CASSIUS

by Alexi Ferreira

  “Prospect”

  “Oh, what is that?” hopefully he will start to give me more than one word answers.

  “Anything the guys want me to do.”

  “That must suck, you must hate being at their beck and call.” I gasp exaggeratedly as if feeling for him.

  “It’s not too bad.” There we go, first lie. He hates it.

  “I bet sometimes you would like to tell them to get stuffed, I know I would if someone made me do all their dirty work.” I quip

  “As I said, it’s not that bad. If you’ll excuse me I have stuff to do.” And again another lie and this time the truth is perturbing. ‘They will all pay’ that isn’t something from someone that doesn’t mind. I’m still sitting at the table thinking about what just happened when my phone rings.

  “Hello”

  “Baby, how you’re doing?”

  “Cassius,” at his voice I feel my body relax, I hadn’t even noticed how tense I was. “have you arrived wherever you were going?” I ask

  “Yeah about ten minutes ago, what have you been up to?”

  “Well, we’ve all been helping Aria with her gardening. Then I saw the guy that was in the infirmary one day I woke up, was just chatting to him a few minutes ago.” I reply still thinking about my short conversation with Sven.

  “Oh, Caelius?”

  “No, Sven. I was just introducing myself and trying to find out more about him.” I confess

  “Why the hell was Sven in the infirmary when you were there?” Cassius says in surprise.

  “Well that’s what I was trying to find out as the other women say he’s not supposed to be at the back, and he did lie to me at the time when I caught him.”

  “I don’t like this, I don’t want you to . . .” I interrupt him before he can lay down some law that I will have a problem with.

  “We didn’t talk long, just introduced ourselves and I asked what he did. He said he was a prospect, and that he did basically whatever you guys asked him to.” I reveal, “I quipped that it must be irritating being ordered around all the time, and he answered that it wasn’t too bad.”

  “All good then, stay away from him I will ask him what he was doing in the infirmary when I get back.”

  “No, you don’t understand. The answers were fine, nothing wrong with them but he was lying. In the last question his truth was that they will pay.” There was quiet on the other side of the line until I thought that maybe the call had dropped. “Cassius?” I call

  “Stay away from him, I will find out what is going on when I get back.” Cassius grunts, “I should be back tomorrow night sometime or the next day in the morning. Be good until then.”

  “Okay, are you going to be safe?” I ask what has been worrying me ever since he left.

  “Yeah baby, I’m safe.” He mumbles, “I have to go, will phone you again later.” Before I can answer the call is disconnected. Shrugging I get up and make my way inside, finding Nova and Brielle in the courtyard waiting for me.

  “So, what happened?” after relaying what I had learned to them they stand before me with frowns on their faces.

  “Hmm, maybe I should persuade him to tell us what he’s up to.” Nova suggests

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the man always has earphones on as he listens to music, I don’t think you could persuade him if you tried.” Brielle says, just as Nova’s phone starts to ring.

  “Now he decides to phone me.” She grumbles as she answers the phone.

  “I am being good, no, I won’t do anything stupid. Don’t worry, everything is fine.” She says sweetly to Ceric.

  “I didn’t do anything to get shot, not my fault they attacked us.” She mumbles, “I know, I love you too, be careful.” She disconnects the call a big smile on her face as she looks down at it.

  “Earth to Nova, anybody there?” Brielle teases

  “Very funny, Ceric’s just worried that I’m going to get myself into trouble. Did you tell Cassius what was going on?” Nova asks, and I nod in confirmation. “Yeah, I thought so as my man was going into protective mode.”

  “Hey ladies, are you all in here or is anyone still outside?” Gunner asks as he comes through the corridor from outside.

  “We all in, why?” Brielle asks

  “Lock down, Wulf just phoned with the order.” He mutters as he hurries towards the computer room.

  “Of course, Wulf would overreact.” Nova says as she goes to sit under a beautiful tree in the middle of the courtyard.

  “What does he mean lockdown?” I ask curiously

  “Exactly as it sounds,” Brielle explains just as I hear a grinding sound, “They are locking us in, and the bad guys out.”

