They all stared at me strangely, but it was Seth who finally walked over. “We just need to grab a few things. After that, we can get you out of here.”

  “I can take the stairs,” I said numbly, just wanting to get away from them.

  They all exchanged looks, then stared at me again. “It’s best if you come with us,” one of them said. “If something happened to you, no one would know it.”

  I didn’t want to go with, but it didn’t seem like they were giving me a choice. I swallowed hard and shoved to my feet. If I complied, I should be fine. And Seth seemed to genuinely care about me in some way, so as long as I stuck by him, I should be fine.

  The leader walked down the hall, leaving us all to follow. They went to a research lab, opening the doors with no problem since the power was out. Seth stayed with me outside while the others went in. I studied his badge a little more closely now that he was holding a flashlight. It looked exactly like mine.

  “You said you work in the Chicago office?”

  “Research division,” he clarified. “We came specifically to pick up a project, but our flight arrived later than expected, and we’re supposed to return on the midnight flight,” he said smoothly.

  I nodded and glanced to the window at the end of the hall. That’s when I noticed the whole city was dark. It wasn’t just our building. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere. Look,” I pointed outside.

  He looked out the window and cursed. “Well, that’s going to make it difficult to leave.”

  “What will you do?” I asked.

  He thought about it a moment. “Maybe drive to another city. Whatever caused this blackout, I have no idea how long it will take for them to restore power. And our project is time sensitive.”

  I nodded, feeling more at ease by the moment. Maybe I had them all wrong. If they were working on a time sensitive project, it could be that it was classified, and they were worried about me knowing. I wouldn’t say a word. I wasn’t about to draw more attention to myself.

  “Well, I hope you’re able to get what you need.”

  The other men returned a moment later and we moved down the hall to another door. This one didn’t have any signs indicating what was stored inside. Again, I waited with Seth in the hallway.

  “I’m assuming you’ll go home after this,” he said casually.

  “Yeah, there’s no point in me staying to work when the power’s out.”

  “Do you live far from here?”

  I looked at him warily. I didn’t know him, even if I did feel comfortable with him, and I wouldn’t be giving up that information.

  “I’m only asking because it’ll be hard to get a ride at this time of night with the city shut down.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said stiffly, though the idea of walking alone at night sent shivers down my spine.

  The men returned again and the leader jerked his head to the stairwell. I followed behind them, unsure of what else to do. I briefly thought that maybe I should report this in the morning, but I wasn’t even sure if anyone would be in tomorrow. With the whole city dark, it was unlikely they would get power restored in just a few hours.

  Once we reached the lobby, my fight or flight instincts kicked into high gear. Something seemed very wrong, but what was I going to do against five men? Even if what Seth said was correct, I didn’t want to be around them any longer than I had to be.

  “Thank you for helping me out of the elevator,” I said to Seth.

  “No problem. You’re sure you can make it home safe?”

  “Yes,” I said confidently, though I was feeling anything but. I just wanted to get away from it all.

  We all walked out of the building together, but when they turned right, I turned left. Unease trickled down my spine with every step I took. I forced myself not to look over my shoulder. I listened intently for any sounds of footsteps behind me, but didn’t hear a thing. When I got to the end of the block, I turned the corner and then quickly pressed myself against the building. Peeking around the corner, I saw the men get in a car and drive off. I slumped against the building in relief. I had worked myself up for nothing. They were gone, and I would go home and forget this night ever happened.

  17

  CASH

  “You need a shower as soon as we get inside,” Lock ordered Scottie.

  He sighed loudly, as if he was irritated with all of us. “You know, you’re all acting like I didn’t just save your asses from a massive explosion.”

  I strode ahead of them to the door. I wanted to get inside before our guests showed up, and they were pulling in right now. “Everyone inside. You don’t say a word to our new friends. Scottie, go take a fucking shower. None of us need to smell that.”

  “You know, a simple thank you would be nice. After all, I did just—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got it. You saved our asses from hell and brimstone.”

  Scottie huffed as he turned away from us. “That’s all I’m saying,” he said over his shoulder. “It would be nice to be acknowledged for my sacrifice.”

  The generators were running, but only necessary systems were running. We couldn’t risk draining all the power by firing up everything we would need to do a proper investigation into the clusterfuck that just happened. Rubbing my hand over my face, I reorganized my thoughts. “Is Grady on lockdown?”

  “Put him in the cellar, boss,” Edu answered.

  “Good. Go get your head checked out.”

  His dark skin paled as he stared at me. “You’re sending me to the hospital?”

  He actually sounded offended that I would suggest he take care of himself. “You got hit in the head with a metal canister and you were out cold for way too fucking long. Yeah, I’m saying go get fucking checked out.”

  “But…Lock’s here.”

  “Yes, and he’s a medic. You need a fucking doctor.”

  Edu straightened, standing taller. “No, I refuse medical treatment.”

