by Wade, Maddie
Everyone had sort of adopted Lucy as a little sister. That didn’t mean they didn’t respect her abilities, just that they felt protective of her. Her ability in close combat was second to none. She had been invited to compete in the MMA world championships in Baton Rouge this coming summer, but had turned it down.
Rounding the front of the car, he took Skye’s hand. She had been quiet on the drive over, perhaps thinking through everything he said. She had handled the revelation that Hugo was Nate’s childhood enemy, well, but he worried she would dwindle on it and get herself in a state. She had already apologised for something that wasn’t her fault, and he didn’t want her taking that on with all the other things she had to deal with right now.
He would keep a close eye on her and make sure she wasn’t bottling things up. A definite lead would really help right now. Going through the front, and past the security door and into the hub of the operation, Nate heard raised voices.
“What the fucking hell is that doing in my conference room?” Zack boomed. Nate looked at Skye, whose eyes had gone wide. He angled her slightly behind him and pushed through the door. Zack, Zin, Daniel, and a petite pixie with a huge, jet-black German Shepard dog, met him. All eyes turned to them. The pixie looked nervous, Zack looked exhausted, and Zin looked pissed off. Daniel was the only one smiling.
The dog, who had been growling at Zack, turned his attention to Nate and growled until the pixie laid her hand on his head, instantly putting a stop to the growling. After a second, the beast took the growl down to a low rumble as he turned his attention back to Zack and Zin. Skye let go of his hand and walked forward slightly.
“Skye, be careful that animal will tear you apart,” said Nate. He saw the pixie smirk and glared at her.
“He won’t. He is a good boy, aren’t you?” she said in a baby voice that Nate had never heard her use.
“Is he friendly?” Skye asked the pixie.
“Yes. He’s a big softie, just very protective of me.”
“I’m Skye.” she said, offering her hand slowly, not to alarm the dog. The pixie seemed to hesitate before shaking Skye’s hand. She looked surprised when she did and smiled a beautiful smile, that for some reason, made Zin look even angrier.
“His name is Samson, and I’m Celeste.” Nate watched as Skye’s features closed down, but instead of saying anything, she knelt down and slowly extended her hand towards the dog to sniff. Nate felt his body go rigid.
So this was the sister of the man who took Noah. Could she really not know anything? She had an innocent look about her, and a vulnerability that screamed yes, she was indeed innocent, but women could be devious creatures–and even Zin, who never showed emotion–seemed pissed off at this woman, and that made Nate wary.
Nate stepped forward, wanting to be able to get between the dog and Skye if he had too. He needn’t have worried. The dog, like everyone else took, one look at Skye and loved her. He sniffed her hand, then proceeded to lick and nuzzle it. Sensing that it was okay, he moved forward and licked her face, causing Skye to laugh.
“He is gorgeous. Aren’t you boy? Just a big old teddy bear.” She ruffled his collar and then straightened.
“So, again, I ask, what that beast is doing in my conference room?”
Nate had forgotten about Zack’s question, completely focused on Skye and her interaction with Celeste and Samson.
“Where I go, he goes,” Celeste said simply.
“So you’re telling me, that if you take the job he comes with you?”
“Yes,” she replied unequivocally. Zack went quiet for a minute, studying her, and must have decided that it was okay.”
“Fine. Welcome to Fortis, Miss Bourdain.” He smiled and went to shake her hand, but Samson growled, so he stepped back, frowning.
“Is he going to growl every time I’m around?”
“No. He’ll get used to you, eventually,” she smiled, and Nate noticed she had an incredibly pretty smile. For some reason, though, her smiling seemed to further piss Zin off. He muttered something in Russian and pushed past Skye and Nate.
“I’ll be in the gym if anyone wants me,” Zin said, testily. Nate was trying not to chuckle; he had never seen Zin sulk over anything, but he seemed to be having a moment, now. Celeste and Samson were certainly going to make things interesting.
