Forsaken Duty, The Red Team Series, Book 9

by Elaine Levine

  “That’s something we can corroborate with Lobo,” Kit said.

  “Do it. Jax has a safe house northwest of Denver. He wouldn’t have taken me there if he still doubted my loyalty.” Owen looked around at the group. “You know, my mom and Addy’s died the same year. Jax thinks their deaths weren’t accidents. He said he thought Roberta killed his and Addy’s mom so she could take her place in the senator’s household.”

  Addy shivered. “I never liked her.”

  “None of us did,” Owen said. “Greer, Max, see what you can find out about her. Who was she before marrying the senator? Also, on the phone I gave you are dozens of pictures I took at Addy’s of her art collection. Given all the stolen pieces found in the tunnels, I’m curious to know if those pieces are also hot. Jax said he was working with the FBI on that, but pass those on to Lobo. It’s another way we can confirm info from Jax.”

  “Copy that,” Greer said.

  “What’s next?” Owen asked.

  “We’re reconfiguring the basement to house Lion’s pride and any others we recover,” Kit said.

  Owen looked at Ty. “That okay with you?”

  Ty grinned. “Not really. You know how I hate that basement, but I don’t have a logical argument. Kelan’s gonna bring in his shaman to bless it. So, I guess it’ll work out. It’s a big space; we could house several prides down there.”

  “Did Jax tell you what he did with the watchers Ace handed over?” Val asked.

  “No. But he acknowledged having them,” Owen said.

  “Sheriff Tate’s on our asses to turn the boys over to their parents,” Kit said. “We’re working on identifying surviving family members, but the boys haven’t only been sourced from the Friends. They’ve come from some of the other Omni isolationist groups around the country. Reuniting them is not going to be a fast exercise. And we can’t send them back into the same conditions that put them in danger. So we’re stuck for a while having them in our custody.”

  “Hopefully, we can change that around soon,” Owen said.

  “Only if it’s in the best interest of the boys,” Remi said. “Some of them identify with their pride as their family, so ripping them away and returning them to strangers may cause more damage than help.”

  “Hmmm,” Owen grunted.

  “Moving on,” Kit said. “Angel discovered that Wynn’s grandmother’s body had been exhumed. Not sure who has it, but we’re leaning toward it being Jafaar. Angel mentioned Jafaar kidnapped Wynn. He used a drone made to look like a bumblebee to deliver a sedative, then hijacked the ambulance she was in. While she was a prisoner, she saw him talking to a couple that may have been her parents. She overheard them discussing setting up a lab for Jafaar so that they could replicate the genetic modifications they produced for the Omnis. He’s angry that he was left out of the equation and wants a piece of the pie for al Jahni.”

  “Yes,” Wynn added, “but I’m not positive they were my parents. They died thirteen years ago. The people I saw were too young. They didn’t look middle-aged. But it was dark and I didn’t get a good look at them.”

  “I saw a woman outside Wynn’s house in Cheyenne,” Angel said. “I also didn’t get a good look at her, but she looked like Wynn’s mom in an old photo she had. The Omnis attacked us there. The guys I fought were hyped up on something. They burned Wynn’s home down.”

  “So Jafaar has her parents?” Owen asked. At Angel’s nod, he looked at Addy. She knew he was thinking they might have the antidote to whatever had been done to her.

  “We put a tracker on Jafaar’s car,” Ace said, “but it hasn’t moved from the motel. He was with Wynn’s parents in some warehouses east of Cheyenne, so he’s got the use of multiple vehicles.”

  “How did Jafaar get Wynn’s parents?” Owen asked. The room went silent. “You said you saw a woman who might have been Wynn’s mom,” he said to Angel. “And then Wynn saw them with Jafaar after she was kidnapped. How did he get them?”

  “That’s something we don’t have an answer for,” Kit said.

  “Grams said she saw them while she was at Jafaar’s,” Wynn said. “I just thought it was a dream her meds had tricked her into thinking.”

  “They must have gotten away from the Omnis at some point,” Rocco said. “Jafaar wanted me to turn Wynn in—I guess as bait for your parents, so he didn’t have them at that time.”

