sugar, you need to eat something,” Grant said, his voice sounding distant as Kelis snapped her attention to him. Her hand was on Dylan’s stomach, which was bandaged to mop up the bleeding.
The babies were bleeding from their pores now. Instead of sweat, they had blood. She couldn’t believe the world could be so cruel to do that to a child.
“I, uh…” she stammered as he held out coffee and a sandwich.
Kelis took the offering, bringing the cup to her lips and not really tasting a thing as the liquid went down her throat. It might have been hot. A sharp pain at the back of her throat warned her as much, but it hardly seemed important.
She looked at Grant again and it was only then that it dawned on her that he was in full combat gear, dressed in black, the fabric straining around his arms. Two black stripes ran under his eyes, smudging his cheeks. She’d never seen him geared up, ready for battle. Any other time, she would have thought him sexy as hell for it.
“Where are you going?” she asked suddenly, standing up and sloshing the coffee over the rim and dropping the sandwich. “Are you going on a mission?”
He nodded slowly, in time for Grim to walk in through the door wearing much the same. Her heart constricted, seeing the easy gait with which Grim moved, like the step of a predator already willing to pounce.
“You can’t,” Kelis said, eyes going wide.
In the back of her mind, only one thought resonated: I can’t lose them too!
“We have to,” Grant said, putting his hands on her arms. “We have a shot at something. We need to go now or it… or it might be too late.”
“We just wanted to say goodbye. You know, in case something happened,” Grim said, coming to a stop as his eyes looked over the two frail bodies in the tiny baby beds, hooked up to every manner of machine.
“Where? When?” Kelis asked, flustered.
Her head felt like it was spinning, her throat dry and her eyes painful with the endless tears she’d cried.
“We’re going right now. We think there’s a lab down in Arizona that might be working on the gas and PX-45. If we get more of it, we can save them. Reynolds is sure of it. And I agree with his research. It’s the only way.”
Her heart seemed to stop beating in her chest for a moment as she looked from one man to another. Were they honestly going to go now, and they might not even make it back by the time… she bit down on her lip painfully, shaking her head. No.
“I’m coming with you.”
“What? Kelis, you can’t! Someone needs to stay here with Dylan and Dante!” Grim protested, his fingers very lightly tracing Dante’s leg, bandaged up like the rest of him.
“How are you going to get to New Mexico?” she asked tersely, her mind quickly working to figure out the details.
“We’re getting armored vehicles. Connor’s friend—” Grant started, but Kelis cut in.
“Fuck that. You’ll never make it back in time. I can get a Night Hawk helicopter. Give me twenty minutes. Find me gear,” she growled through gritted teeth.
Giving the men looks that would offer no argument, she kissed both Dylan and Dante on their foreheads before standing up ramrod straight, still gripping the damn coffee and sandwich. She ripped the sandwich package open as she stormed out of the room, and the first bite into it reminded her that she obviously hadn’t eaten in days.
She was going to need all the energy she could get if she was going to help save her boys.
***
As Kelis had promised, they were in the armored vehicles in twenty minutes, her suited up like Squad Six, heading for a small helicopter pad in a very obscure location in San Francisco. Right where the biggest mansions were built and the biggest startup billionaires lived, there was a tiny little spot nestled between expansive backyards and endless pools—a hangar with several decommissioned and rebuilt US Marine Corps helicopters.
She wasn’t sure that Squad Six really believed she’d pulled it off until they piled into the aircraft, with her hopping into the pilot’s seat, the engines already roaring and ready to go. Kelis let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding when Troy, a large, steely-eyed man with a slightly lopsided grin, gave her a pat on the shoulder from the co-pilot’s seat and opened the door.
“She’s a bit bigger than the SuperCobra, but I don’t think you could fit those guys in one of yours,” he said with a chuckle. “You gonna be okay or will I strap right on in here?”
“No, Troy. Thanks. You don’t know what this…” she ran out of words, something that seemed to be happening really often lately, the high whir of the blades drowning out her stutter.
“Don’t sweat it. Just bring her back in one piece and tell me the story later, okay?”
He gave her a knowing look, leaning back in and squeezing her shoulder before hopping out and slamming the door shut behind him. A moment later, he was giving her the go-ahead to get airborne and Kelis let muscle memory take over. This was the work she knew, the work that was built into her. If she could harness it to help her kids, there wasn’t anything that was going to stop her.
She knew damn well that she could help more here—at least trying to fight for Dylan and Dante—than if she were just sitting by their bedside, crying herself into a stupor.
“Everyone ready?” she asked, speaking into the headset.
“Lock and load!” came the Shifter Squad Six war cry and Kelis didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to know that every single man there was ready to fight and win for her kids.
It was a brotherhood, one that she had the good fortune of being tied to through the men who loved her and who she loved back with equal ferocity. She pulled up on the throttle and the heavy helicopter rose up from the pad and into the murky, muddled lights of nighttime San Francisco.
There could be no failure.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Grant
There was little doubt in Grant’s mind that the moment they got back to San Francisco, every single one of his squad mates would be without a job. Not only that, he was sure that they’d get thrown into the Crypts, The Firm’s version of solitary confinement, and probably left to rot there until Hemingway or Spade or whoever the asshole in charge for that day was felt the need to bring them out again.
They were going against everything they’d been told to do. And not a single one of them hesitated.
The Night Hawk had been set down a few miles from the compound, another dull-looking building that betrayed nothing about what was going on inside. Kelis, Connor, and Thatch were on the chopper, and Kelis would airdrop them on the roof when the rest of them had broken into the compound.
Dutch had set up a nest on a small hillside that covered two of the four watchtowers around the lonesome building, high barbed wire fences making a perimeter that wouldn’t be easy to pierce. It would be Grant’s, Tex’s, and Grim’s job to take out the remaining two towers and get in the building as fast as possible.
“Delta Two, in position,” Grant spoke into the comms, his voice a low whisper as Connor initiated the countdown.
One by one, every member of the team came through the static, down to Kelis, who was Delta Seven. Grant still couldn’t believe he’d allowed her to come on this mission, but she was right. As she always was, that infuriating, gorgeous, flawless woman. They would never make the drive back, considering the state the boys had been in. The squad had one shot at this and if they mucked it up, they’d be returning home to two very small body bags.
“Outer teams, go,” Connor’s voice barked, and Grant burst into action.
