Chapter 31

Walking into the room, Rudy wrinkled his nose at the smell of blood and stale urine, figuring both belonged to the man shackled to the wall. Not that it mattered, because by the time he was through, there’d be nothing left except a pile of bones. Examining the propped-up body, he found what he expected—the Vice Chair of the High Council. Kicking Frank’s foot, he asked, “What’s the matter, Frank, aren’t you gonna beg for your life?”

When no reply was forthcoming, he continued, “Did your son tell you we broke him on the first day? No, I bet he didn’t. What a fucking whine-baby he was, begging me to let him live, promising me he’d do anything. Too bad he didn’t do the one thing I ordered. What a fucking failure. You know how I know that, Frankie? Cause the sonofabitch lived. Did he tell you what I did to him? How he was beaten for days until his skull was finally smashed? And how my men dumped him in a ditch…a fitting burial for a traitor.

“Your fucking son got me into a whole heap of trouble after he swore to be loyal to me! I don’t know how you managed to save him, but it doesn’t really matter because this time I’ll make sure there won’t be anything left of you to be saved by him. Payback is a bitch, ain’t it, Frankie?”

Pissed when Frank didn’t answer, Rudy kicked him in the balls, but silence was the only response. “Fucking hell,” he muttered. Then glancing at Bruno, he said, “Make sure he stays alive…I’m not done with him yet.”

Bending down, Bruno grabbed Franks’ hair, pulling on it until he could see his battered face and noticed the shallow rise and fall of Frank’s chest. Then he let go of Frank’s hair allowing his head to fall forward until his chin was resting on his chest. “He’s alive…for now.”

Pushing open the steel door, Hans stuck his head in, “Boss, he’s on the phone again and insists on talking to you.”

“I’ll be right there,” Rudy replied, waiting until Hans left before turning to Bruno. “That fucking asshole on the phone is worried the Council knows he helped us and he’ll turn on me the first chance he gets. I can’t take that chance, so you know what to do.”

“Sure boss…where is he now?”

“Hiding somewhere, if I know him. I’ll set up a meeting to pay him off for helping us, and once he agrees, I’ll send you the info. Just make sure no one sees you.”

“Pick a place that has a building across from it so I can nail him from the roof.”

“Right…just make sure you kill the asshole with one bullet,” Rudy said, opening the steel door. “I don’t want any messy misses.”

Bruno nodded, following Rudy, but as he passed Frank, he asked his boss, “What about him?”

“Throw a couple of buckets of water over him to wash away the stink before you leave so I don’t gag the next time I see him,” Rudy replied, before leaving the cell.

It took almost the last bit of strength Frank had left not to react when Bruno doused him with water several times, but at least he wasn’t sitting in his own filth anymore. When he was finally alone again, Frank took stock of his injuries and knew there was a limit to what his body could take, even though the training he’d had in different martial arts had served him well so far. But the last kick to his balls had nearly broken him .

Ignoring his pain for a moment, Frank’s thoughts went back to Rudy’s bragging about beating up Dylon so badly that his son should’ve died. At first, he’d rejected it, viewing it as a ploy to get him to talk. That was a logical assumption, especially since his son never mentioned it. And if Dylon had been as close to death as Rudy insisted, then the doctor certainly would have contacted him or Lizzie for permission to treat him. But that hadn’t happened, so obviously Rudy was lying. On the other hand, Frank couldn’t help thinking Rudy might well have done to Dylon what he’d claimed. The only way he’d know for sure was to ask his son, but that would have to wait until he could figure out a way to escape.

Turning his attention to his wolf, Frank could barely sense him, which meant Rudy had injected him with something to subdue his animal along with his Alpha power. The only thing left was his mind link to Lizzie and he’d have to think about how that might help him…if it could at all. Leaning his head back against the wall, Frank closed his eyes, knowing he’d be facing more pain soon.

~/~/~/~/~

Zane finally breached the High Council security protocols and found the prison’s camera system. It had taken him longer than usual because he had to be careful not to leave any digital traces of his search on the High Council’s computers that could be traced back to him.