  “Edu, it’s a fucking checkup—”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “And if you fall over?”

  He shrugged, looking away. “Then I guess it’s my fucking fault.”

  I glanced at Lock, wondering if he knew more than me. He shook his head, telling me not to push it. “Fine, go with Lock and get checked out.” The door opened and the ABC men strode in as if they owned the place. “Rock, make our guests comfortable in the conference room. Make sure they don’t touch anything.”

  They all dispersed while I went in search of Rae. She was in the IT room as expected, laying under the desk. It wasn’t something I had seen before, but these were strange times.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get some extra power to the system. Do you know how hard it is to use only one computer?”

  I quirked an eyebrow at her in the dim light. “Do you know how hard it would be for me to even attempt to use two computers at once?”

  She slid out from under the desk, brushing herself off as she stood. “What do you need from me?”

  “I have some guests with me.”

  “Guests, good? Or guests that you’re going to beat up?”

  “A little of both,” I grinned. “And we’ll have to see how the rest of the day goes.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “A background check on everyone that walks through that door. Except Rafe,” I added quickly.

  “Rafe?”

  “Tall guy in charge. Trust me, you’ll know him when you meet him.”

  She looked at me inquisitively, already smelling trouble. “And why am I not running background on him?”

  “Because I already know him, and that information stays with me.”

  Amusement filled her gaze, along with a hint of curiosity. “Anything you say, boss. But how do you want me to get that information? I don’t exactly have a lot to run on right now. And with the power outage, who knows how long it will take to get up and running again.”

  “For now, I want you to join us in the conference room and do your thing.”

  She nodded, understanding what I wasn’t saying. Rae had a bit of a gift, one that we all possessed on some level, but Rae was fucking great at it. She read people like a book, picked up on their ticks, and could almost always tell when they were lying.

  “Without technology to help us out at the moment, we’re going to have to do things the old fashioned way.”

  “Pens and paper. Got it, boss.”

  I stopped by my office and walked over to my wall safe, pulling out my pen. It was actually a recording device, something I didn’t think I’d ever have to use with today’s technology, but now would come in very handy. I grabbed another magazine, emptying the one loaded in my gun. This shutdown left me feeling unprepared, so I was going into that conference room loaded with anything to make me feel more at ease. The only thing left for me to do was take Sally in with me, but bringing a sniper rifle into a meeting probably wouldn’t put people at ease.

  I walked into the conference room, ready to get this meeting over with. I smirked as my guys all lounged around the table, not leaving a single chair empty for the newcomers. I took the head chair, sitting down to face my teams.

  “As you all know, we picked up some ABCs at the hangar. For now,” I said, looking pointedly at their leader, “we’re working together to figure out if Grady’s target was only the substation, or if he had a bigger plot in mind. Rafe, care to fill us in on what you know?”

  The tall asshole at the center of the pack stepped forward. Still wearing his mask and all his gear, he looked like he was prepared to go to battle. “We’ve had our eye on Grady for some time now. Various intel suggests that he’s not the mastermind behind the operation, but the man charged with carrying out the plan.”

  “Various intel?” Slider asked. “What does that even fucking mean?”

  “It means it’s above your pay grade,” Rafe retorted.

  “It’s funny, because I thought we were working together,” Thumper answered with a smirk. “But I guess this is one of those situations when government assholes need our help, but won’t give anything in return.”

  Not only did my guys have it pegged, they were getting under Rafe’s skin. And I knew the next hit would set him off.

  “Why is it that you’re still wearing that mask?” IRIS asked. “Something you’re hiding besides every fucking government secret that would allow us to help in some sort of way instead of sitting here with our thumbs up our asses?”

  To his credit, Rafe didn’t flinch like I expected him to. He was somewhat of an enigma. He despised working for the government, but also realized that in order to have the intelligence he needed, sacrifices had to be made. He was Special Ops in the military for years, until he was recruited for special assignment from the higher ups. Somehow, he got dragged into his current position, and I knew it ate at him that he didn’t get out sooner, before they had their claws in him permanently.

  “We have a fucking terrorist in your basement, and the man he’s working for is still out there. I don’t give a fuck if you like working with me or not. You don’t like it? There’s the door. Walk out and don’t come back.” He looked around at all of us, but no one moved. “We have bigger problems right now than just this terrorist threat. We need to work with the city to restore power. As of right now, the power failure spreads along the entire west coast. It could take weeks to repair. In the meantime, the city is failing. We were lucky this occurred at night when hardly anyone was on the streets. If this had happened during the day, we would have had massive pile ups on every single road. However, we still have major issues with hospitals working on backup generators. The current standard for backup generators at a hospital is ninety-six hours. That buys us a few days, but we need to figure out a way to buy them more time. Fuel trucks to replenish the supply will be in high demand and—”

  “Hold on a minute,” I interrupted. “We have a terrorist in the basement and you want us to focus on the city?”

