“Oh, my God.”
Isaac lifted his gun, pointing it directly at Hollan. “Don’t move a muscle.”
Hollan laughed. “You don’t think you’re in the position to give orders, do you?”
But Isaac didn’t lower his gun, and kept it pointed right at Hollan.
“Where are they?” I demanded. “What have you done to them? I swear to God, if you’ve hurt them ...”
“The boys are fine. Scared, as you can see, but otherwise physically unharmed. They won’t be for long, though. That space they’re in is going to start to fill with water within a matter of hours. It’s cold water, too, ice cold. They’ll feel it through every inch of their bones. But not for long, because if I’m not there to free them, they’re going to drown.”
“You fucking bastard.” Glancing back to the video footage of the boys on the screen, my heart twisted with pain. One of the boys appeared to be significantly younger than the other two, and I knew that must be Tad. They looked terrified. Why would Hollan do such a thing? Were they being kept somewhere near? It was impossible to tell from the footage.
“So, you see,” he lifted the hand not holding the gun in a ‘what can you do’ gesture, “you really don’t have any choice but to let me walk right out of here. And don’t think you can find the boys and free them yourselves. Like I said, they’re on borrowed time, and besides, I have a backup. No one will be able to free them, even if they happen to come across them.” He looked directly at me. “I thought what I did was rather poetic. It’s almost a shame I won’t get to show it off, because after all, you have a good mind for dates, don’t you, Darcy?
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve set up.” Isaac’s lips had thinned, and he was shaking his head. “I’m not going to let you walk. Not again. You’ve walked away from this one too many times, and you keep turning up like a bad case of shingles.”
I looked to the others, panicked. Was Isaac going to shoot him anyway? If he did, we’d never find the boys. They needed to step in.
“Clay, Alex, do something,” I begged.
They both gave me helpless looks. I didn’t bother to beg Lorcan—I recognized the cold fury on his face, and knew he’d probably back up Isaac’s desire to shoot him anyway.
“Isaac, please, look at the children. Those boys, they’re the same as the ones you know here. Don’t let them die for this son of a bitch. We’ll catch up with him again, just like we’ve always done.”
Isaac ignored me. “Why are you doing this?” he growled at Hollan. “What the hell are you hoping to achieve?”
Hollan gave a cold laugh. “The end of all of you, for a start. But you already are over, you just haven’t realized it yet. You were over the moment I got my hands on the memory stick and was able to spread its contents throughout most of the FBI, and police departments, and even the government. You’re not a secret anymore.”
“So you’ve won,” Isaac replied. “It’s over. That doesn’t mean we’re going to let you walk away. Numerous men, including Darcy’s father, are dead because of you. You have to pay for that.”
He shrugged. “You make me pay, and you’ll be making those four innocent boys pay, too. I was always going to have a backup plan to ensure I’d be able to walk out of here unharmed. That my backup plan also happens to cause you pain is just an added bonus.”
Isaac’s green eyes narrowed. “What did we ever do to you to make you hate us so much?”
He gave a cold laugh. “I think Devlin can answer that one, can’t you, Devlin?” He looked back to Isaac. “Maybe you need to talk to your boss a little more, rather than blaming everything on me.”
The atmosphere suddenly changed, ice prickling through the air, like hot water thrown into sub-zero temperatures.
“What are you talking about?” Isaac snarled.
Hollan glanced back up at the screen, but he was addressing Devlin again now. “You act as though you’re doing those kids a favor, but you’re raising them to be nothing more than machines to do your bidding.”
Devlin shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“Bullshit. This is all over for you and your kind. The moment I got hold of those coordinates, it was all over.”
“So let the boys go,” Devlin said. “We’ll have to disband now, anyway. What do you think you’re going to gain by doing this?”
“I’ll get to punish you. You and that bitch’s father turned against me all those years ago. We had a plan, and you destroyed it.”
A jolt of confusion hit me. “What?”
Now it was my turn to be the focus of Hollan’s attention. “How do you think your father got hold of the coordinates? I was the one who managed to get them uploaded to that memory stick, and then your father went and encrypted it.”
“How did you even get the coordinates to upload them?”
“Your friend here, Devlin, got an access code. He didn’t want to be pinpointed, so he gave it to me.”
A flash of panic swept across Devlin’s face.
Isaac took a step forward, and the direction of his gun wavered between Hollan and Devlin. “What’s he talking about, Devlin?”
Urgency joined the panic in Devlin’s expression. “I never thought it was a good idea that we didn’t know the locations of the bases. It seemed pointless to me. I argued it over and over, but no one would give in. I knew Hollan, and your father, too, Darcy. Hollan told me he’d be able to hack the server to get the coordinates, but when he did that and uploaded them onto the memory stick, your father wiped the data and encrypted the drive.”
“So you killed him!” I stared at Devlin, aghast.
“No! Never. I had nothing to do with that. That was all Hollan. I only wanted to know the locations of the other bases. Considering my position in the organization, I thought I had the right to know.”
