27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Xavier

I t turned out that hunting down where they'd taken Axel was easier said than done. Kade and Seth had gotten a general idea of where the new facility was, but they didn't have an actual location. It took us a couple of hours to drive out of the city with a few essentials and rent a hotel under a fake name. We paid with cash, and the second we were behind closed doors, I wanted to scream. I'd done exactly what Axel would have wanted and kept myself safe, but it wasn't what I wanted.

I wanted to find him.

I had to find him.

But no matter how much the flash drive I had seemed to be important to those assholes, it didn't have any of the information I actually needed . I would have traded the whole damn thing to them if they'd just give me Axel back, but it wasn't like I could just call them and arrange a trade.

Also, I was pretty sure if I even suggested it, Kade would kill me and break the drive out of spite.

"I know it's somewhere in the area. We've been in their systems, but not enough to pinpoint the location." Kade sounded frustrated, but I could barely concentrate. Every second I was away from him was another chance for them to hurt Axel. Every minute we were apart was a chance for them to do something that I wouldn't be able to fix, something I wouldn't be able to take back.

This wasn't just people who could hurt him, or people who could kill him. They were capable of things I didn't understand, things that would leave me looking in the face of a man I loved while another person talked to me.

I couldn't let that happen.

Which left me with no options.

"Don't you know anyone who is better at computers than you?" I hissed. Kade turned to me with a glare, advancing to close the space between us like I'd called him a name instead of asking him a question.

"Do you think I'd be sitting around doing nothing if I had a better answer? Trust me, as much as you want Axel back, I want to watch these people suffer. I'm not—"

"Uh, guys?" Seth's voice cut off whatever threat was about to come out of Kade's mouth, and his slender, tattooed arm cut between us. "Arguing isn't going to help. Though…" He turned to me, and I could see the slightest bit of threat behind his sweet expression. "Kade isn't the only one who had connections. Have you even thought about someone you could call for backup? If you had a tech guy before , it stands to reason that they're even better at it now if they're still alive." He blew out a breath and tugged on Kade's arm, pulling the larger man away from me. "Come on. You know how you were when they took me."

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hear the last bit of the murmured conversation, and I wondered exactly how many stories there were between the two of them that I would only ever hear about accidentally.

But what Seth said drew me up short, because there was someone I could call. Axel had mentioned him before, on the way home from Marshall's condo.

"Jensen."

Kade's head twisted up, one dark brow arching.

"Who?" Seth sounded curious, but Kade's laughter cut him off.

"Are you telling me you and I both died, but fucking Jenson Lark is still alive?" He sounded incredulous.

I remembered him enough to know that he was more tech savvy than capable with a weapon, and he usually ended up taking jobs that were more hands off. If anyone was prime for getting offed, it would have been him.

"I guess there's something to say for staying behind a screen instead of getting hands on in the field?" It was the only answer I had, but I was already going through the bag we'd packed before we left Axel's house.

I fished out his work phone and frowned at the screen. I'd seen him unlock his day to day phone with a fingerprint, but this just wanted numbers.

A passcode.

How was I supposed to know his fucking passcode?

"Try the date you met," Seth said offhandedly.

"That would be ridiculous."

Of course it worked. Seth really was far more suited to be friends with Axel than me.

I also hadn't realized that Axel changed the background of his work phone to a picture of me—not who I was, but me now. Lying on the dock at the lake house, before we'd fought. Before I'd stormed off.

Fuck, would we still be there if I'd just kept my mouth shut about working? But… no, that wasn't who we were.

That wasn't what our relationship was. I was honest with him, and he called me out on my shit when I needed him to.

And we always came back to each other.

We always found each other, and this wasn't going to be any different. I'd found him beyond all reason and odds after I'd died. Something as simple as him being taken captive wasn't going to stop me now.

I took a deep breath and flipped to Axel's contacts. It would have made sense for him to have everyone stored in some kind of code, on the off chance that someone caught him, took his phone, and tried to use it to bring down his client list.

