by Jools Louise
“Cullen, honey,” Fly said, moving toward the young shifter. He sat beside the man, and hugged him close. “I’m so sorry about your family. Ghost is never going to stop, is he? He would have killed a lot more people, just to prove he could. I don’t blame you for wanting to try and end it.” Fly glared at Ryder fiercely. “If you didn’t have such a stick up your ass, you’d understand that not everyone is as butch as you are, and you’d cut them some slack. My mate would have you should have done years ago. Put down a recurring nightmare for this town. You didn’t do that, and he killed three more people just to prove a point. Now he’s escaped again. Cullen’s right. He’s probably going to kill again. It’s what he does.”
Ryder looked uncomfortable, but stood his ground. “We’ll discuss this in my office later,” he said to Cullen, who flipped him off.
“Don’t bother,” Cullen shot back. “I quit, remember?”
Ryder jerked at that, his eyes widening in shock. “I thought you were joking. There’s no need…”
“Yes, there is,” Cullen retorted bitterly. “I’m not cut out for this secret agent shit,” he said. “I hate violence, and I don’t like being treated like an idiot. You weren’t prepared to act on the information I gave you, so I did what I had to do. I couldn’t wait any longer. I needed to act. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but you should have trusted me when I told you who was involved. I don’t want to work for any organization that puts pride before the lives of the people they’re supposed to be protecting.”
“He had contacts, which we needed to pin down,” Ryder said stubbornly. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I just needed a little time to find out his network.”
“Of course he had contacts,” John cut in softly, trying to defuse the tension. “We have our own, though, don’t we? Cullen’s right, Ryder, Ghost is never going to cooperate. How long were you prepared to wait?”
“I didn’t know about the bomb at the hotel,” Ryder offered after a long, tense pause. “I just…” He raked a hand through his short dark hair, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry about the video. It didn’t register that those shifters might be related to you, Cullen. That was an awful thing to witness.”
“I hate all this violence,” Cullen whispered tearfully. “Why are people so vile to us?”
“Because we’re fabulous and they’re not,” Fly retorted, stroking Cullen’s shaggy brown hair gently. Cullen choked out a laugh at the comment, sniffing. “Ghost’s motives are a little murky, aren’t they? But the people we’ve spoken to who’ve been recruited, Joseph, and Arthur, the former dean of the university, were all tricked into thinking that we were the bad guys, that we didn’t help their loved ones, or they just needed easy money. Arthur’s wife died, and he was mired in debt. He took their money, thinking he was just monitoring things in town, but then they put pressure on him to do more. When he was offered more money to kill Mazy, he took it without a qualm.”
“Yeah, Flashpoint are good at finding people’s weaknesses and exploiting them,” Noah agreed, entering the room again, fully dressed, and flinging clothes at Fly to put on. “Which is why you should stay to help us fight them, Cullen. Just maybe in a different way.”
“What do you mean?” Cullen asked, wiping his eyes. Fly handed him a tissue.
“We need eyes and ears in town, still,” Pace said calmly, preempting Ryder’s response, cutting him off with a glare. “The mall is vulnerable, and so are other businesses in town. The ranch and sports complex, plus the schools and university.”
“Flashpoint are obviously adept at getting people to do their bidding, innocents, really, who have personal issues, grievances, or money worries. We need people working in town to listen out for those moles. It’s still secret agent stuff, but doesn’t require you to fight anyone. You just collate the information.” John interjected this time, smirking at Ryder’s frustrated expression.
“I don’t know,” Cullen said hoarsely, wiping his eyes. He winced a little as he moved his injured leg. “I thought I might head to England, go and see my family. They must be distraught.”
Ryder shook his head emphatically. “Please don’t do that,” he said. He moved to sit opposite Cullen, taking a large armchair, spreading his legs and resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward earnestly. “We have intel that suggests Flashpoint, or one of its affiliates, has just taken another victim. Not one of your family, I checked. But they’re definitely trying to sniff out potential targets. The guy they kidnapped is a badger shifter. The affiliate group uses shifters in blood sports. They hate shifters, and operate just like the fight club that Noah got to know. Why just kill your victims when you can make a profit from them, and torture them, before they die?”