  “What? Are we going to be locked in here until they get back?” I gasp

  “Pretty much, next time think before you tell your man all the information.” Nova says with a pout, “they tend to exaggerate.” Wow, I never thought men would go to this degree to keep their families safe, and even though I find it overmuch, a warm feeling fills me when I think of how protective they are being.

  CASSIUS 11

  We’ve been riding for just over an hour when we all pull over to fill up the bikes, getting off my iron horse to go stretch my legs Draco calls me back and I notice that all the guys are together. Approaching I see his scowl, not good, that means that something has upset him.

  “Listen up, we have a tail” he snaps, “they’ve been following us for the last couple of miles.” I tense, I’ve been so distracted thinking about Scarlett and our talk yesterday that I wasn’t paying attention. “I want you guys to fill up and then, Burkhart, Brandr, Wulf and Cassius you take the lead. The rest of us will follow ten minutes later.”

  We nod in confirmation and make our way to do his bidding, as soon as our bikes are topped we take off leaving the others behind. We’re a couple of miles out when a truck comes out of nowhere; shooting past an intersection it drives straight towards us. I’m taking the rear therefore the easiest for them to take out. I twist my throttle and push the bike to its limit; the truck just misses my back tyre by a breath.

  “Son of a bitch” I mutter, as I rev after the others.

  “What happened?” Draco asks through the coms.

  “Some asshole in a truck just tried to take Cassius out, he shot right through the intersection. Well look at that, the fucker is after us and catching up fast.” Wulf warns, looking in my review mirror I see him approaching.

  “Burkhart, I’ll spill his petrol if you ignite it.” I suggest

  “Yeah, now you talking” I see Burkhart drop back until he’s riding next to me, holding the bike with one hand I twist slightly and motion with my hand in an anticlockwise motion and then flick, soon we see liquid dripping from below the truck.

  “Now” I yell as I look forward and take charge of the bike with both hands as Burkhart twists with a smile on his face.

  “Goodbye assholes.” He mutters as he flicks his wrist, suddenly there is a blaze under the truck and then there is smoke bellowing, we see the doors to the truck open and two men jump out just as the truck blows up in flames.

  “You think they made it?” I ask as I look back in my rear view mirror.

  “If they did, they might have crisp skin.” Brandr teases

  “We’re not far, we’ll check. If they alive we’ll take them with us in the SUV.” Draco states,

  “Great, smell of barbecue the whole way.” Bjarni quips as he’s driving the SUV down. Trust Bjarni to think of food in a situation like this. A few minutes later I hear the guys in the other group grumbling, apparently there’s a cop car at the scene. Strange how it got there so fast, but in case they’re legit our guys drive past without stopping. We don’t want to pull attention to ourselves and have the cops looking into what we doing.

  A couple of hours later we pull up at the hotel we’re supposed to be staying, Alexey asked that we stay at this hotel for the evening before collecting the weapons tomorrow. Draco being the strategist
that he is and not trusting the situation has us separated. Our group stays at this five star hotel, requested by Alexey and the other four are staying somewhere else close by.

  “Let’s go to our rooms, we meeting the others in an hour, be ready to go.” Wulf orders as he strides away. Looking down at my room key I see I’m in room three hundred and twenty one. Moving towards the lifts I make my way up to my floor. Looking around I make sure I know where the exit points are before entering my room.

  “Wow,” this is definitely the best place we’ve stayed in when on a run. The room is huge with a flat screen on the wall; the bed must be a king size and its calling my name. Moving towards the bed I drop my haversack on the floor and flop onto the mattress, that promises a good night sleep.

  Pulling out my phone I call my woman’s number, the entire ride no matter how much I tried to push her to the back of my mind she kept on creeping back.

  “Hello” she sounds distracted as she answers the phone.

  “Baby, how you’re doing?” I know that by now she’s more than likely already feeling my absence, as I’m feeling hers. I’ll make sure to phone her every couple of hours to keep the separation to a minimum.

