19. CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 19

Atlas

GODDAMNIT! Slamming the door shut, I pounded my fists against it. The storm was raging outside, and the metal of the warehouse just made it sound even louder. No one would have been able to hear what had just happened—that I had just realized that I had been sleeping with my enemy. My head was spinning with rage. I rested my forehead on the door, trying to calm and collect myself.

“Fuck.” I yelled, punching the door one more time before shoving myself away from it and turning to head back down the hallway. I couldn’t feel my knuckles anymore, but I didn’t care. I had to figure out what I was going to do with Chyler. Was I going to confront her, avoid her, or turn her in? I ran my hands through my hair and tugged at the strands in frustration.

I tried reflecting on every interaction we had for signs that this was who she was. But I was coming up empty. Nothing she ever said or did even hinted that she was… this. FUCK !

This means that she was the one who tortured and killed Tyler Florentine and all of those other employees. The body count was hers—maybe not hers alone, but she seemed to play the bigger role in it, seeing as she was the only one here tonight.

My side burned, and I reached my hand back around to touch it, remembering that she had thrown her knife at me before she ran, and it sliced through my side. A memory popped into my head as I put pressure on the wound—the kitchen.

The morning when I had snuck out before dawn to bring her breakfast, I came up behind her. I had startled her, and with the fastest reflexes I had ever seen, she had a knife to my throat, a single breath from breaking the skin. I didn’t question it when she said it was from self-defense classes, but now that I am really thinking about it, what kind of classes would teach you how to use a knife like that?

The pieces were falling into place, but not enough to paint a full picture. There were still so many holes that needed to be filled. Was she using me? Does she know that I work for the CIA? No, she couldn’t… Because if she knew, then she wouldn’t have been so easily caught, and she didn’t seem like she had planned for me to see her tonight. If I am not mistaken, she seemed shocked that I was even here.

This whole situation was fucked. I need to get back to the others; I will have to deal with her after I deal with the mess she left behind. I need to cover up her tracks .

Stepping out from the shadows, I approached Derek, who was still gagging at the lifeless and blood-soaked body of Michael August.

“Did you get them?” He looked up at me. I had zero patience at this point. After finding out that Chyler was the one doing this, my sanity was hanging on by a single thread. Part of me wanted to run to her; the other wanted to kill her.

“Does it look like I fucking got them?” I held my hands out wide, emphasizing that they were empty and no one came back down the hall with me.

I ran my hands through my hair again and stopped next to Derek, looking down at the mangled body and pulling out my phone. No messages from her; I don’t know why I thought she would reach out to me after this. Why, I was hoping that she would try to. I had fallen for her—the sucker that I am, she had me wrapped around her finger, and I would have done anything for her—and then she had to go and fuck everything up.

“Call clean up and get Marcus and Dean in here.” I scanned the room and caught a red light blinking above the door we stormed in through. I pointed at it with my phone. “And get someone to hack that camera and get whatever video they can from it. Now.” Every word was a demand. I bit my cheek, looking back down at my phone again.

“I’m on it.” Derek patted my shoulder as he pulled out his phone, making his first call to Marcus and then to Dean. We needed them here to search for any additional evidence that was left behind .

We spent about an hour checking every room and hall in this building, waiting for clean-up to arrive. Dean came running in from his exterior search with a small black bag in his hand.

“I searched the SUV they were driving across the street, and inside was this.” He handed me the black bag, and I opened it, dumping the contents onto the floor. A small vial of sedative rolled along the floor. They must have sedated Michael in the SUV when they picked him up from the airport. I dropped the bag to the floor and ran a hand over my face.

I couldn’t believe Chyler was capable of this. My Chyler was capable of this. I had fallen in love with the enemy I had been chasing for months. I am not supposed to still love her after this, but all I can think about is running to her and holding her in my arms. Protecting her.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

“Did anyone get into the cameras yet?” I asked with a deep sigh. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get to Chyler’s apartment, and hopefully before she got there first.

With the fear that I saw in her eyes, I had a good idea that would not be the first place she would have gone to, but she would show up there eventually, and when she did, I would be there when she opened the door.

This wasn’t over between us. I wasn’t done with her.

“Nothing yet, but they did break through the security on it. I’m sure they will be able to recover some, if not all, of the video for tonight.” Marcus stuffed his phone and his hands into his pockets with a shrug. I have no idea how he is so calm right now, with a dead Michael August two feet away from him.