Noah let out a low snarl. “Maybe I should go and pay them a visit,” he bit out viciously. “I have unfinished business with them. Mikhail, as well.”
“Mikhail is going,” Ryder admitted in a low voice. “He’s going to meet our contact over there, soon.”
“Good,” Cullen said. “Those monsters have taken enough lives. Now let’s cut them down to size.” He frowned. “I need to speak to Mikhail,” he added. “I may have some useful information for him. My family have gone into hiding, but they left me a coded message for if I decided to visit.”
“A message?” Ryder asked, sounding put out. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Right before you flipped me off for coming to you with the idea that I could be used to trap Ghost,” Cullen retorted crisply, arching a brow in challenge. “Then I decided, fuck you, and kept it to myself. No sense giving information to someone who won’t act on it.”
“What was the message?” Ryder asked sharply.
“That’s for Mikhail to know,” Cullen answered back, just as angrily. “I don’t answer to you anymore, remember. I quit.”
“Ryder, perhaps it’s best if you leave, now,” John said, an edge to his voice that had Ryder staring at him. “Cullen is distraught, has a broken leg, needs medical attention, after being attacked by someone who should have been dealt with years ago.” The two men locked gazes for a few seconds, before Ryder got to his feet, breaking the impasse first.
“I’ll go and check on what’s happening with the bomb disposal teams,” he said wryly.
“You do that,” John said sardonically, waving him off.
Ryder heaved another sigh, and left.
“Ryder has a slight flaw in his genetic makeup,” John advised with a sage nod, staring after his friend.
“What’s that?” Fly asked curiously.
“He doesn’t like to admit when he’s wrong.” John cut his gaze over to Cullen, and arched a brow. “Perhaps, when you’re not so emotional, you’ll realize that he’s as cut up about this whole situation as anyone else. He knows he should never have let Ghost go after he helped kidnap Noah, Mikhail, and the others a few months ago. He’s racked with guilt over that, because Ghost got the upper hand—again. The bastard has played us all like fiddles in his own personal orchestra, letting us dance to his tune.”
“He still should have listened to me,” Cullen said, pouting.
“Because your plan was flawless, wasn’t it?” Pace said dryly. “No way that Ghost would ever suspect you, when you sauntered through town like you did. Perhaps it didn’t occur to you that he would have back-up, an escape route, once he was discovered…given that he’s a paraplegic. He isn’t capable of working alone, because of his physical limitations.”
“Stop being mean,” Fly said, scowling at the pair. “Cullen’s been through hell. Those hunters were going to kill us both. In my own apartment. Luckily Noah was here to help. I was fast asleep when it all kicked off.”
“Yeah,” Cullen said faintly, his face draining of color, before he slumped to the side, falling heavily against Fly.
“About time,” John said, moving to lift the slight man into his arms. “I thought he’d never fade out. The man has balls, I’ll give him that.”
“You knew he’d faint?” Fly asked
, shocked at the cavalier attitude.
“He was going paler by the second,” John said. “Adrenalin, pain, and a good dose of shock will do that to you. Now I can get him past the corpses in the hallway, without him freaking out even more. Ryder has a clean-up crew on the way, to take care of them.”
“Corpses?” Fly asked, and felt a rush of nausea slide into his throat. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran for the bathroom, images of the hunter’s head being crushed between Noah’s savage jaws whirling around in his head.
* * * *
“Now look what you’ve done,” Noah chided John.
“Now you can go soothe your mate,” Pace said. “While we take care of Cullen, and clean up the town.”
“No,” Fly said as he reentered the living room. “I need to help. I can’t just curl up in a ball whenever something bad happens. It’s embarrassing. I need to deal with shit.”
Noah exchanged an amused look with the others.
