Chapter Ten

Hunter

“Come on.”

Hunter opened his door and stepped out of the SUV.

“What?”

“We’re going the rest of the way on foot.”

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Theo said, grabbing his gun and jumping out. “Good idea.”

Hunter honestly wasn’t sure how Theo had made it this long working for the Society. Solomon must have his uses for the hyper man. His main concern was getting Theo into the safe house and calling Seven.

One thing he’d get out of Theo was why the fuck the man had been with Malcolm after finding out that he was taking contracted orders. There were so many unanswered questions, but those could wait until after Hunter had them both secure.

Walking to the rear of the warehouse, he skirted the industrial trashcans and made his way slowly along the back wall.

It was nearing noon, but the area was deserted and the buildings sat empty—the impact of people working from home and the changes in the economy. Pegasus bought the warehouse several months ago and renovated it. Of course, nobody could tell who purchased it on paper because Chief Rossi had buried that information. As soon as Hunter got them inside, he would call Ace. With most of the team on a job in Colorado, he knew the unit was spread thin right now.

Hunter honestly hoped Seven would come and work for Pegasus. It would be nice to work with the man on ops. At least that way, he’d see Seven more than every few weeks.

Reaching the end of the second building from where he’d parked, he stopped and studied the empty parking spaces between them and the safe house.

All seemed quiet. Good, the last thing he needed was to lead the men after Theo here. Covering the short distance to the side door near the back of the safe house building, he opened a small panel and placed his eye to the screen. After the scanner blinked, Hunter punched in the nine-digit code.

Once inside, he threw the locking mechanism and disarmed the beeping alarm.

“Wow.” Theo gaped as he looked around the massive foyer.

“Yeah, it’s something, all right.” Hunter waved a hand. “Pick a unit. There’s six.”

The place wasn’t like a typical safe house for people. Due to the bombing at the bunker a little over a year ago, this was a place for the unit to use if the bunker ever became compromised again.

From the entryway, eight doors led from the foyer and six of the doors led to fully equipped and stocked apartment units with enough supplies to last a few months if needed. The other two were for meetings and electronics.

Hunter didn’t plan on being here for long. He walked to one of the eight doors and did the same with the eye scan and code.

“Where are you going?” Theo asked with his hand on one of the doors.

“To make a call,” Hunter said and entered the comms room. It was huge, with a conference table and a small office set off to the side. He shut the door on Theo and walked to the large desk in the corner. He flipped the switch and the wall monitors came on. Each one showed a different angle of the warehouse, the street out front, and several warehouses down both ways from his position, and even one out on the main road leading into the area. The state-of-the-art system synced to the cloud as well as provided real-time feed.

He sank down into the black leather chair behind the desk and thought about calling Seven’s cell phone, but then decided to call Ace’s office phone instead just to kill two birds with one stone.

“Hunter?” It was Jacob who answered.

“Yeah, it’s me. Is Seven still there?”

“He’s right here,” Ace answered this time.

“Hey,” Hunter said softly. He could imagine the frown on Seven’s face.

“Hey back. You good?” Seven said.

“Yeah, I’m at a safe house. We lost the tail. I have Theo sequestered in one of the units.”

“Is Theo talking?” Ace again.

Hunter paused. Just how much could he say? He wasn’t even sure that Ace knew about Erebus Society.

“It’s complicated. I can’t tell you more than that until I know more.”

“Hunter? It’s Jax.”

Okay… telling Pegasus about Erebus would be a whole lot easier with Jaxon there.

“Jax? Did you fill them in?” Hunter asked.

“As much as I could,” Hunter knew Jax probably left out a lot.

“Okay. It’s better to come at this slowly until we can pinpoint where Malcolm is,” Hunter responded carefully.

“I agree,” Jaxon said.

“It’s your call,” Ace told Jaxon, which surprised the hell out of Seven.

“Slowly? What the hell?” Seven snapped.

“Seven, stand down,” Ace growled.

“Screw this. I’m not standing down.” Seven snapped the words and then a door slammed. Hunter wasn’t sure if it slammed open or closed.

“Seven?”

“He’s gone,” Ace muttered.

“It’s okay, he’s on his way to me,” Hunter said.

“So…” Jacob spoke this time. “You know he has a tracker on your phone?”

“Give me some credit.” Hunter smirked. “I knew it the day he put it on there.”

“My bad,” Jacob snickered.

“Hey, Jax?”

“He left the room after Seven along with Eagle and Link,” Ace told Hunter with a frustrated sigh.

“So, we should probably get a small op together,” Hunter said.

“I’ll send everybody I have available to your location,” Ace said.

Hunter smothered his sigh. Involving the unit wasn’t the way he wanted this to go, but at least he knew the way Pegasus worked—they moved as one while Erebus worked alone. The only thing Hunter could do was make sure Pegasus knew what they were up against.

“Make sure they’re discrete. I mean, moving like fucking shadows. And for the love of God, do not call Parker.” No way in hell did Hunter want his older brother involved in any of this.

Parker had been the chief of police of Ventura County…Hunter could only imagine what Parker would think if he found out about his past. As far as his brother knew, he had done mercenary bodyguard type work.

Ace snorted. “I’m smarter than that.”

“Hang on, Ace,” Hunter said when he caught movement on the monitors.