  “After Grams’ funeral, I left,” Wynn said, sending Angel a regretful look. “A man began following me around. He said my parents sent him to find me before the Omnis did. Maybe he gave them to Jafaar. He also said that you all would kill them before giving them a chance to be heard.”

  “That guy was an Omni operative,” Angel said. “He was fishing for info on your parents, which means the Omnis also didn’t have them at that point.” He looked at Owen. “So if the Omnis didn’t have them and Jafaar didn’t, then they were loose when I saw your mom at your house, only I didn’t know it was your mom at that point.”

  “If it even was,” Wynn said to Angel. “The people I saw at the warehouse weren’t old enough. Maybe they were just made to look like them.”

  “And maybe they were them,” Owen said. “We know the Omnis fake the deaths of people who go into their world. They did it with Blade’s dad, maybe my dad, with Addy.”

  “Either way, he’s got them now,” Ty said. “It’s unlikely Jafaar would go to the WKB for the lab he wants, being on the outs with them like he is.”

  “The tracker didn’t show him moving when he had Wynn at the warehouse in Cheyenne,” Kit said. “Rocco, get with Yusef and see why. See if Wynn’s parents have been at the motel, too.”

  “Roger that,” Rocco said. “Jafaar told Yusef, my CI, that I was a Fed. That may be something we have to deal with down the road.”

  “How did Jafaar know that about you?” Owen asked.

  “That’s unclear,” Rocco said.

  “In other news,” Val said, “my father popped in for a visit. He brought the library from his secret room…and dumped a bombshell on us.” Val looked at Kit, then Kelan and Lion. “Not only did he kill my mom, but he fathered both Fiona and Lion. And he was responsible for their mothers’ deaths. Fiona and Lion are my half-siblings.”

  “We checked their DNA—” Owen started.

  “And we retested our DNA. Daddy dearest said he fucked with the CODIS database.”

  “Where’s Jason now?” Owen asked.

  “In the wind,” Kit said. “We tried to hold him here until Lobo could take him, but his lawyer made a visit to the sheriff, and we were forced to hand him over. Of course, the lawyer got him out of jail. Lobo’s looking for him now.”

  “He also said this whole thing was a game,” Val said. “No idea what that means to him or to us. Don’t think it’s a game to everyone involved. The bastard did say that he’d called everyone to come in, that it was all over.”

  Addy looked at Owen. They’d talked about this whole mess being a game. It still didn’t make sense to her.

  “Shit. I was only gone a couple of weeks,” Owen said.

  “Yeah, two critical weeks,” Kit said.

  The emotions Addy saw on the faces of the men and women around the table seemed genuine. A group this large couldn’t all be acting, could they? Owen started pacing at his end of the room. She tensed every time he walked behind her. He stopped once, stepping up to his chair, his gaze sweeping both sides of the table. Instead of speaking, however, he resumed his pacing. No one spoke, though she doubted any conversation would have disturbed his concentration. At last, he broke his silence.

  “It’s all connected,” Owen said. “Someone knows everything that’s going on. We don’t know who that is, but it’s likely that it’s Jason, the Jacobs, Jax, or Edwards. Maybe even my dad.”

  “My dad told us the game was over and people were being recalled,” Val said.

  “To where?” Owen asked.

  “That’s the sixty-four-million-dollar question,” Ty said.

  “It’s
likely the site we found in Colorado isn’t the only headquarters the Omnis have here in the U.S.,” Owen said. “I think they have several around the country and internationally. Someone inside is helping us…maybe Jax. We were sent here for a reason. Either to get us as far away from their core site, or to bring us closer to it, depending on who really sent us. Given what we found in Colorado, and also where Edwards was keeping Addy, and the fact that Jason came out here to disappear, I think we’re very close to their home base.”

  “Maybe there’s a section of the tunnels that the Feds didn’t open or see,” Ace said.

  “Or another tunnel complex. Fuck knows there’s a ton of abandoned silos in the area,” Val said. “Maybe each kingpin in the game has one himself.”

  “Taking the show underground is strategic,” Ty said. “Keeps drones from hitting them and satellites from observing them. Lets them operate invisibly from the rest of the world.”