“Don’t do that,” Fly said, cocking his hip. “I want to go to see the wolf pack. They just lost their loved ones. I need to arrange a funeral, as well, and then arrange a flight to mother’s home, once the forensics analysis confirms it was Mom who died at the hotel.”
John turned sharply, just before he exited the apartment. “No,” he replied. “Let Ryder’s agents go and check the place out,” he added. “If Ghost was involved, he’d be expecting this. Especially since he apparently didn’t care if she lived or died. He left her at the hotel. He’s a whiz at booby traps.”
“Unless it was Meredith who helped him to escape,” Noah said slowly, frowning suddenly. “Didn’t you say there was another woman involved, a shrink?”
“I need to go,” Fly said miserably. “My brother…”
John’s gaze softened. “Then I’ll accompany you,” he said. “We’ll take Rafe and go and check the place out. Noah’s right. Ghost is a sneaky son of a bitch. He and Meredith may be smarter than we figured. You can’t go alone, that’s for sure.”
“Thank you,” Fly replied.
John nodded, then departed with Cullen still comatose in his arms.
Chapter Eight
Fly’s former home, or rather, the place he’d lived in for several years as a child, was a large, well-maintained mansion in the heart of upstate New York. Buried in the woods, its location was miles from anywhere. This had been their summer retreat at one time, when they’d had money. But his grandparents had left their legacy tied up in trust funds, so his mother couldn’t touch it, and doled it out sparingly over the years.
“This place was your summer home?” Noah asked, sounding incredulous.
Fly shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s far too big, is nowhere near anything interesting, like shops or people, and is a nightmare to keep clean.” He saw Noah’s open-mouthed perusal as they drove up the long driveway before parking out front.
“It’s something else,” John said, eyeing the place with interest. “The location is certainly interesting. Why so remote?”
“Before your crew blew the lid on the shifter world, this was our place to run,” Fly said, wistfully recalling happier times, when he and his brother had explored these woods endlessly, running free. “Away from humans, we could shift without people knowing about us. My grandparents invested in oil, decades ago, and made a fortune in Texas. When they bought this, they also bought the surrounding land. There’s about two thousand acres of wilderness, privately owned.”
“Does this mean you’re a property magnate?” Noah asked teasingly.
Fly snorted, clambering out of the SUV as they came to a halt. “I’ll probably sell it,” he said. “I can’t imagine wanting to visit here again.”
“This place would be perfect for training our elite squad,” Ryder said. The man had decided to make the trip to New York, and since he’d provided air transport, a luxurious private jet, nobody had objected. “Would you mind leasing it to our Warrior Brigade?”
Fly shot a look at him, shrugging. “I guess not. I don’t particularly want it, but if you think it would be of value, then be my guest.”
A second SUV drove up, expelling a group of Ryder’s team, who looked tough and professional in their black combat gear, loaded up with various gadgets and weapons.
“Sir, we did a recon of the area,” one guy said, saluting Ryder smartly. “There doesn’t appear to be a welcoming committee, but we did find a couple of booby traps.”
“Tread carefully,” Ryder said, nodding to John.
“We’ll do a quick sweep,” John replied.
“You think this place is rigged?” Noah asked, taking a step back. There was a quiet click beneath his feet, and John grabbed his arm, preventing him moving again.
“Don’t take another step,” John warned, crouching down. “This place is fucking mined.” He scowled.
“Fuck,” Ryder exclaimed.
“Fly?” a soft voice asked tremulously, from above them.
They all looked up to see a slightly older version of Fly leaning out of an upstairs window. The man looked well, his tanned complexion glowing with health but he was hooked up to an IV for some reason. “Merc?” Fly asked, flabbergasted. He made to take a step forward, then gasped as he remembered Noah’s predicament, and froze on the spot.
“Mother dearest wanted to prevent me from leaving,” Mercury announced bitterly. “She had her good friends mine this whole area.”
“How are you still alive? I thought you’d died,” Fly said, distraught as he stared at his brother, who’d been a robust and vibrant teenager, full of life.
