Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Julian stared at his phone while Ox and the others discussed the information that Cass had presented earlier. He’d been invited to attend the meeting because, while the tech guys at the FBI had investigated the job advert Lilith had found, they’d decided there was nothing much to it. Cass, on the other hand, had done a little more digging and had come up with information that suggested Lilith was spot on.

“You good, man?” Deal asked. Julian had been surprised when the former SEAL had sat next to him. Their relationship was still tense, but had changed after Julian had joined them on the most recent operation.

“Yeah,” he said, although he couldn’t shake the fact that Lilith still hadn’t responded to his text. She was pretty quick to reply to him. Then again, she mentioned she was going to the grocery story to pick up some items for their celebratory dinner. Perhaps she was busy with all the preparations for it.

“Are you sure? Because you don’t look it,” Deal persisted.

The conversation had stopped, and everyone was looking at him, not in annoyance that he hadn’t been paying attention, but with concern. “It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing if your gut is saying it’s something,” Ox said. “Talk to us.”

This was why he liked this group of men. To them, any concerns, doubts or bad feelings weren’t laughed at or considered stupid. All of them had mentioned that their intuition had gotten them out of a lot of messes and kept them safe. “Lilith hasn’t returned my text. She’s usually pretty quick. But she could be busy.”

“How long ago did you text her?” Irish asked.

“Two hours ago. She told me she was going to the store, so I was just checking in to make sure she got everything, and if she wanted me to bring anything home.”

“Right. Okay. Has she given any indication that something was off with her? Like she was being followed or anything?” Ox was in full leader mode, looking at all angles. Angles that Julian didn’t want to look at or think about.

He refused to believe something had happened to her while she’d been going to the store, but he could he really discount it? How many times had the people they’d rescued said they’d been taken while doing a mundane activity? A lot. “No, she hasn’t. Plus, I know she’s been home most of the time, and when she has gone out, she’s sent the odd message to let me know where she is. Today she was excited because she got the job at the botanical gardens.”

“Right. Irish, do you want to grab Cass?” Ox directed, and Irish nodded, slipping out the door to get his wife. “I’m assuming she’s wearing the tracker you gave her?”

“I put it on her this morning, but it’s possible she took it off when she got home.” There had been a few times he’d found it in the hallway by the front door, as if she’d taken it off the moment she walked in. A couple of times, he’d told her she should only take it off when she went to bed. He hadn’t harped on it because he didn’t want her to think he was controlling her. Or the decisions she made. But now he wished he had.

“What’s up?” Cass asked, laptop in hand as she took the seat vacated by Irish.

“Can you get a lock on Lilith’s position?” Ox asked.

Julian was glad that Ox was doing what he did because he was so caught up in the fact that Lilith could be missing, that he couldn’t think straight.

“We’ve got your back, Julian. You know that, right?” Deal stared intensely at him.

“I know. I appreciate it.”

“Looks like she’s in a car. Do you know where she’s headed?” Cass asked as she tapped away on her keyboard. A few seconds later, a map appeared on the TV screen behind where Ox stood.

Julian studied the map, trying to get a sense of where the flashing blue dot was heading. “Can you zoom in a bit? I’m not sure where she’s at.”

The map enlarged, and where Lilith appeared to be going wasn’t the grocery store. “She said she was going to get some groceries. But the store is within walking distance of my house. She’s nowhere near our house.”

“Can you get a visual on them?” Irish asked, his hand rubbing up and down his wife’s back.

“Give me a few seconds to hack into the cameras. Fortunately, she’s on the highway, so it should be easy to get eyes on the vehicle.”

Julian wracked his brain trying to come up with a scenario where Lilith had gotten into a car by herself. It wasn’t as if any of the other women had collected her because they for sure would’ve told their partners and Lilith would’ve told him too.

I thought I saw Micah.

The memory from their dinner out slammed into Julian. “Fuck, it can’t be him,” he said.

“Who?”

“Micah Livingstone. He was one of the senior elders in The Hopeful Sunshine. When we went out to dinner a couple weeks ago, Lilith was sure she saw him.” He quickly relayed the information he found out about Micah’s release from the Feds, and Lilith’s suspicion that he’d fooled them into letting him go.

“Did she have a lot to do with this Micah guy at the compound?” Fox asked, pulling a tablet in front of him and tapped the screen.

“I don’t know. We haven’t really talked much about her time there. I respected that she wanted to put the whole ordeal behind her. She was a little freaked out, and I didn’t want to stress her even more after I told her he was out, by asking about their past.” Again, Julian had failed her because he hadn’t pushed her when he should’ve. He could’ve asked her in a way that wasn’t controlling or overbearing.

“Fuck, he came out of the main building just before we raided the place.” Fox turned the tablet for the guys to see.

“I remember him. He looked pissed.” Irish commented. “I’m betting he was the one that dragged Lilith into Staunton’s office before we went in.”

