CHAPTER 35
“Got anything new?” was the first thing Shane uttered when he walked into the war room with Ally at his side.
The roar of activity dulled. Shane handed Ally’s camera over to Chase, who blurted, “Man, she looks just like Graham.”
“Cece’s not answering her phone,” Dex said from behind him.
Shane whirled around and stared at Dex for a minute. The guy looked wrecked. So wrecked Shane couldn’t go there. He steeled his heart, absolutely steeled himself. “Ally, keep trying her. Maybe she’s screening.”
Ally nodded and pulled out her phone.
Nick reached past her to hand Shane some papers. “Made copies of James Peterson’s file. Hey, Ally, girl.” He held out his hand; she stared at it for a minute and gave him a shake, her eyes not meeting his.
Shane dropped the folder on the desk next to Chase and opened it to reveal a series of pictures of James and Cecily dressed up on the town somewhere, probably in Minneapolis. Under that “happy times” picture were pictures of James solo, James with a gun, James in clothes looking decidedly un-bankerlike with a decidedly un-bankerlike attitude, and more. “Cecily’s in trouble.”
“Roth’s all over it. Nice piece of glue, Ally,” Flynn said, pointing to the photos of James now open on Chase’s screen. Ally backed up to the wall, phone to her ear, free hand pressed against her chest. She managed a flick of the corner of her mouth and then looked away.
One by one, the rest of the guys entered the room. Nobody took a seat.
Rothgar entered with a copy of the same folder, and his eyes immediately found Ally against the wall. She stared defiantly back at him. “Glad to have you safe,” Roth said. Ally’s stony expression didn’t change.
Time was standing way too still. “Roth,” Shane said. “He’s got my woman.”
“She answering, Ally?” Dex asked, even though the answer was obvious.
Ally shook her head.
Shane let out a breath. “Gonna find her, Dex. You know this. You fucking know this.”
Dex looked gratefully at him and then reached out with his fist. Shane tapped it with his own, and they looked back to Rothgar.
The boss leaned against the edge of the table and pulled a photo from the printer.
Details and data from different jobs covered different parts of the walls in the room; he moved to the wall they kept for the sleeper agent mission. It was already covered with photographs, clippings, and notes. Roth added the pockmarked henchman to the wall next to James. “Freelancer. Russian-born. Been in this country for years. Same guy who chased Shane earlier this month. Same guy who tried to muscle Chase and Flynn as well.”
He then walked to the wall covered with data from the sleeper agent job they’d been working on earlier in the day and stuck two more pictures up: the one Shane had taken of James and Anya in the restaurant, and a different one of James in a bar doing shots of vodka with a younger, blonde Anya Gorchakov and another couple, unknown.
Shane remembered the memory stick he’d picked up from Nick and handed it to Roth. “From this morning,” he murmured.
Rothgar nodded and pocketed the stick. “Talked to my contact in the government. Asked for more color on James. We already know James is a handler for Russian agents. Contact confirmed he’s also a climber looking to move up with his Russian bosses. His sleeper agents get outed, he’s fucked. So, he finds out the Hudson Kings have a contract to go after his stable. If we’re successful, he looks bad. He’s got to cut us off at the knees, find out what we know, and change the game. Figures he can do this when he finds out our newest team member has a cute little sister. James puts on a show for Cecily, hoping to get intel on the Hudson Kings. Pillow talk and all that. Keeps her in Minnesota to isolate and dominate, while he pretends to be going back and forth to New York for an investment banking job.”
Shane made a sound, loud and angry enough for one of the brothers to squeeze his shoulder.
“Apparently didn’t have the patience to keep up the facade of ‘loving boyfriend.’ She shook him, and Shane went to pick her up.” Roth gestured with his chin to Dex. “Dex says he never told Cecily about the Hudson Kings while she was with James, but at the moment, that’s irrelevant. Because James either figured she was still his best shot if he could convince her he was a changed man—or he’s figured out she’s deep with the Hudson Kings now and is more valuable than ever. Either way . . .”
Rothgar tapered off, clearly not wanting to vocalize the obvious: Cecily was in the hands of a Russian operative, a man who would not hesitate to kill her if he decided she was worthless. A man who would not hesitate to try to wring information out of a vulnerable, untrained woman if he thought it would help his own crumbling situation.
Cold dread threatened to swamp Shane’s ability to think. “What’s our last data point on Cecily?” Shane said, forcing himself to think of this as just another problem to solve, another mission to plan. If he let it get personal in his mind, he was not going to get through this in one piece.
“Still not answering her phone,” Dex said, his voice robotic, his eyes staring straight ahead.
“I saw her before work,” Ally said, coming forward. “She was going to class. I think she ends at two thirty. I don’t know if she had plans after. Haven’t seen her since morning coffee, and she didn’t call, although I didn’t necessarily expect her to. When James came to me, I don’t know if he’d already talked to her or not.”
The door opened; Missy bustled in with a bunch of printouts, which she held out to Rothgar along with a cell phone. “O’Neill,” she said, her eyes big. Rothgar hesitated. “Sixth Ward,” she said urgently. It was pretty unusual for Rothgar and O’Neill to coordinate on anything. Rothgar took the phone, and then Missy saw Ally behind him and froze.
The room went silent.
Missy looked at Allison, Allison looked at Missy, and then Ally broke the moment and stared down at her phone like Missy wasn’t even there. “It just keeps going to voice mail,” she said hoarsely.
