Chapter Twenty-Four

“Creed Michaelson, you’re under arrest.” A police officer said with a bored sigh and stepped forward with handcuffs.

Creed squinted and the cop stopped in his tracks, swallowing with a visible bob in his throat.

“What for?” Creed growled and gently placed Kellum near Stone. His cousin stepped forward and placed a gentle grip on Kellum’s upper arm.

“Shooting a U.S. Councilman and threatening the life of a United States Senator.” The cop gestured to Durn sitting in the ambulance with Senator Garner standing nearby and talking to a few of the officers.

“The senator wasn’t even in the room,” Creed sneered, but he saw this for what it was, another power play by Durn and Garner. Creed turned around and placed his hands behind his back.

“No!” Kellum shouted and went to charge forward, but Stone held him back.

Another cop stepped forward with a second set of cuffs. It took two pairs of handcuffs in order to lock Creed’s hands behind his back.

Once the cop turned him back around, Creed held Kellum’s eyes. He mouthed something to Kellum that he hoped he could see in the outdoor lighting.

“This is fucking bullshit! Let me go.”

Gratitude filled Creed when Stone refused to let Kellum come toward him and he met his cousin’s eyes over the distraught man’s head. “Take care of them for me.”

“With my life,” Stone vowed as one of the cops turned Creed toward a police cruiser.

“You fuckers!” Kellum yelled and struggled, but Stone held him too tight. He wanted to kick Creed’s cousin in the balls, but he was facing the wrong way and couldn’t get leverage. “Let him go,” he wailed as they placed Creed in the back of the vehicle and drove away.

When Stone released him, Kellum spun and threw a punch and Stone ducked. Kellum kept punching, but Stone blocked ever blow until Kellum stood panting.

“Enough,” Stone ordered, both hands closed on his upper arms, and the man gave him a quick shake.

Kellum glared up at Stone wishing the ground would open up and swallow the bastard whole.

“Why!” he spat.

“I need to make a call,” Stone growled and lifted the phone before he turned away.

Kellum had seen it, though, the look of devastation in Stone’s eyes and that look had put a deathly fear in Kellum.

Fucking Durn.

Would they never be free?

“Dave. I need you.”

The choked-up voice of Stone Michaelson turned Dave’s blood cold and his heart felt like it stopped. He stood up so quickly, the file he was reading dropped to the floor of his office.

“Where are you?”

“It’s not me. Creed was arrested.”

“Tell me where,” Dave said, going into fix it mode. He was good at that. He’d move heaven and earth to get Creed out of whatever jam he was in and he’d do it by any means necessary.

Why? Because Stone had asked.

Out of all the people on earth Stone could have called, and there were a shit ton, he’d called him.

“California,” Stone said and then told him a story that pissed him off to no end and Dave silently vowed that heads would fucking roll.

“I’ll make some calls and go there myself if I have to.”

“Thank you.”

Stone’s whispered thanks scared him. “Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

“There’s something I have to do first.”

“Stone…talk to me,” he said, but if the man ran true to form, he wouldn’t or couldn’t sit still long enough to have an exchange of words in person. The most Dave had ever spoken to Stone had been over the fucking phone except for a few times in person. And both of those times had been volatile to say the least.

Dave knew in his heart that they could never be anything permanent, but he’d thought they’d at least be friends.

“I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I’m finished.”

“Finished with wha—” his words were cut off when Stone hung up.

Dave spun to Solomon. “Trace this number.”

The man Dave had personally designated to lead an underground organization of assassins nodded and left the room.

Clenching his fists, Dave stalked to the red phone on his desk and lifted the handle.

Stone ended the call and broke apart the phone. He destroyed the micro SD card that stored all data. From there, he dropped pieces of it on his way here and there back to his vehicle.

He really didn’t have anything to do, but it had been a good way to get the SecDef off the phone.

Across the city, he parked his rental in the lot and left the keys in the return box before he headed south. In another ten minutes, he reached the alley where’d he’d planned to meet Wrath. He found Ice, who’d stepped out of the shadows.

“Where’s Wrath?”

“God only knows,” Ice said, checking the clip on his silencer. “What now?”

“We’re waiting for Parker,” Stone said and took up a lean against the building. He rarely smoked, but he lit up a cigarette and drew on it deeply. The smoke helped somewhat.

“What’s Parker going to do?”

A Pegasus vehicle pulled into the alley followed by two police cruisers. Parker and Oliver both got out of the first vehicle and cops got out of the other two.

“Stone Michaelson,” Parker said.

Stone drew one more deep breath of his smoke and crushed it beneath his boot before he shoved from the wall and walked toward Parker.

Ice frowned and put a hand on Stone’s arm. “Wait.”

“I can’t, time is off the essence.”

Parker pulled out handcuffs. “You’re under arrest for aiding your cousin Creed Michaelson in an attempted murder.”

Oliver stepped between Ice and Stone, and Ice gaped at the smaller man. Oliver smiled up at him, but even in the dimly lit alley, Ice saw that the man’s eyes were not smiling at all.

“Let him go. He needs to be inside,” Oliver said as Parker cuffed Stone’s hands in front of him.

“You too,” Parker said, gesturing to someone standing in the shadows.

Ice had been so focused on Stone that he hadn’t even seen Wrath until the assassin stepped forward. One of the cops approached and cuffed Wrath’s hands in front of him.

“What about the third one?” one cop said.

“We will pick him up,” Parker told the cop. “Let’s go.”

The cop led Wrath to the cruiser and Parker turned with Stone.

“Wait!” Ice glanced up at Stone as the wheels clicked in place and he nodded. “What can I do?”

“Find out anyone else who is involved besides the councilman and the senator. Find us that fucking judge,” Stone whispered harshly.

“You got it.”

The cops backed out and sped off, and Ice watched until Parker and Oliver drove away with Stone cuffed in the back seat.

He turned toward the alley and then stopped. “How long are you going to run from me?” Ice said, speaking at the shadows near the end of the alley. He couldn’t see shit and he wasn’t even sure if Echo was there in the dark, but he suspected by the hairs lifting on the back of his neck that the assassin was close.

Losing Echo the other night hadn’t been his choice, but when the slender assassin had leaped a great distance from one house to the next, Ice’s heart stuck in his throat and he’d stopped running. Fuck knew he didn’t want the man falling to his death from being chased.

Ice would bide his time and eventually, he’d get his hands on Echo.

He just didn’t know when that day would be.