With the way Lilith reacted to seeing Micah, Julian would take that bet. “He’s our main suspect. But what does he want with Lilith? They weren’t together at the compound. She lived in her own place. If there was a relationship between the two of them, her accommodation would’ve been marginally better, and she wouldn’t have been working in the garden. She’d have had a position somewhere else. Somewhere less physically demanding.”

“This is from your past experience and knowledge?” Deal asked, an edge of disgust entered his voice again.

Deal’s reaction was enough to send Julian over the edge. “Look I get it, Deal. You don’t like me because of my past. I can’t change what I did when I was younger. How I let assholes influence me, but that’s over. I don’t need to be reminded of my failings every time we have to deal with a cult, and trust me, there will be more and more occasions where that’s the case. Either you get over whatever hangups you have, or the arrangement the FBI has with Alliez will need to be reconsidered.”

The last thing Julian would ever do was terminate the agreement with Alliez and the FBI, because the guys in the room, Deal included, were fucking good at their job and their expertise was far superior to anyone at the FBI, not that he’d say anything to his work colleagues.

“Okay, let’s settle down,” Ox commanded. “Julian’s right, Deal. If it comes down to it, and as much as I’d hate to do it and break the dynamic of the team, I’d do what I’d have to do.”

Silence descended around the room, and Julian was shocked that Ox, while he hadn’t come out and said it, would let Deal go. That didn’t sit well with Julian, regardless of the fact that he himself had threatened a change in the business status between the two organizations.

“It won’t come to that because Deal is going to pull his head out of his ass.” Fox looked pointedly at his friend and teammate.

Deal shifted beside Julian. “I’m sorry, man. You’re right. What you did is in the past, I shouldn’t blame you for only doing what you thought was right at the time, no matter how wrong it seems to me. I didn’t live your experience, so it’s not right for me to make judgments I made. I know you’ve changed. Hell, I’ve worked with you and know that you’re nothing like the fuckers involved.” Deal held out his hand. “Fresh start?”

Julian grabbed his hand. “Fresh start.” He wanted to put it all behind him and move forward. Deal was a good guy. He’d proved his worth over and over. If Julian hadn’t accepted his apology and Ox had gotten rid of Deal, then there would be a shift in the group, and the change would be detrimental to this partnership.

“While you’ve all been sorting your shit out, I’ve been following where Lilith is. They’ve stopped. It looks like a property just out of Acton.”

So caught up in his anger and annoyance at Deal, he’d forgotten what the hell they’d been doing. How could he have forgotten that Lilith was in danger? That she might not even be alive!

God, what if she’s dead? She’ll never know how I feel.

He might never see her again. And he’d been arguing with Deal over his hurt feelings.

Maybe she was better off without him.

No! He would not let himself fall into that trap. He was worthy of Lilith, and if he was lucky enough—her love, if she felt that way about him.

“I don’t suppose there are any cameras out there you could get access to?” Julian asked, pleased that he’d managed to articulate an intelligent question.

“I’m working on it. And I’m working on getting you access to a helicopter to get up there quickly,” Cass responded, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

“We should at least wait and see what we’re walking into,” Ox reasoned. “We need to find out who the players are and what their interest in Lilith is.”

As much as Ox’s words made sense, Julian didn’t want to hear them. He wanted to get to that helicopter and go get his girl.

Why had he waited so long to tell Lilith how he felt? He didn’t have to come out and say that he loved her, but they hadn’t really talked much about how he wanted their relationship to progress. They were sleeping together, but they hadn’t talked about a future. He could’ve told her he cared deeply for her. That he didn’t want her to move out. That he wanted her to live with him. To stay in the house that had felt like home the first night she stayed there.

Yet he had done none of that, and now there was a chance he wouldn’t get the opportunity to make what he wanted come true. Of course, there was the chance that Lilith didn’t want what he wanted. That, now that she had a job that would pay better than the minimum wage jobs she’d had in the past, she may want to find her own place. Live by herself. Explore the dating world.

None of those ideas sat well with Julian, but if that was what she wanted to do, then he wouldn’t stop her. He loved her too much to hold her back. And maybe, like the saying went, if he let her go and she came back to him, then they were meant to be.

“It has to be Micah who took her.” Julian banished the thoughts of what he wanted and focused on the here and now—which was ensuring that Lilith was rescued. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Even so, we still don’t know why. Or what this Micah has planned,” Ox returned. “I get you want to get to her. A few of the guys in this room have felt what you’re feeling. But we need to make sure we know what we’re getting into. That way, we can bring Lilith back safely.”

“I know.” And he did, but that didn’t mean Julian was happy with it. But he had to trust the men in the room to do their jobs. The ones he’d seen them do over and over. Except this time, instead of rescuing unknown women and others, they were rescuing Lilith.

His woman.

His love.