  “Cassius, have you arrived wherever you were going?” I can hear the smile in her voice when she hears my voice.

  “Yeah about ten minutes ago, what have you been up to?”

  “Well, we’ve all been helping Aria with her gardening. Then I saw the guy that was in the infirmary one day I woke up, was just chatting to him a few minutes ago.” I thought she’d already met all the guys when we were at the bar. It can only be Caelius as he was the last to arrive with Brandr, maybe she didn’t notice him with all the arguing going on.

  “Oh, Caelius?” I confirm

  “No, Sven. I was just introducing myself and trying to find out more about him.” She says in a stilted voice that instantly puts me on alert, and what the fuck was Sven doing in the infirmary when my woman was there. He shouldn’t even be anywhere near the interior of the compound.

  “Why the hell was Sven in the infirmary when you were there?” I ask, maybe she knows.

  “Well that’s what I was trying to find out as the other women say he’s not supposed to be at the back, and he did lie to me at the time when I caught him.” Now my senses are on high alert, fuck the women are playing at detectives again. That can only be dangerous.

  “I don’t like this, I don’t want you to . . .” I start but she interrupts me as she continues to explain.

  “We didn’t talk long, just introduced ourselves and I asked what he did. He said he was a prospect, and that he did basically whatever you guys asked him to.” I reveal, “I quipped that it must be irritating being ordered around all the time, and he answered that it wasn’t too bad.”

  “All good then, stay away from him I will ask him what he was doing in the infirmary when I get back.”

  “No, you don’t understand. The answers were fine, nothing wrong with them but he was lying. In the last question his truth was that they will pay.” At her answer my anger rises, is it possible that Sven is the mole? But how is it possible, Celmund has checked out all his records and Aria would have surely heard him thinking about something by now.

  “Cassius?” Scarlett calls

  “Stay away from him, I will find out what is going on when I get back.” I order, we need to do something because knowing the women, they most probably planning an intervention. “I should be back tomorrow night sometime or the next day in the morning. Be good until then.”

  “Okay, are you going to be safe?” at her question my heart tightens, there is no way I would tell her about the close call I had today. The worry in her voice warms me, knowing that my woman cares if I get hurt.

  “Yeah baby, I’m safe.” I murmur, just then theirs a knock on the door. “I have to go, will phone you again later.” I pull out my gun from the waste at the back of my jeans and head towards the door.

  “Yeah?” I ask

  “Open up fucker.” Opening the door I see Burkhart and Brandr standing outside.

  “What? You didn’t like your rooms?” I ask as they push past me.

  “Naa, too fancy for my liking.” Brandr says as he sits on a chair near my mini bar.

  “We might have a problem.” I say before they can talk. I see both of them tense as they turn towards me. “I just spoke to Scarlett . . .” I tell them everything that Scarlett told me and see their anger rise as their bodies tense.

  “Son of a bitch, if he’s the fucking rat I’m going to skin him.” Burkhart promises

  “I just spoke to Aria, she didn’t say anything. Darn women, they most probably thinking of ways to get answers out of him.” Brandr says angrily, “We need to tell the others, but I think first we tell Wulf and let him convey this to Draco.” Brandr suggests.

  Picking up my phone from where I dropped it on the bed I send Wulf a text asking him to come to my room. A few minutes later there’s a knock, opening the door Wulf stalks in, “this better be good, I’m tired and I’m not up for your shit.” Burkhart doesn’t give any of us a chance to bring up the subject, he relates everything I had said to him. Wulf stands there his eyes an ungodly amethyst colour as Burkhart finishes talking.

  Pulling out his cell he dials the compound, a minute later his talking. “Gunner, lock it down. I want all the women safe inside.” He states, “Draco will update you later.” With that he disconnects the call.

  “How could we have missed this?” he asks as he looks around at the three of us. “Draco is going to flip his shit.” He states as he types a message on his phone.

  “We can’t let him know that we’re onto him or he will bolt, we need to keep our cool.” Brandr says as he massages his neck. Wulf’s phone starts to ring; he connects the call putting it on speaker phone.