I sucked at my teeth, staring down at the body of Michael. The longer I stared, the more I struggled to believe that Chyler could do something like this. How could a woman so beautiful and perfect be so vicious and unhinged? I pushed his shoulder with my boot, and his body rolled to his back. I noticed the word ‘rat’ carved into his chest. I hissed out a curse and heard the guys behind me do the same.

“Think they got the information they wanted from him?” Derek stepped up behind me and shook his head at the mutilated flesh.

My phone went off, and I pulled it out, checking the notification and message preview before shoving it back into my pocket.

“I think they did, and we caught them while they were getting ready to clean up their mess.” Crossing my arms, I rubbed the back of my thumb along my bottom lip. I kept impatiently looking at the time on my phone. I needed to get to the apartment soon before it was too late, and I missed her.

I heard the loud bang of a cart and turned to the door, seeing that clean-up had arrived. They were wheeling a large container in with all of their supplies. Marcus pulled out his phone and immediately moved towards us.

“They got the video. We need to get back to the office; they are sending the file over now.”

With a single nod, I followed Marcus and Dean to the exit, Derek not far behind me. We had seen everything we needed to here. Hopefully, the video the tech team pulled will have the rest of our answers.

We pulled up to the office, and Derek, Marcus, and I stepped out while Dean went to park the car. We took the elevators to the fifth floor and headed straight to the briefing room. Once inside, Marcus connected his laptop to the TV screen and pulled up the video that he had been sent from the warehouse. We all sat down, and once Dean had made it into the room, Marcus hit play.

The tech team couldn’t pull any audio from the feed, so we only had the video. I could only imagine how disturbing it would have been to have the audio along with it.

The recording started from when Chyler pulled the hood from Michael’s head and ended shortly after I had knocked her away from his body. There was so much blood, and you could see the frustration in her movements when he fought back with her.

She was aggressive, and for some strange reason, I found myself getting hard from watching her. She was incredible. A vicious woman out for a kill. My vicious woman.

Marcus cursed when we reached the part where she carved the word ‘rat’ into his chest.

“The fuck kind of person does this?” He gestured his hand to the TV, not taking his eyes off it.

“Most likely someone who has no soul or concept of humanity.” Derek signed and hung his head in his hands. “Without the audio, we won’t get anything more out of this video. We know what they did to him; we saw the body. This is just… we don’t need to review this.” He reached across the table and pressed the space bar on Marcus’s laptop to stop the video. We all sat in silence around the table, each of us in our own thoughts of the situation.

“They got the information they were looking for,” I said, breaking the silence between us, and they all turned to face me.

“How do you know that?” Derek asked, bringing his gaze up from his hands.

I knew more than I was telling them, but instead, I just shrugged like it was obvious, and I pointed to the paused video on the TV.

“I don’t believe they kill their victims quickly unless they get the information they need from them. Based on how long and how much they tortured him—he put up a fight, and they fought right along with him. They could have tortured him until he had no skin left and then gone even further. Whatever information he gave them, they wanted it desperately, and they weren’t going to risk killing him without getting it out of him first.”

“If that’s true, then what do you think the information was?”

I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and blew out a long breath. I already knew what information they got from Michael, and we would know the same information if this video had the audio to accompany it.

“Atwater,” I said and looked at all of them. Michael was the only one who would have even the slightest clue where Atwater was hiding out. He would have needed to communicate closely with him to continue progress on Ataraxia while also remaining off the grid. They wouldn’t sit on this information long; they were probably already on their way to grab him right now from wherever he was .

With that realization, I stood and made a beeline out the door.

“Where are you going?” Derek followed me.

Fuck.

I need to get out of here; I’ve wasted too much time already.

“I need to get cleaned up and sleep if we are going to continue this.” I held up my arm to show the blood soaking through my shirt and the tear that gave a glimpse of the cut from the knife. It wasn’t a deep cut, but I needed to give him a reason to let me get the hell out of here without further questioning.

“I’ll keep you updated.” Derek nodded when he saw the cut and rubbed his forehead.

“You should get some sleep, too, Derek. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.” I added.

I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.

I wasn’t going home. I was going to her, and I still had no idea what I was going to do once I had her in front of me.