I shook my head, unable to believe what I was hearing, but at the same time, knowing it was the truth.
Devlin continued, as though he hoped he could talk his way out of this situation and back into all our favors. “Hollan was the one who killed your father and took the stick. I had nothing to do with it. It was only after he told me what he’d done that I realized what kind of man I was dealing with.”
“But you played your part in my father’s death? If you hadn’t wanted those coordinates, he’d still be alive today.” I was shaking my head, barely conscious that I was doing so, my body not wanting to believe what my ears were hearing. I’d trusted this man, thought he was on our side, when all along he’d colluded with Hollan.
A hand on my arm, steadying me. Isaac. I looked to him, my eyes wide. “Did you know about this?” I whirled to the others. “Did all of you know about this?”
“No, Darcy. No. This is as much news to us as it is to you. We had no idea Devlin was behind the memory stick containing the coordinates getting into Hollan’s hands.”
I had to believe them. I had to. Not believing them was simply unthinkable.
Hollan laughed. “So now you know the truth. And time is ticking away. The longer you keep me here talking, the less time I’m going to have to release those boys before that spot starts filling with water.”
We all stared, aghast at the sudden revelations, unsure what to do. Even the guys seemed knocked off balance, discovering the man they’d looked up to most of their lives wasn’t that same person they’d believed in.
“So, you give me your word that I can walk out of here, unharmed?” Hollan pressed.
Isaac wouldn’t even look at him. Instead, he stared at the screen, watching the frightened faces of those boys. Then he nodded—an almost imperceptible motion. “I give you my word.”
A wide smile spread cross Hollan’s face, and fury swelled up inside of me. There was nothing I could do.
Hollan lowered his weapon. “Good.”
He turned his back to head toward the elevator.
In one swift movement, Isaac lifted his gun. Two shots rang
out, and I screamed, the sound piercing my ears. Hollan took one staggered step, reaching out as though he might be able to grab hold of something for purchase, and then fell flat to his stomach. Two bullet holes bloomed red in the back of his jacket. I clutched my hand to my mouth as Isaac left my side and crossed over to him.
“I lied,” he told Hollan as he lifted his gun once more and put a third hole in the back of Hollan’s head.
Chapter Eighteen
Time stood still.
We were all rooted in place, staring at Hollan’s body. There was no coming back from that. Hollan was as dead as it was possible to get.
I managed to tear my vision from Hollan, and glance to the screens covering the walls.
“Oh, my God.” I spoke between my fingers, my hand still clamped to my mouth.
Isaac had just killed the one person who knew the boys’ location.
“What have you done?”
His jaw was tensed. “What needed to be done. We couldn’t trust him to let the boys go free, anyway.”
“He might have told us where they were!”
Isaac’s eyebrows lifted. “You believe that? You knew him better than anyone.” He shot Devlin a glare. “Or so we thought.”
Devlin shook his head. “I’m sorry. It was a long time ago.”
“You should have told us!”
“And then you’d never have taken another order from me ever again.”
The rigidness from Isaac’s face didn’t fade. “Yeah, and maybe then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Lorcan stormed forward, his weapon pointed at Devlin’s head. “You gave that bastard access to the locations. You started all of this six years ago. You were the one who got Darcy’s dad killed.”
My stomach flipped at the truth of his words.
Devlin shook his head. “I knew I’d done wrong. I’ve been trying to fix it ever since.”
“How?” Lorcan spat. “By using us to get the code and the memory stick? All because your ego needed some massaging?”
“That wasn’t how it was. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.”
Kingsley stood, his hand clutched to his ribs. “Bullshit. If you’d thought that, you’d never have used Hollan in the first place to try to hide your actions.”
Devlin dropped his chin to his chest, and his shoulders shook with silent sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
He looked like a broken man, and Lorcan slowly lowered his weapon.
Clay’s arm hooked around my shoulders and he pulled me against him and kissed the top of my head. I exhaled a sigh from the deepest part of my lungs and sagged against him. Hollan was dead. Finally. And Devlin had conspired with him years ago to get access to the locations of the bases. And I had given the coordinates right to him. My mind was spinning, partly out of relief, partly confusion, but also with fear that this wasn’t over.
Not yet.
“We can’t fight about this now,” I said. “We need to figure out where Hollan has those boys chained up.”
We all looked back to the screen, horrified, as the live feed continued. If we didn’t find those children, they were going to die.
Isaac sat at one of the computers linked to the screens, and his fingers flew over the keyboard. “It’s a longshot, but I might be able to pinpoint where the feed is coming from.”
I nodded. “Good.” Even a longshot was something at this point.
“How many of his men are still alive?” Alex asked. “We could question them. Maybe someone knows something.”
Lorcan shook his head, his jaw tensed. “Most of them are dead, and the two we tied up in the kitchen said they didn’t know what had happened to the boys, just that they’d been taken away.”
“We could bring them up and see if we can get more out of them,” Alex suggested.