Either he was more confident than I thought, or he'd just stopped caring as much. He had everyone stored under a single letter, and there were only three J's and one L in his phone.

Since the J's left me having to guess, I dialed the L and hoped I'd picked the right person first. I'd go through every contact in his phone if I had to.

"You know, this is the second time you've called me when I usually hear from you once a year, if I'm lucky. Axel, if you still haven't found him, that's not my fault. You don't get to back out of your end of the deal."

He sounded just the way I remembered him. I'd only interacted with Jensen a few times, and Kade's reaction from earlier really wasn't that off base.

Jensen Lark was reckless, cocky, and too smart for his own good. If anyone should have been taken out, it was the asshole who was just as likely to double cross you and drain your bank account as he was to help you.

But… here he was, still living and breathing while I was speaking to him with a stolen voice.

"Oh, he found me. The big question is, can you find him?"

There was silence on the other end of the line, then a soft bubble of laughter. "Right. Marshall Lister… though I have a feeling that's not who you really are, is it?"

I paused.

How the absolute fuck did Jensen know about what was going on?

He answered me before I had a chance to ask the question. "Oh, come on. Did Axel really think he could come at me with a random name and pure desperation, and I wouldn't look into it? I didn't get very far, but I did figure out who Marshall was working for and what the company was involved in. Now, I have a feeling Axel didn't find himself a new man… so I can only assume you're Xavier Benham, if the bullshit I was reading is true."

Of course, he hacked the systems… and of course, he knew about Axel and me. Maybe that was why he was alive—Jensen had dirt on every person he worked with, and killing him was probably a guaranteed way to make sure every bit of that dirt was aired for the world to see.

We all knew he was a cocky asshole. It made sense that he'd watch the entire world burn if one of us tried to take him down.

"Yeah, that's right." Kade was watching me with narrowed eyes. Jensen was loud enough that I was sure he could hear exactly what was going on with the conversation, so I didn't even bother trying to hide it. I put the call on speaker and threw the phone onto the table in front of me. "That makes things easier. If you know what's going on, then you know there are very dangerous people involved. They have Axel, and I want him back."

Jensen was quiet for another second before he chuckled. "What does that have to do with me?"

It wasn't possible to kill a man over the phone. I couldn't kill him with my mind. I gently reminded myself that he was the only person I knew who would stand a chance of tracking down Axel before something horrible happened to him.

"What do you want, Jensen? Money? I can get you that. Do you want someone dead? I'll do that, too. But I need you to figure out where they took Axel before there's nothing left to find." Then, because I apparently couldn't help myself, I added on. "I know you can do it, and if you know who I am, you know exactly what I can do, too."

In the corner of the room, Seth actually dropped his face into his hands and muttered something about psychopaths and tact.

"Hey now, no need for that. I can find him. Honestly, I was already on the trail of their main building before you called me. Hell, I'll even crack their security system for you, because I'm sure you won't have an easy time getting in. But I do want something in return." He paused, and a small part of me realized it was all theatrics.

It felt disgusting playing into it, but I was willing to do whatever it took.

"What do you want, Jensen?"

"Their research."

"No—"

"Done." I cut off Kade's protest before he could ruin this for me. "I have a flash drive. You can have it."

"I don't really give a shit about any of the science of it. I just want the information on past lives and reincarnation." I noticed a little of the tension in Kade's body dissipate. The drug itself was the danger—interest in reincarnation wasn't inherently anything that could hurt Seth.

I did wonder why he was curious about it, but I didn't have time to question him. "I'll bring you the drive right now if I have to. I just need you to find him."

"No, I trust you. And I'm on the other side of the country, Xavier. Why don't you worry about rescuing your man? We can square up after. You're honorable, aren't you? At least when it counts."

Right. Honorable.

"I will be for this."

Honestly, if I never saw the damn flash drive or anything to do with the company again after this, that was just fine with me.

"Good. Give me a few hours and I'll call you back on this number."