“The crash nearly finished me, but I survived,” Mercury replied. “I’ve been here ever since, under house arrest.”
“Why?” Fly asked, puzzled and appalled. “If you were injured, why would she…” he began.
“To stop you from seeing him,” Noah said shrewdly. “Once you left, she made sure you would never want to return here, pushing you away.”
“He’s right,” Mercury said. “You were always the rebellious one, the one who stood up to her. I did stupid stunts behind her back, then hid behind you when you took the flak.”
“I don’t suppose you saw where they put the mines, did you?” John asked hopefully. “It would make things a lot easier.”
“No, sorry,” Mercury replied regretfully. “I’ve been strapped to a bed for months, after a bout of pneumonia took me out of commission for a while. They planted the mines a while ago. Some guy in a wheelchair came by. It was a long time ago, actually, perhaps a year. I lose track of time out here.”
“How long have you been here?” Noah asked curiously, keeping perfectly still as John began to excavate the foot plate that Noah’s foot rested on, using a small hunting knife. Fly watched with bated breath, praying hard that John was as expert as he claimed to be.
“Let’s see,” Mercury said pensively, tilting his tousled blond head. “Maybe ten years?”
“That would be about right,” Fly replied with a grimace. “I left home before I turned fifteen. I’m nearly twenty-six now.”
“Gotcha,” John exclaimed beneath his breath. Fly glanced down to see the outline of the land mine revealed in the dirt.
“You know, from up here, I can see footprints in the dirt from when Mother last visited with her friends,” Mercury advised helpfully. “Perhaps you can use those as a guide, so you know where to step. Oh, and watch how you go on the porch. She said there was a device under there, too.”
Fly shared a horrified look with Noah, John, and Ryder. His mother had been a psychopath, for sure. Who did that, knowing their own son was inside the house?
“Looked at those,” Ryder’s guy said laconically. “There’s a definite path up to the porch. We’ll take a look under it, see what’s what.”
“How were we able to drive right up here without triggering any mines?” Fly asked, his brain kicking in finally, his engineer’s logic dousing the primal fear he had for his mate’s safety. He refused to step back, out of harm’s way, however. If he
lost Noah, he would want to die, as well.
John glanced up briefly, smirking. “Blind luck?” he offered.
“Aren’t mines usually placed in some kind of a pattern?” Fly said, rolling his eyes at John’s response.
“In the military,” John agreed. “Then you know where to step if you need to retrace where you’ve been, or retrieve the hardware. Since we don’t have a plan of where Ghost placed his devices, we’ll just have to go with Plan B.”
“I can see little round indentations in the dirt from up here,” Mercury said, and John grunted, looking up at Ryder and the squad member.
“We’re on it,” the other guy said, saluting Ryder and then beckoning to his team. Fly watched as the guy clambered onto the roof of the second SUV, studying the driveway which curved in a full circle around a large arrangement of shrubs and flowering plants.
“The ground’s subsided with all the recent rain that fell here. The holes dug for the booby traps have sunk a little,” the look-out called. With a relieved grin, the man began to call out instructions to his team. One by one, with meticulous care, they were able to start defusing the lethal gifts left behind by Meredith and the never-ending evil that was Ghost. Each mine was delineated, flagged up, and finally made safe. Then the team made for the porch.
“Why don’t we get Mercury out through the window?” Fly asked, stopping the men in their tracks. “The entire house is probably wired. Mother would assume Mercury could wake up and let any rescuers know about the porch bomb. Perhaps she wouldn’t expect anyone to circumvent the house entirely.” He stared at his brother, seeing the fear in the man’s eyes. “Come on, brother, slide onto the window sill. We won’t let you fall.”
Ryder stepped to the side, then gingerly crab-walked to the edge of the porch. The second story of the house had a narrow ledge that wrapped around it, and Mercury, after a long hesitation, clambered out the window, after removing the IV, and placing his feet carefully onto the ledge.