  “There was a section in the WKB silo complex I wasn’t allowed to investigate,” Max said.

  “The WKB?” Addy asked.

  Owen looked at her and explained, “The WKB is the White Kingdom Brotherhood, a prison gang cum biker gang acting as enforcers for the Omnis. They’re based about an hour west of here.”

  She nodded, taken aback by all the info shared so freely here. It had taken her years to unravel a fraction of what they were divulging at the table.

  “And the Omnis showed up to the place where Wynn was being held just before we got there,” Max said. “We’ve tracked those vehicles to the WKB compound. They haven’t left it since.”

  “Pete’s in your confidence, isn’t he?” Owen asked Max.

  “So far, the info he’s given me hasn’t been wrong.”

  “See what he knows.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Owen, back to Jafaar,” Wynn said. Addy noticed her voice wasn’t as confident as the men’s. She wasn’t a team member, but a tutor and nanny—this had to be way out of her comfort zone. “While I was locked away, I overheard the couple with him, who may or may not have been my parents, offer to replicate the genetic modifications in return for my freedom.”

  Owen crossed his arms. “That’s not technology that we want turned over to an Afghan warlord. We have several data points for the WKB compound. Let’s refresh our eyes out there. I want to know who’s going into that silo, changes in the general population. If Jason and the others involved in this are thinking to make a last stand, they’ll be calling in reinforcements. I’ll give Lobo an update. Kit—I want Wynn’s parents, or whoever they are, captured alive. They may be able to help us with Addy’s situation. I don’t want to leapfrog them in priority, but they’re important. If we can get them out of this mess quickly, do it.”

  “We’ll make it happen,” Kit said.

  Owen sent another glance around the table. “My priority is my son. He’s not the team’s priority. I want to be clear on that.”

  “Fuck that, O,” Val said. “Nothing on the table’s more important than your boy. Except the doctors Ratcliff, so they can help Addy.”

  “No. This is coming to an end. Fast. We can’t blow the opportunity we have to make it end our way, not theirs,” Owen said.

  “The guys have been searching for Omni real estate holdings,” Kit said. “They’ve hidden them well inside stacks of dummy corporations. Greer’s working an algorithm to crawl through the data and unravel the connections. No matter how this ends, that forensic work will be useful to the FBI. We’ll dig back into that and see how far we can get. I don’t want us to be spread too thin. You may need to bring in additional guys.”

  “I can’t,” Owen said. “Senator Jacobs will know we’re staffing up.”

  “Then we’re gonna have to be lean and mean,” Kit said.

  “So…back to Jax,” Kelan said. “Which side does your gut say he’s on?”

  Owen shrugged. “He got Addy out of her marriage, but kept her at the same house where Edwards had held her. He claims to be the one who sent Hope to the WKB to find Lion. And he was who told her to search out Max. He was in the tunnels when Kelan and Fiona were taken. He helped Kelan get out so he’d live to save Fee. But…he perpetuated the lie that I was King, keeping Addy and me apart. He sent Ace out to find prides to save them from being lab rats…but what did he do with them? I don’t know. I keep seeing him on both sides.”

  “Maybe he did those things so he wouldn’t blow his cover,” Ty said. “Maybe he’s in so deep he doesn’t have a side anymore.”

  “King stopped Holbrook’s abuse of my cubs,” Lion said. “And he gave me permission to stay as their leader. Both dispensations I would not have expected from the bastard. Is Jax King?”

  “Maybe he’s leading the resistance?” Angel suggested.

  “He told me my father was head of the opposition,” Owen said. “I don’t know. We need to find my dad. Jax said his hunt for the scientists behind the human modifications was leading to their deaths.”

  “Your dad’s killing them?” Rocco asked.

  “No. The Neo-Omnis are, to cover their tracks. Or so Jax says.”

  “I overheard my fake parents say something about that,” Wynn said. “They feared for their lives if they were turned back over to Syadne. Jafaar offered them safety in exchange for the formulas they had.”

  Owen shook his head.

  “Let’s stop there,” Kit said. “We’ve got our next steps figured out.”