"Thank you." The relief in my voice was palpable. Once upon a time, I'd had a rule in place to make sure that I never let anyone see my weak spots, that I never let anyone know if I ended up caring about someone, because it was a good way for me to get hurt.

Once upon a time, I'd been a completely different person.

"You're welcome. And Xavier?"

I was already grabbing the phone to hang up.

"Yes?"

"Try not to get yourself killed before you can deliver, hm?"

I wasn't sure if that was his roundabout way of telling me to be careful or not, but I hung up without answering.

It was only a little painful that I needed to wait now. Jensen was good when I was alive, so I had to imagine Seth was right, and he'd only gotten better over the years. That didn't mean technology hadn't gotten better with him. For all I knew, the company in question was hidden away off the grid and he wasn't going to be able to find Axel for days.

For all I knew, it was already too late.

I couldn't think like that. Instead, I turned to Kade.

"Are you sure they're somewhere in the area?" We'd driven a few states over when we were making ourselves scarce, but we'd stayed close to where Kade had been certain the new facility was.

"Yes. They threw us off the trail by having a sister company overseas. I'm pretty sure they have locations set up in a few different places, but the information that I… sourced seemed pretty sure it was on the west coast. So they were close to the last location all along."

He said sourced without blinking, but I knew from the slightest emphasis he put on the word that he'd sourced it through torture.

That was fine with me. I'd put everyone in the building on a table and take them apart one bit at a time if I had to.

"All right. I'm sure your methods were solid. I guess we just… what, prep now?"

"Prep how?" Seth sounded wary, and I couldn't say I blamed him.

"I need weapons. I'm not going in blind. From what I read on that flash drive, Kade stormed the other facility like a fucking tornado, and the scars I have prove that he almost burned down everything behind him. I'm pretty sure the actual founder of the whole thing is going to take more precautions. I want to make sure we're armed to the teeth and ready to circumvent any extra safety they might put in place."

I didn't want to say that Kade had already shown them what a trained killer was capable of, but he obviously had. They hadn't been prepared then. If he'd stormed multiple locations of theirs, I was pretty sure they were prepared now.

It was a good thing it wasn't just Kade this time.

Jensen called me back six hours later, and I was ready to crawl out of my skin by the time I picked up the phone.

"Found him." Jensen didn't bother trying to hide how smug he sounded, and I didn't bother stroking his ego by telling him what a good boy he was.

"Where?"

"Beachside facility. I'm texting you the address now. I can also give you a time frame when they're going to experience a bit of a security blip . They won't realize what's happening until it's too late, but their gate will malfunction and their exterior cameras will go down."

Fuck, he really was good, wasn't he?

"How did you manage that?"

"Turns out, when you know what you're looking for, it's pretty easy to find out who installed a high-tech security system that was recently upgraded about six months ago. Your friend Kade Neil really did a number on them—they upgraded it again last month after another little slip up." Jensen paused, and I could almost hear the smile in his voice. "I'm assuming that's who I heard in the background earlier?"

"Fuck off, Jensen," Kade said by way of response.

"Good to hear you're alive again. I hope love is treating you a little better this time than it did the last. Those crime scene photos, man. Bummer. Right in the heart, huh?"

Kade visibly stiffened, and Seth instantly stood and came to his side.

It was probably Seth gently pressing his lips to his throat and murmuring something against his skin that kept Kade from threatening Jensen.

The man on the phone laughed.

"Can you try not to antagonize a psychopath, Jensen? I'm giving you the flash drive, but it won't do you a damn bit of good if you're dead when you get it. I'll have to slip it into your coffin."

"Right. Right, sorry. It's still just a trip to hear the two of you again. You should both be dead—I've seen you both dead. But here you are. It's so amazing, I'm feeling generous… so I'm going to do you both a favor. Call me when you get inside, and I'll help you shut their whole system down." He sounded just a little too fascinated, just a little too excited with the idea.

It made me worry about giving him the flash drive after all, but the truth was I'd sell the rest of the world out for Axel. If everyone else had to burn, that was fine with me.

As long as he was safe.