“Okay, Miss Bourdain. Daniel will go through your job description, hours, and pay. We will see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”
Daniel, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, legs braced, nodded at Zack.
“Come on, Celeste, let’s get some coffee from the kitchen and I’ll go through it all with you.” Daniel walked past Zack, Celeste followed with Samson at her side.
“Nice to meet you, Skye,” she said as she passed them. She tipped her head at him and he realised he hadn’t introduced himself in the kerfuffle over the dog. He tipped his head, not having decided about her yet.
“You, too, Celeste,” Skye replied thoughtfully. Zack followed them out and walked towards the tech room.
Nate watched Celeste leave and turned to look at Skye
“You okay?” he asked her.
“Yeah. It was just a shock to see her. She seemed…I don’t know, normal I guess. Do you think she really knows nothing about her brother or Noah?”
Nate wasn’t sure but he didn’t want to worry her.
“I think that I trust Zack, and if he says she knows nothing, then she doesn’t. He’s the best man I have ever met at his job, and if he checked her out then you can bet he was thorough.”
Skye nodded.
“Come on. Let’s go and see Lucy. Maybe she has an update.”
They walked to the tech room and Nate, again, punched in the code for the door. Lucy was at her terminal, and Drew was talking to Zack about something, over at the other one. Lucy was talking to somebody on the screen, but Nate couldn’t see who it was.
Moving closer, he saw it was Will Granger. Will didn’t look like a private security operative, mainly because he wasn’t–not in the sense that he, Dane, Zin, and the others were.
Will had been a hacker and had hacked into something he shouldn’t have, namely the bank of England. He’d been caught, but because he was only fifteen at the time, he only had an eight month suspended sentence. He cleaned up his act after that, and Jack Granger who was in charge at Eidolon asked Zack to take him on when he set up Fortis. Nate knew Zack was pleased and had said, countless times, that he had been planning to poach him away from Jack anyway. Will was integral to how well the team operated.
Jack and Will were brothers and couldn’t be more different if they tried. In looks or personality. Jack was the epitome of badass operative–tall, muscled and broody. Will was a tall, wiry man covered in tattoos and piercings. It seemed to work for him, though, because he was a happy guy and never seemed short of a date.
Nate leaned over Lucy’s shoulder and she looked up and smiled. Turning back to the screen Nate said, “Will, when you coming home, bro?”
“Nate, long time no see. I’m wrapping up this project and should be home before Christmas. I hear I have some competition, so gotta get home and protect my turf and make sure this one has been treating my babies right.”
Will was the only person Nate knew who would refer to his computers as his babies. He was also the least likely to be intimidated by other people on the job. So, Nate knew he was only kidding around about Drew. From what he could tell, Will had been helping Drew learn the ropes by giving him lessons and tests over Skype.
“Great, man. Be good to have you back. You hear about Sly joining us?”
“Yeah. Had my mum yapping in my ear about it for weeks. I swear her and Aunt Nancy never get off the phone. Its great news and I have more opportunity to give cousin Sly some shit about his nickname then. Listen, Lucy was explaining about your girl’s son. Sorry about that, man. I’m installing some software I’ve been playing with that will notify us when the user uses any device that needs Wi-Fi or an onl
ine connection. It will, also, be able to trace all their devices including bank accounts that will go back twelve months in the records. It should help find any connections. Lucy has also launched the spider to search the internet for any code or algorithms that lead back to, or mention, the watchers, even if it is not a direct mention.”
“How does that work?” he asked.
“So, if you have an internet conversation, say on a dating site, if the spider picks up anything in that conversation that might, in any way, be construed as being linked to the Divine Watchers even if it only used code words or a cypher. It will then run it and determine the link and the statistical viability of it being a lead.”
“That’s great. Thanks, Will.”
“Happy to help, man. Just sorry I’m not there.”
“I’ll leave you guys to it.” Nate squeezed Lucy’s shoulder.