  Lion leaned forward. “Kit…regarding the WKB, my cubs are trained to watch without being seen. Let me take them back into the woods.”

  “No,” Hope said. “It’s winter already.”

  Lion looked at his sister. “My cubs have survived many winters without the comforts they now have.”

  Hope gave him a frosty glare. “Sure, but then they had the barracks at the WKB as a home base. They don’t have that luxury now. We have them—and you—safe here. Please, Lion, don’t do this.”

  “One of my cubs is missing. Nothing else matters to me and my pride until he’s recovered.” He looked at Addy, then Owen. “And it isn’t because he’s your son. It’s because he’s my cub. It would be the same with any of them.”

  “I can’t, in good conscience, send you and your boys into this,” Owen said.

  “You don’t have a choice. We are like the wind. You neither own us nor can you hold us, but you can—and should—use us.”

  Owen sighed. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Kit, I need a rendezvous point for them supplied with food, clothes, blankets, medical supplies, and comms. Work it out with Lion.”

  “Copy that,” Kit said.

  Owen looked at Lion. “I want regular check-ins. You—and all your cubs—will return here when this is done.”

  Lion just nodded.

  Addy was surprised that Owen would use the kids as irregulars in this fight, but if they could do what Lion said they could do, she’d be grateful as hell. Augie was lucky to have gotten in with such fierce, capable boys. She had no idea if the Omni World Order was about to go down in flames, or if it would persist like a coal fire, burning underground forever. Either way, the skills her son had learned and the friends he’d made were ones he could fall back on the rest of his life.

  “There anything else we need to cover?” Owen asked. Everyone shook their heads. “Kit, organize what you have to. You need something, let me know. I have resources the company doesn’t know about.”

  It was midnight. Owen had waited until the house was silent, debating all the while if he was doing the right thing. If Addy didn’t believe him by now, then it was unlikely his sappy love letters, written when he was out of his mind with grief—or later, when he’d come to terms with her ghost—were going to make any difference.

  He could retrieve the letters and decide later what to do with them. He turned off the security in the hall, the elevator bedroom, the elevator, and the weapons room. Maybe the time for fear had passed. Maybe it was time to lay everything on the table and let h
er make of it what she would.

  In the weapons room, he opened the cabinet with the false back where he’d stashed his locked boxes. Retrieving them, he stood and came face to face with Max—the stone-cold fighter version.

  “What are you doing?” Max asked.

  “Not something that concerns you.”

  “I might have bought that before you went AWOL. Now, not so much. There’s too many odd pieces in flight, and I gotta tell you I’m not a fan of mysteries. What’s in the boxes?’

  “None of your goddamned business.”

  Kit walked in behind Max. Both of them stood shoulder to shoulder, arms folded. “Let’s just say we’re making it our business.” The smile he gave Owen was full of teeth and empty of humor.

  Owen looked down at the steel boxes, feeling an unwelcome warmth flush his neck and face. He set them on the big counter in the middle of the room, then fished the keys out of his pocket and tossed them near the boxes.

  Kit and Max opened the boxes, then, seeing the contents, looked in question at each other. Inside were bundles of letters, grouped by year.

  “Open them,” Owen ordered. Some of the letters had been postmarked to and from him. Others simply had dates on the sealed envelopes.

  Max used his pocket knife to unseal a random letter from a packet dated five years ago. Owen felt raw and exposed as he watched his men, like a schoolboy caught passing a love note to his girl being made to stand in front of the class and read it aloud.

  Max pulled another letter out from a different bundle and scanned it. “Shit.” Kit did the same. “These are love letters.”

  Owen said nothing.

  “To Addy,” Kit said. “You wrote these when you thought she was dead.”

  “Fuck. Me.” Max folded the letters he’d been reading and stuffed them back into their envelopes. “I’m sorry, man. Don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.”

  “Yeah.” Owen forced that answer past his throat.

  Kit handed the keys back to Owen. “What can we do?”

  “Nothing. Unless you know how to un-brainwash someone?” Owen picked up the lockboxes. Both men flanked him as he got into the elevator.