Searching through the programs, he found the one that controlled the surveillance cameras in the prison, and from there, it was easy to track down the missing recordings. He shook his head at the ineptitude of whoever deleted them without also deleting the backup. Making a quick copy and downloading it to his computer, he then carefully covered his tracks, leaving no trace of having been there that could be a red flag to the High Council.

Checking his watch, Zane was dismayed to see how much time had actually passed, remembering Jackson’s concern that Frank’s life might be on the line. Clicking on the downloaded file to open it, he looked at the images on his screen before realizing the time stamp on the prison video was too early in the evening. Fast forwarding the recording, Zane stopped it periodically to have a look before advancing it again.

After several minutes he finally found images of Frank standing outside a cell, peering in. Within a minute of watching, Zane saw the back of Frank’s head being hit with the butt of a revolver, resulting in him falling to the ground. But Zane couldn’t get a clear picture of who was holding the gun. Examining the recording frame by frame, he finally got a clear picture of the man who’d knocked Frank out.

Grinning at his success, Zane sent a text to Jackson and Dylon and then sat back to wait for their arrival.

~/~/~/~/~

Holding up his hand, Cain examined it, laughing at his wrinkled skin. Definitely a sign he’d been soaking too long…but it had felt so good. Rising from the water like a creature of the sea, he stared at himself in the mirror, watching rivulets of water cascading down his body. Grinning, he imagined himself with iridescent green scales, diving into the deep until he was surrounded by silence. That was another thing he’d had very little of in his life…quietness. Every foster home was plagued with a cacophony of sound that was impossible to escape. Even at night, there was always a kid creating a ruckus .

Living on the streets wasn’t any better; nights were filled with the cries of lost souls seeking solace with whatever drugs they could find. Even in prison, the noise during the day drove him to seek relief wherever there was a quiet place, but at night, there was no escaping nightmarish screams, thunderous snoring, sobbing, praying, and even orgasmic grunting. Nothing helped to block it out—not a pillow over his head nor earplugs he got by trading sex for them. In the end, Cain had no choice but to wait for the day of his release to find silence…until the cycle would inevitably begin all over when he was arrested again.

Pushing those memories aside, Cain stepped out of the bathtub, wrapping a large, plush bath towel around his wet body. He stood there for a moment, savoring the feel of it against his skin before beginning to dry himself off. After washing his face and brushing his teeth with a new toothbrush he found on the counter, Cain walked into his bedroom and over to the stacks of clothes on his bed.

Since those that Smokey had given him were now in the bathroom hamper, Cain had no choice but to put on some of his newly acquired apparel. Staring at the stack of jeans, he bit his lower lip, trying to decide which he should pick. Finally, unable to make a decision, he snatched the pair on the top and set them aside. Moving on to the t-shirts, he selected the top one and wriggled into it. Then, after slipping on his underwear, followed by the jeans, Cain sat down on the bed and finished dressing with a pair of his new socks and shoes. Standing up, he muttered to himself, “There…no one told me what I had to wear…I chose what I wanted.”

Resuming his search for a place to lock up his clothes, he surveyed the room again before walking over to another door. Pulling it open, he peered into the darkness but could see little than a few shelves near the doorway. Curious, he walked in further and was startled when the space was flooded with light. Stopping, he cautiously looked around and found the room bigger than his cell at the High Council, except it was filled with drawers, rods with empty clothes hangers and more shelves.

“The Good Lord did it again, Sarge,” he muttered, finally figuring out it was a closet and a place he could store his clothes. Cain wasted no time filling a few of the shelves with his jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. Then, standing back and looking at how much space remained, he shook his head at the thought of ever having enough clothes to fill it. Leaving the closet and shutting the door behind him, he looked for a lock but couldn’t find one. It was another thing he’d have to ask Jackson for so no one could steal his precious clothes.