“Take care of her, Nate,” she said quietly.
“Of course, corazón.”
He turned and Skye was right behind him. He took her hand and she held his tight. He knew that she was flagging, and as the day wore on and no news came, she was getting despondent. He walked her over to Drew and Zack.
“Hey guys, any news?” Zack and Drew both swivelled in their chairs to look at them. Zack cast Skye a compassionate look. But the look he gave Nate told him the news they had wasn’t going to be shared in front of Skye. This did not bode well. He was wondering how to get Skye out of the room when Zin walked in.
Zack stood and started towards the door.
“Nate, Zin my office!” he then strode out past Zin. Zin and Nate looked at each other. Zin shrugged and followed Zack. Nate looked at Skye, the smudges under her eyes were looking more defined by the minute. He needed to get her home.
“Will you be okay with Drew a minute while I find out what this is?”
“Yeah, sure.” her eyes told him what her mouth did not. She was terrified that what Zack had to say meant something bad had happened to Noah. Every instinct in him wanted to protect her, and yet, he knew he couldn’t protect her from this.
“I won’t be long. Why don’t you sit down.” The fact that she let him guide her into the chair paid testament to how she was feeling. “Look after my girl, Drew,” Nate said, and gave Drew a look that told him Nate was worried. Drew nodded and scooted his chair closer to Skye.
Walking through the open door off Zack’s office, Nate stopped short. The look on Zack’s face was not good and for a second Nate didn’t want to go in and hear what he knew was very bad news.
“Nate, come in, close the door.” Zack stood behind his desk, which was bare except for a computer and a pen. Zin was leaning against the wall to the left of the door, arms crossed, body stiff.
“We just heard that Hugo Lockwood’s finger prints were found at the house of the murder victim.” Zack was watching him for reaction. Nate couldn’t supress the ripple of relief that coursed through his body. He had been expecting the ultimate in bad news. This was bad, but it was also a good reason to pick Lockwood up and question him.
“Detective English is currently out looking for him. Jack had managed to get a tracker on his vehicle so that shouldn’t take long.”
“So, why do I get the feeling you haven’t finished with the bad news?” Nate asked calmly. Zack looked at Zin. “Just fucking tell me,” Nate growled.
“We have reason to believe that Felicity Lockwood is heavily involved with the Divine Watchers. We also found some rather shady things in her past.”
“Fuck! If she has him, then we need to get him out, now. There is no telling what she will do. You saw her, the bitch is crazy. And what about her past?”
“Well, going back to before she met Lockwood, she was a high-class call girl. This was very well hidden, and she has changed her identity at least twice, that we can find. The information was buried extremely well, which tells us she has some serious contacts.
“Zin and Drew are looking back further–Drew through searches, Zin through his contacts. But it would seem that each time, just before her identity falls off the map, at least one of the people close to her dies and then she disappears. When she meets Lockwood she is going by Felicity Spencer and working as a PA at a London law firm. That is where she hooked her star to Lockwood. He was a bit older than her and fell head over heels in love.”
Zin snorted at this and took over, “Lockwood had no idea what she did at night, but she had some very nasty friends back then, including Brown Bread Fred, or you might know him as Freddie Foreman.” Freddie Foreman had been a freelance enforcer for the Kray twins during the 1960s and was a nasty piece of work.
“Fuck! So she has connections to the mob?”
“Yes, and was rumoured to have had an affair with Reggie Kray. She would have been young then, and it is only a rumour.”
“How are we only just finding this out? How come nobody ever found out before?”
“No reason to. The Lockwoods stayed on the right side of the law, and although obnoxious, they lived quiet. It’s only since old man Lockwood and Hugo’s parents died that she has become more visible in public,” Zack replied.