  “This is the current threat. My team will handle Grady—”

  “Like hell you will,” I threatened. “If it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t have gotten to him in time. We’re not stepping back. The city needs the fucking National Guard, not a security company.”

  “I think you’re misunderstanding,” he said in a low voice. “This isn’t a joint operation. Your job ended the minute you allowed Grady to put that fucking bomb on the plane.”

  “Maybe if the government shared intel, we could have prevented it from ever happening,” I snarled.

  Rafe scoffed at that. “You know I can’t share intel. It’s classified. And even if I could share it, what would you have done about it? You’re just a security company.”

  I stood, shoving my chair back along with every other person on my teams. “Just a security company, highly trained by the very government you work for,” I said through clenched teeth. “Where the fuck has keeping secrets ever gotten us?”

  “You want to talk about secrets?” he shot back. “Why don’t we tell everyone in the room how we know each other?”

  Silence filled the room as my guys all turned and looked at me, but I was still staring down Rafe. “Everyone get the fuck out, now!”

  The room cleared out so fast, it was like no one was ever there. Even his men beat feet to get away from the shitstorm brewing. Rafe walked over to me, his eyes gleaming in the dim light of the room.

  “Do you really want to go there? After all we’ve gone through to keep our connection a secret, you want to throw it all away now?”

  “I never fucking said that,” I snapped. “You knew this was happening in my city. You could have contacted me.”

  “You know I can’t do that!” he shouted. “Fuck, don’t you think I would have if I could?”

  “No, I don’t think you would have.”

  “You don’t trust me?” he said, flinching back slightly.

  “Tell me, when was the last time you gave me a reason to.”

  I watched as he tensed, his jaw ticking hard under his mask. Tensions were running so high it was suffocating. But I knew him. He wouldn’t yield. Nothing would stop him from finishing a job, not even me. It didn’t matter what my team could offer. Right now, we were shoved into the back seat, left to only help clean up the mess.

  “I’ll get in contact with the mayor’s office and fill them in on what’s happening. I’m going to request they work with your office in making sure the city is secure. I don’t have the time or manpower to take over operational control.”

  “And Grady?” I snarled.

  “I’m taking him with me. Don’t fucking try to stop me, Cash. It won’t end well for you.”

  He stomped past me out of the room. I knew I had lost that round. It didn’t matter what my team did to stop the threat, the repercussions of not succeeding just slapped us in the face.

  * * *

  I watched as Rafe and his team frogmarched Grady out of our facility. Anger welled up inside me, but there was nothing I could do. If the government came in and took over, you were basically fucked. I could go through old contacts and try to worm my way back in, but in the end, Rafe would shut me down, just like he always did.

  “Boss, are we really letting this happen?” Scottie asked.

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Then what the fuck did I risk my life for?” he scowled.

  As much as Scottie loved to jest, he really did hate flying and that took a lot for him to take control under the circumstances. Between narrowly avoiding crashing into the substation and then again when he almost flew into a building, he was lucky to be alive.

  But I was his boss, and sometimes, I had to put my men back in place. Turning to him, I became the hard ass he knew me to be. “You risked your life because it’s your fucking job. You prevented a major disaster and helped bring down Grady and his men. We might not get the win, but we sure as fuck brought them to their knees.”

  He gave a swift nod, backing down immediately. “Message received.”

  “Good.” Turning, I addressed everyone. “Rafe is tasking us with operational control for getting the city back on track over the next few weeks. As soon as we receive our orders, we’ll get in contact with the Mayor’s office. In the meantime, I want all of you working on potential problems from the power outage. Break up into teams and strategize how to best handle the situation. I want us prepared when we meet with the Mayor’s office. No doubt they’ll already have plans in place. Let’s make sure we’ve covered all angles.”

  They all nodded and started to walk away. Rae hung back, though, knowing I would want her take on recent events. I nodded toward my office, then shut the door after she walked in. I hit the lights, remembering afterward that we didn’t have the power to waste.

  “What did you get?” I asked, taking my seat behind my desk. She sat across from me as she started her account of our new enemy allies.

  “Unfortunately, none of the other asswipes said anything, so that’s a bit of a dead end. It does tell us that they follow Rafe completely. None of them showed any signs of unease around him. They’re not going to help us out in any way. Any information we want, we’re going to have to get ourselves.”

  “Can you do that?”

  She snorted in amusement. “Right now? Not a chance. I do have some contacts I can reach out to. I’m not sure they’ll be any help with this situation.”

  “Dammit,” I swore. “We need information as to what’s happening.”

  “I thought we were letting it go.”

  I shot her a funny look. “When have you ever known me to just let something go? No, we need to stay on top of this as best we can.”

  “I have some friends that might be able to help. I can’t say it would be strictly legal.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Not even a little.”

  I grinned at her. “Do it, but be careful. The last thing we need is anything to do with a terrorist threat coming back on us.”

  “And Rafe?” she asked, after giving a tight nod.

 

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