Now with his bed cleared, Cain sat down on the edge, wondering what he should do next. Sofia told him Steel wanted him to settle in—whatever that meant—but Jackson told him he had to work in the garden and do chores. The only problem was that no one told him what chores he had to do. Steel had told Cain he’d still be in the kitchen after Cain woke up from his nap, so it seemed that he was supposed to go there. But it would mean leaving the security of his room, which didn’t appeal to him at all.

Fear of the unknown had always been his weakness as a child, and he’d never been able to conquer it. The thought of who he might meet on his way to Steel filled him with dread, especially if the person turned out to be a witch. Rejecting the idea of searching for Steel, Cain got up and headed to the sitting room. Picking up the book he’d been reading when Sofia interrupted him, he curled up with it on the loveseat, opening it to the page where he’d placed his bookmark. Within minutes, he was asleep, exhausted by everything that had happened to him since the shooting.

~/~/~/~/~

“I’m gonna kill that fucking piece of shit!” snarled Dylon after Zane showed him and Jackson the recording that had been recovered.

“He’s all yours,” Jackson said. “But only after we rescue Frank.”

“That’s all well and good, but where do we begin to look?” Dylon asked.

“I bet someone working for the High Council knows where he is,” Jackson replied. “I’ve been at the jail and there’s no way Rudy could have escaped without inside help. And it’s probably the same person who warned Josiah about the arrest warrant issued for him.”

“Do you know how many employees there are at the High Council?” Dylon asked. “It’ll take days for Zane to go through the records to see who was working during the time of the escape. And once he has the list, it’ll take hours to track all their movements.”

“Frank doesn’t have that time,” Jackson murmured, thinking about what other avenues to take.

“What about Kota?” asked Zane. “Couldn’t he find out where Frank is being held?”

“Hmm…” Jackson thought for a moment before saying, “If Dakota is able to link to Frank’s thoughts, that’s a possibility.”

“Then he could find out where my Dad is,” Dylon said .

“Right,” Jackson replied. “But one stumbling block is it will only work if we can narrow it down to the general area where your dad is located to limit the time it would take Kota to sort through other thoughts to get to his. Which leads us back to finding who at the High Council helped Rudy and might know where he is.”

Everyone fell silent for several moments, thinking about how to overcome the problem without wasting valuable time searching for Rudy’s inside contact. Suddenly, Dylon asked, “What if my mother used her mind link with my dad…could Dakota piggyback on it to locate where Rudy and my Dad are?”

“That would work!” exclaimed Jackson. “But for Dakota to do it, Lizzie has to be here.”

“Mystia can bring her, right?” asked Dylon.

“Normally, she could, but right now she’s on assignment for Oracle,” Jackson said. “And Remy’s helping Tristan evacuate his pack.”

“What about Brady and Lucius?” suggested Dylon. “Lucius can take others with him when he translocates, can’t he? Like he did with Vasile?”

Nodding slowly, Jackson said, “I’ll ask them if they’d be willing to do it. However, if they are, you’ll have to tell your mother they’re coming so she won’t be surprised.”

“Miss L is gonna want to know why you want her to go with them,” Zane warned Dylon.

“I know,” Dylon replied. “I had already decided to tell my mother about Dad since Cody pointed out she has a right to know her mate is in danger. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I was also hoping to have some good news to tell her. ”

“I don’t think we can afford to wait any longer,” said Jackson. “My wolf has been agitated ever since I learned Frank is missing, and he’s only getting worse, which means time is running out.” Getting up from his chair, he said, “Zane, see what you can find regarding who helped Rudy.” Then turning to Dylon, added, “Go call your mother while I speak to Brady and Lucius…meet me back in my study after you speak to her.”

Dylon waited until Jackson left before asking Zane, “While you are searching the High Council personnel, could you also run a search to see if Rudy owns any property?”

“Sure…any particular location? Or should I go wide?”

“Do California first,” Dylon replied. “I got the feeling when I was working for him he hadn’t been anywhere else but in the state.”

Nodding, Zane turned back to his computers, muttering, “On it.”

Pausing for a moment, Dylon watched Zane’s fingers deftly fly over the keyboard. Satisfied he’d done all he could do for now, he left to call his mother.