Nate stood up and started pacing. Skye was going to flip. “I can’t tell her this.” He pushed his hand through his hair, making it stand up, and swore again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Dane and Daniel are looking into all of her known associates now. We should have intel about Lockwood Manor by tonight, and Zin and Drew are hunting down everything they can on them. I’m going to see if I can speak to Marcus Preedy and see if he is feeling more talkative than last time. You need to tell Skye that we have some good leads and as soon as we have a positive sighting of Noah, we will go in.”
“Fine, but I’m in on this. I want to be there when you get him out. He’ll be scared enough and he knows me and trusts me.” Nate said vehemently.
“Of course,” Zack nodded.
“I’m going to take Skye home. Ccall me when you hear anything, and I mean anything, Zack.”
Chapter Thirteen
Skye was terrified. Nate had been gone half an hour already. What the hell could they be talking about? She could tell by the looks Nate and Zin had shared that something was going down. She didn’t want to know because even though she knew something had happened and it was bad, she didn’t know if she could face it. She should have demanded to go in with them and tell them she wanted to know, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to know if something had happened to her baby.
Her gut felt like it had lead in itm and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Drew had quit trying to talk to her when she kept zoning out on him. He was such sweetheart. He just scooted his chair closer and continued as if she was listening raptly.
She jumped up from the chair when Nate walked through the door and ran to him. His hair was sticking up as if he had been running his fingers through it. She reached him and grabbed hold off his biceps suddenly desperate to know what she hadn’t wanted to a few minutes ago.
“Tell me, tell me what he said.” Nate put his arms around her back and pulled her tight to him.
“We have a significant lead on Felicity and Hugo. There is still no sighting of Noah, but we should have eyes in the house tonight. As soon as we get confirmation, we’ll go in.”
Skye felt her legs buckle and a sob tore through her. She buried her head in Nate’s chest and cried. Nate caught her and held on tight.
He whispered words of comfort in her ear and held her while she cried it out, right in the middle of the Fortis tech room. After a couple of minutes, she felt controlled enough to look up. Nate didn’t let go, though.
“Please, don’t let go of me,” she said quietly. Nate brought his hand up, and with so much tenderness, wiped her cheeks with his thumbs.
“I won’t, mi amor, I won’t.” Nate cuddled her back into his side and she suddenly knew this was where she belonged; forever, with this man, by his side, always–even in the midst of all this, the worst thing to ever happen in her life, she knew.
When they arrived home, Reg wasn’t there. He’d left a note on the kitchen counter saying he was seeing a friend and would call if he wasn’t going to be back tonight. Good thing they had had all the calls coming into Skye`s house re-routed to Fortis, thought Nate.
Nate walked her to the couch and lightly pushed her down into it. Skye slipped of her coat, then toed off her boots. Curling her legs up under her, she watched as Nate removed his jacket and put it over the back of the dining chair. Coming to her, he lifted her up and placed her on his lap. She snuggled into him, placing her head in his neck and finding the soft skin and the scent of him calmed her.
“I’m sorry for falling apart,” she said.
“You haven’t got one thing to be sorry for, Skye. The fact that you even got out of bed is admirable. It’ll be okay. Noah’s tough. I know he’s only a boy, but he has a wisdom beyond his years. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, he will be home.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay.” She stopped talking then, and must have drifted off. The next thing she felt was Nate picking her up and carrying her to bed.
“I can walk,” she mumbled.
“I know, mi amor,” but he didn’t put her down. He placed her under the covers and tucked her in. She heard him close the door as he left.
~~~
Nate closed the door to Skye’s bedroom but left it open slightly so he could hear in case she woke. He hated to see her so vulnerable. He needed to get Noah home to her now. Opening his contacts on his phone, he shot of a text to Dane, asking for an update. It wasn’t long before he got a reply. Nothing to report. Most associates are dead. With that a bust, he texted Zin.
Any news on Hugo? He replied quickly, too. Yes. Cops picked him up, drunk, in Shack Revolution. Going to observe the questioning now. Will report in when I have news. Nate was surprised, that was quite a long text for Zin.