Missy blinked and turned to the computer.
Shane speed-dialed Cecily on his own phone for what seemed like the thousandth time. No dice. That look on Dex’s face was a look he was pretty sure was breaking through on his own face.
“Don’t like it,” Shane murmured. “Don’t like it.”
Rothgar took the call at the back of the room. Shane watched his face. Jaysus. If he was talking seriously to the Sixth Ward, he was putting his big guns in the game. No small thing to ask O’Neill for a favor.
When Rothgar came back, he took a moment, staring down at the papers and files and photos scattered across the desk. “Good news is she’s not missing,” Rothgar said grimly. “Courtesy of O’Neill, we know he’s got her. We can’t be sure what his plans are, or if he’s inclined to hurt her.”
Pure dread moved down Shane’s spine. Rothgar put up a hand before he could speak and added, “We know he was willing to hit her once, and that was when he still thought she was on his side. So let’s get a plan together and get her back.”
“You have to give O’Neill a marker for that?” Shane asked.
“Yep,” Rothgar said.
Respect.
The two men stood toe-to-toe. Shane could feel the blood pounding in his veins. “Where is she?” he asked quietly.
Rothgar eyed him. “We work as fast as we can to still work smart. So, first thing is let’s create a plan . . . and then you’ve got to respect the team plan. If Dex can do it, you can too.”
Shane looked over at Dex, whose good knee was compulsively bouncing up and down. Cecily’s brother was beyond pissed, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he started pulling up on the screen closed-circuit security cameras pointing all over Manhattan. “Need coordinates,” he muttered.
“Where is she, Roth?” Shane repeated in a measured voice. Contain yourself. Gotta contain it until you get her back.
“I’m gonna ask you to respect the team plan.”
Closest he’d ever come to punching Roth square in the face, and he still wasn’t sure he’d avoid it. Shane pressed his fingers into his temples. “We know where she is, we know who’s got her, then which one of us is helping her if I’m sitting on my ass respecting the team plan?”
“I called Geo after I talked to the Sixth. Geo’s tracking her down in the field, courtesy of their intel.”
“I see,” Shane said carefully. “Geo’s in the field.”
“You don’t have a clear head.”
“I’m clear.”
Rothgar folded his arms over his chest and looked at the ground for a minute, before he raised his gaze back to Shane’s face. “Are you part of this team? Do you want to keep being part of this team?”
Shane felt like he was breaking apart inside. Contain, man.
“You’re in love with this girl, brother. Gone for her. We’ve got plenty of reasons to get Cecily away from James, but I don’t even need more than the two sitting in this room. We’re on it, and we’re getting a plan together. The best way to put that plan in motion is probably to send you and Dex to his room to hold hands so you don’t fuck things up. Since I’m feeling generous, why don’t you hang out here in the war room.”
“Roth,” Shane said, doing a shit job of keeping emotion out of his voice. “I need to be in my car.”
Rothgar stared into his eyes. Unmoved.
“I need to be in my car, Roth. Wheels to the ground. Cecily coming up in my sights. I need this more than I’ve ever needed anything in my life. I’m asking you to do this service for me, brother. I’ve been loyal to you. I’ll always be loyal to you. Don’t bench me.”
Rothgar stared at Shane some more. Then he looked around the room, pausing at Allison’s face, his own devoid of expression. Then he looked around the room some more and stopped at Missy.
They just looked at each other, and then she tipped her head just slightly to the side. And he read whatever the fuck she’d meant by that and finally came back to Shane. He shook his head, the toe of his boot working against the ground.
Shane felt the urge to yell at the top of his lungs. Instead, he pressed his palms together as if in prayer. Every second was a second that Cecily was in danger. Rothgar was the best. He had to know what he was doing. But, for fuck’s sake, could he just do it already.
And then Rothgar said, “Missy goes with you, Shane.”
Everybody in the room, Missy included, looked at Rothgar liked he’d gone bat-shit crazy.
Jaysus. In for a penny, in for a pound? “I don’t want her in danger too.”
“Then her being present should keep you from doing anything stupid,” he said tightly. “I’ll expect regular check-ins. Dex is watching the screen. Geo’s already in the field. Flynn stands by in the room, here. Chase is on deck for any support we need outside.” Roth turned to Chase. “Get your bike out front and your leathers on in case we need something more nimble than a car.”
He turned to the room at large. “Team plan: Ransom to get her back, full arsenal if that doesn’t work. Deets to follow.”
Shane looked at Missy. “Put your body armor on, grab a weapon, and meet me in the garage.”
She stared at him. And then at Rothgar. “You’re letting me go on the front line?”
Rothgar looked blasé. “You got a problem with that?”
“No!” Missy’s eyes were huge.
“Call in from your vehicles. I’ll be in touch with details. Now let’s get this job done,” Roth said with a nod to Shane, who nodded back. They bumped fists and everyone scattered.
Roth pulled something from a desk drawer and tossed it to Ally, who managed to catch it.
“Shane,” Dex called from the computer bank. “My fucking leg.”
“I know. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
He shook his head, that despair threatening to pull him under. He looked back at Shane and said, “Safe. Get her home safe, yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Shane. He lifted his chin to Dex and saw Ally staring in confusion at the box of Band-Aids Roth had thrown over. After a moment, she looked down and realized some blister on her foot was bleeding on her silver stiletto.
Shane let the door close behind him. Rothgar never did miss a thing. Hopefully, that included Cecily.