“If they don’t know anything more,” Lorcan said, “then we’ll only be wasting time.”
Devlin yanked at the cuffs. “Let me go. Hollan has the keys to the handcuffs. I can help.”
“No fucking chance.” Isaac didn’t forgive so easily.
I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want Devlin anywhere near us right at that moment either. I was surprised one of the guys—Lorcan or Isaac, in particular—hadn’t already shot him. I guessed after all these years, they still felt some loyalty toward him.
Kingsley stepped in, lifting his hand, though his handsome features were steeped in pain. I had the horrible feeling he might have cracked a rib or two when we’d crashed. “Wait. There were things Hollan said. Things we already know. The water level is going to change in a couple of hours, and he said the water is cold. It has to be somewhere between here and Atlanta. He wouldn’t have had time to take them anywhere else, and it’s going to be within a couple of hours of here, or he wouldn’t have made it there in time himself.”
“Unless he got someone else to do it,” Alex pointed out.
“True, but Hollan isn’t a man—wasn’t a man—who delegates easily. I don’t know if he’d have trusted someone else to do it. What if the other person or people were too soft and the boys got to them? He wouldn’t take that risk.”
Isaac twisted from the computer. “Kingsley’s right. Do we have a map?”
Kingsley swept the space beneath the central console and retrieved a folded paper map. He unfolded it and spread it out across the console. “Okay,” he said. “The Atlanta base is here.” He jabbed his finger against the paper. “And if Hollan thinks he could reach the boys within a couple of hours, then they must be located within that journey time.”
I thought of all the time we’d wasted at the second base, while he’d been locking those poor kids up in some kind of concrete dungeon.
We pored over the map, studying it.
“There must be water nearby,” Clay said, frowning.
I glanced at him. “A lake, or a river?”
“Something tidal?” Alex suggested.
But the location would be nowhere near the coast.
“Shit.” Clay locked his hands in his hair as he thought. “We know there’s a building, and the concrete suggests something industrial.”
We fixed our attention on the map again, concentrating on the area two hours between here and Atlanta. Numerous blue lines curved through the topography, some thicker than others.
I spotted something. “What about there?” I pointed to the map. The square block was barely a dot. “What is it?”
Kingsley frowned down. “A waste water management facility.”
“Could that be the place?”
We looked at each other, hopeful, expectant.
Isaac straightened and stepped closer to the screens. The boys were shivering and hugging each other, the younger boy’s shoulders jerking as he cried, Isaac moved between the screens, studying them, even though each one was identical. His focus was intent, and I noticed the other guys watching him, too, waiting for him to make the next move.
“There.” He pointed at something on screen. “What’s that?”
As one, we all moved forward to join him. On the metal ring, secured into the concrete floor, which all of the children were attached to, were the initials J.T.
“What’s the name of the company?” Isaac asked.
I double checked. “Johnson and Turner Industries.”
The initials fit.
Kingsley looked between us expectantly. “So it’s the right place?”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah, it’s the right place.” He frowned and leaned in toward the screens again. “We have another problem, though.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
Isaac pointed at the ring on screen that held the chains for each of the boys. “Look, that’s a combination lock.”
I stared at him. “What does that mean?”
“That when Hollan was talking about having a backup, he meant that. We don’t know the code to unlock it, even if we get to the boys on time.”
My mouth dropped open. “Can we take somethi
ng with us to cut the metal?”
“We’re going to have to, but it’ll be slow going trying to cut through something that thick, and if it’s already submerged, we’re going to have more than a problem.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Isaac stepped away from the screens. “We can’t waste any more time.”
We burst into movement, scooping up weapons and heading for the elevator.
“Hey!” Devlin yelled, banging up and down in his chair, rocking it back and forth. “You can’t leave me like this.”
No one bothered to justify his request with a comment. He should have been pleased he was still alive. I was surprised the guys had left him that way, considering what he’d just admitted to, but maybe they figured Devlin deserved to be tried as a traitor rather than killed.
My mind whirled at the thought of the fallout from all of this. What would happen to everyone? It wasn’t as though a secret organization could continue when it was no longer secret. And Hollan said he’d released the locations of the bases. Anyone could find them now. Everything was going to have to change, but I had no idea where that would leave everyone. I’d thought I had a new home with the guys, a new job, even, but the dream of that was over now. There was no job anymore.
Now wasn’t the time to start lamenting about my future. We still needed to rescue those boys. I prayed we’d be in time—not only for the lives of the boys, but for Isaac, too. I understood why he’d shot Hollan, but if we didn’t get to them, he’d blame himself for their deaths, and, in a way, he would be partially responsible. Different choices could have been made, which would result in a different outcome. Isaac was far from stupid. None of us said it out loud, but we all understood the reality.
But I wasn’t going to pretend I wasn’t happy Lyle Hollan was dead. I wished I’d been the one to pull the trigger myself, but instead Isaac had done that for me. He’d shouldered that responsibility on my behalf, and though it had shocked me, I was grateful to him for doing it.
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