Chapter Nine

Seven

The knock on Ace’s back office door—the one that came from the outside—had Seven pulling his weapon, aiming it at the door.

Every Pegasus operative pulled out their own guns. Including Eagle and Link, who had rejoined them.

In the next moment, Ace’s phone lit up.

“Stand down,” Ace said after checking his phone, and the operatives tucked their weapons away.

Jacob popped a look at the screen and then Ace.

“I’ll answer it,” Jacob said, and in two steps was at the door.

Seven didn’t take orders from Ace, so he had no intention of lowering his gun when the long haired, tattooed man stepped inside. The guy could have stepped off a rocker’s sexiest man of the year calendar. Not only good looking, but he was big and wore leather. Not his type, but Seven could acknowledge the man was attractive.

Blue eyes traveled around the room before landing on him, and Seven’s grip tightened on his Glock. He met the guy’s stare head on and squinted when the very corner of the man’s mouth quirked.

“Hunter’s shadow,” the guy murmured.

Seven didn’t even twitch; his gun stayed solidly pointed at the man’s chest, center mass.

“Jaxon.” Link strode across the room and gripped the man’s hand. Eagle stayed where he was and gave the stranger a sideways salute.

“Welcome to Pegasus,” Ace said, and swung around to the room after Link stepped back. “Men, this is Jaxon West, and he has a pretty good idea of what the hell is going on and what we are up against.”

Jaxon shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it aside but hadn’t taken his gaze from Seven.

“Seven, put the gun away,” Ace said.

Seven thought about it for a few seconds but then decided he felt better with his weapon out. “No.”

“Seven,” Link said. “I can vouch for Jaxon.”

Jaxon’s lids narrowed when the tension in the room built but Seven didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“Why you?” Seven asked in the tense-filled room.

“What?” Jaxon frowned and crossed his tattooed arms against his chest, straining the black t-shirt.

“Why out of all these operatives—” Seven waved his weapon, “—would they call you?”

“I would have thought you’d want to know why I called you the shadow.” Jaxon smirked.

“You were in the alley.”

That surprised Jaxon; it was hard to miss the knee-jerk reaction on the man’s handsome face nor the respect filling Jaxon’s gaze.

“So I was, but I come in peace. I’m one of the good guys, honest.”

“That’s good to know, but I don’t know you. So again, why did they send you?”

“What I’m going to tell you stays in this room,” Jaxon told him before running his eyes over the group. It was quick and probably nothing and nobody else seemed to notice, but Jaxon held Creed’s eyes for just a tiny bit longer and it got the hairs on Seven’s neck standing up.

What the fuck was going on?

Link took that moment to move Eagle from the doorjamb and closed Ace’s office door. Good damned thing the man’s office was massive otherwise Seven would have felt too closed in. At that moment—and because it was beginning to feel like overkill—Seven tucked his weapon away.

“I used to work for an organization called the Erebus Society. They usually report to the current SecDef of the US, who in turn reports to the President. The group was founded over a century ago,” Jaxon said.

“What kind of organization?” Kellum asked, tapping furiously at his computer.

“Assassins.”

“Why haven’t we ever heard of them?” Kellum asked, looking up from the keyboard when the rest of the men stayed silent.

“Two reasons that I can think of right off the bat. They’re a secret society and they don’t always play by societal rules.”

“Erebus…is the personification of darkness and shadow,” Kellum said with his finger on his laptop screen, and all eyes settled on the techie. Kellum blushed. “What? It’s from Greek mythology.”

“Okay then,” Seven said, turning back to Jaxon. “You said current SecDef. Is that who they report to now?” He needed to get the hierarchy established.

“No, they report to Dave,” Jaxon said.

Seven wasn’t all that surprised; the former SecDef had his fingers in a lot of things.

“When Dave retired,” Jaxon continued, “he offered to stay on as a favor to the President and head up the specialty teams.”

“Specialty, like Pegasus,” Seven said, and it wasn’t a question.

“And Phoenix, and Erebus, and—” Jaxon stopped with the list and dropped into silence.

Hell, the US government probably had a plethora of specialty teams to do whatever job was needed, even if that meant outside of the law, but Seven wasn’t interested in any other team. All he wanted was to get to Hunter and get this mess cleaned up because frankly, he didn’t like it when he couldn’t reach Hunter. That’s probably because Hunter has always been there when you have gone looking for him.

He ignored the voice in his head, but again, the idea that maybe he could stick around more niggled its way in. The not knowing was the worst thing, and his gut clenched. He tugged out his cell phone to check the blinking red dot that would give him some relief.

What the fuck? Hunter’s dot showed him to be about twenty minutes from his location. While the blinking light told him that Hunter had stopped driving, it didn’t tell him whether or not Hunter was safe. Seven’s fingers flew over the text box.

Seven: Check in.

Hunter: Are you at the bunker?

Seven: Yes

Hunter: I’m safe. I’ll call in a few minutes, stay put until we talk.

Seven: …

It took every ounce of his will to stay put as Hunter said, but he trusted the man—so he’d do it. At least for now, and only because Hunter was safe. His worry eased, but not the acid feeling in his gut.

“I’ve got a question.” Eagle raised his hand, and everyone, including Seven, turned to the lounging operative. “Where the hell was Erebus when Ross and Stefano were taken in Aruba?”

Every set of eyes spun back to Jaxon.

“Erebus doesn’t get involved in things like that.”

“You mean they don’t help people,” Eagle said.

“No. They might inadvertently help by eliminating someone, but that’s just an off chance reward,” Jaxon said.

“Off chance reward,” Eagle murmured with a flat look.

“We didn’t need them,” Link told Eagle. “We were fine in Aruba.”

“True.” Eagle shrugged. “Was just sayin’.”

“So why are you telling us now?” Seven asked, aiming a squinted look at Jaxon. “And how does this involve Hunter and Theodore Kada?”

“Because one of Erebus’ members, Malcolm, has gone rogue. And there’s a possibility that he is after Theo,” Jaxon said.

“Oh, so now they want our help,” Eagle snapped, and his big fists squeezed.

Eagle did have a fucking point, and as much as Seven wanted to get back to the topic at hand, he also wanted to hear Jaxon’s answer.

“Look, we wouldn’t be here if one of Erebus hadn’t gone rogue!” Irritation thickened Jaxon’s growling voice.

Seven snorted with disbelief. “They’ve never had a member go rogue before?”

Jaxon held his gaze. “I didn’t say that. But this one got away from us.”

A chill swept down Seven’s spine. If Malcolm was trying to kill Theo, that put Hunter in the crosshairs between an assassin and his mark.

Just fucking great.