  “What’s up?” Draco asks

  “Are you with the others?” Wulf asks

  “Yeah, we’ve just arrived.” He updates

  “Put your phone on speaker so they can also hear this.” Wulf relates, I hear Draco call out to the guys a minute later he gives the go ahead. Wulf relates what we found out to the others hearing them swear in anger. “I’ve called a lock down, but haven’t said anything to the guys.” Wulf finishes.

  “I’ll handle it. Meeting with Alexey has been delayed; we’ll meet in the next two hours.” He says before he disconnects.

  “You heard him, will meet you downstairs in ninety minutes.” Wulf says as he leaves. I look around and see that Brandr is leaning back on his chair with his feet stretched out and Burkhart is leaning against the wall next to the floor to ceiling window as if he’s there to stay.

  “Guess you two aren’t planning on leaving too?” I ask sarcastically as I sit on the bed.

  “Nope, we want to talk.” Burkhart says

  “We want to know how you doing after your bonding?” great, now I’m going to be psychoanalysed by two nuts.

  “I’m doing great.” I state as I lean back against the headboard and stretch out my feet.

  “You’ve been out of your game today, that doesn’t say much for doing great.” Brandr says as he leans forward and places his arms on his knees.

  “What do you guys want me to say?” I grunt, “That I woke up this morning and was strangling Scarlett in my sleep.” Fuck, I didn’t mean to blurt that out. I see them looking at me in shock, I bet they didn’t expect that. “Listen, just forget about it okay.”

  “Not a chance” Burkhart grunts, “we’re brothers, which means we here for each other.”

  “I know taking on a mate is overwhelming, sometimes I still wonder what the fuck I’m doing.” Brandr says, “But even with everything Aria calms my ass, she accepts me and I would never go back to the sorry asshole that I was before meeting her.”

  “What we trying to say is, we know you’ve been through some heavy shit.” Burkhart says as he steps forward, “but you need to let the past go brother and embrace the future. Scarlett needs you, and you
need her. Trust in each other and let your bond work to save both of you.”

  “I’m going to hurt her, she calms me but I still feel the rage wanting to burst through. The craving hasn’t diminished just intensified when it comes to her. When I tasted her blood for the first time it was like a drug that pulled me in.” I confess

  “Well, I can tell you I don’t see you ever hurting your mate. It’s ingrained into our DNA, we don’t harm them, and we’ve seen you around her, your fear is useless.” Brandr states

  “What about what happened this morning, if I hadn’t woken up she would be dead.” I mumble

  “But you did wake up, and I believe that once you get used to her sleeping with you that shit will end.” Burkhart answers, “You’ve screwed a lot of women but I’ve never known you to spend the night with one. I bet you it won’t happen again, but we can ask Celmund to switch the cameras on in your room after you guys are asleep and make sure that you don’t harm her.”

  “No fucking way” I grunt angrily, there is no way I will allow anyone to see Scarlett undressed.

  “You see, that just proves that you know you won’t hurt her. Otherwise you would do anything to keep her safe.” Brandr states as he stands. “Just know that we’re here for you, no matter what.” With that he makes his way towards the door but stops when he notices that Burkhart is still standing where he was. “Are you coming?” he asks as he looks back at him.

  “Later.” Brandr nods and leaves.

  “I’m going to tell you something that only Brandr knows, no one else.” Burkhart says as he walks towards the chair and sits. “You know how out of control I went when my sister was killed.” He says not looking directly at me. “I’ve been looking for the fuckers that hurt her ever since it happened.”

  “I know.” I murmur

  “What you don’t know is that a few years ago I found one of them.” I know my eyes widen as I never expected him to say that. “He’s still alive, but I have him incarcerated where only I know where he is. Every chance I have I go there and make him suffer, make him beg for his life, but there will be no forgiveness.” His voice is hoarse as he recounts his story. “I know that I should just end his miserable life and get it over with, but I can’t. The hate that course through my veins doesn’t let me, and when I find the other it will be the same.” He promises