Chapter Twenty-Two

Rage

A tlas nods, “Okay, that sounds good. I can do all that.”

“We need to check it now, even though the storm isn’t supposed to be until next week, just in case it’s not working as it should, and we need to get it replacement parts.” I explain.

“Yeah, that makes sense. We will be able to fix it in time if we know about it now.”

“Exactly. We also need to check the horse's food stores while we are up and get them in since they are out at the moment,” I explain, and then add, “That’s just the normal things I need to do while I’m up.”

“Got it. I have helped you do that before I can handle it; it has been a while though, so you are probably going to have to remind me of some things.”

I nod, and we get to work. We may only have three horses here, but the barn is set up to hold around ten, just in case we want more in the future. I have had one or two horses up here that needed working with over the years. Jonah told me about some of his friends in town who were having trouble with one of their horses, and I was offering up some tips about how they could help; one thing led to another, and I ended up with the horse up here.

I absolutely loved doing it; the thing is that it requires consistent and daily work, so I didn’t do my usual work with the organization. Trick and Mr R were fine with it, but I hated that they were going out and I wasn’t going with them. Not knowing how the job was going and whether they were in trouble or if there were complications was absolutely horrendous, and I was not fond of it at all. The second time I had a horse, from the same place actually, I made sure that I could take it on when we were on one of our extended breaks, and I had the time to do it without the guys leaving to do jobs.

Ever even helped me, and I think she really enjoyed it. I would love to do more, especially since I have had to turn down several people asking for help because of our normal workload. It is just not the right time for me to do it more regularly, maybe when things calm down a bit, if they ever calm down, maybe then I could do it more regularly but right now, I have no idea when or if that is going to happen. That doesn’t mean that I won't turn down serious cases; I don’t have it in me. I have to help them, especially if I'm their last resort, and I know that I can help them. I just hope that a horse like that doesn’t come up while we are doing anything to do with Hunt, I can’t leave everyone down a person, not where Hunt’s involved, he is even more dangerous than the majority of our other cases. Primarily because of how well-connected he is and how many friends he has in high places.

Atlas and I work in comfortable silence to make sure that the barn is completely secure for the horses.

“I think these boards are a bit loose, on the left corner,” Atlas says as he walks around the barn and finds me on the other side, “if the wind hits it at the wrong angle the panels could be ripped right off.”

“Yeah, I’ve found a couple on the back that need securing back down,” I reply, “I have got a couple of nail guns in the storeroom that we can use to secure them back in place. Did everything else look good?”

Atlas nods as we make our way back into the barn and grab the things that we need to fix the loose boards.

“Everything looked good to me, we still need to check the generator.” Atlas replies, answering my question.

“I had it serviced not that long ago, so it should be good, but I still need to check it. I can’t risk it going down and us not being able to get up here for whatever reason,” I say.

“We’d find a way to fix it, we always do, but I understand what you mean,” Atlas replies.

We decide to fix each section together, and while we are doing one side, I ask, “So, how are you dealing with Liam being involved?”

Atlas doesn’t say anything for a moment as he shoots nails into the boards, securing them back down. I don’t push it, and I don’t ask again; I just wait. He is either going to answer me or not, and whichever he chooses to do is fine with me.

“I don’t know,” he replies eventually, “some of the shit that he’s said is twisting the way that I’m remembering shit, and I don’t know if that’s because I had it wrong or if he’s manipulating me again.”

I sigh, “I know exactly what you mean. We thought that Liam had done all of this horrific shit, and while he has done some things, the worst of it was actually done by Blake, using Liam's name or manipulating him.”

“Exactly,” Atlas replies, “but even if he was being controlled by Blake, he surely can’t have been when I was a kid, and he watched and allowed Blake to do that shit to me, and the things he said, some of it definitely wouldn’t win him any father of the year awards.”

I nod, “I remember, and no, they definitely wouldn’t, but there’s a big difference between a fucking shit father and a criminal mastermind that’s responsible for trafficking kids and all sorts of horrific things that we thought he did.”

“And that is why I am confused. He did run it all before, but when did it switch over to Blake’s involvement? When did he stop running shit?”

“The only way that you’re going to know is by asking him,” I reply, even though I know that he probably doesn’t want to hear it.

Atlas sighs, “Even if I do that, which, let’s face it, is unlikely, I’m not going to believe anything that he tells me anyway.”

“I know, man,” I say with sympathy, “you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

“Yeah,” he replies.

There is not much else he can say on the subject, I get it I do, and I wish that there was something that I could say to him that would help, but I really don’t think there is.

We lapse into silence as we continue to secure the building and then move to the generator, the only conversation between us is about the checks that we have to do and whether it is working or not.

We are both jarred out of our peaceful silence as Atlas’s phone rings, and I glance at him curiously.

He shrugs as he puts down the things that he was holding so he can grab his phone out of his pocket, “It’s probably just Trick, we’ve been gone a while and I bet Rafe’s made lunch.”

My stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly, and I smirk, “I could eat.”

His laughter cuts short as he looks down at the screen, “It’s Liam.”

“Answer it, but put it on speaker phone; I’ll record the conversation using my phone,” I say seriously.

He nods and waits for me to set my phone up before he presses the answer button, “Liam.”

“Atlas,” Liam greets and there is no mistaking the warmth in his tone, it confuses me so I can only imagine what it is doing to Atlas.

“What do you want?” Atlas asks when Liam doesn’t seem to say anything else.

Liam sighs but answers his question, “As promised, I have been digging around Hunt, trying to lock him down and figure out what he is doing. I am still working on getting a meeting with him, and as soon as I do, I will let you and Ric know, and you guys can do what you want with it.”

“Ric?” I can’t help but question, even though I probably shouldn't.

“Sorry, Alaric, Ric is a nickname I used to have for him,” Liam replies, his voice once again warming.

“So, you have no real information, and this call was pretty fucking pointless?” Atlas asks, completely ignoring what Liam has said.

“No, actually, I’m calling because although I don’t have a meeting set up yet, I have heard from a source that I trust, that Hunt is trying to work out Shadow's identity.”

My blood runs cold.

“Fuck,” Atlas and I curse at the same time.

“My thoughts exactly, I’m going to push harder for a meeting, we need to end this sooner rather than later, he cannot get his hands on Shadow,” Liam replies.

It doesn’t escape my notice that not only does he say, we, as if he is fully invested now, but also that he doesn’t say Ever or even her; he doesn’t give any hint about Ever’s identity. Which tells me he is not entirely sure that he is not being listened to.

“Got it,” Atlas replies, “I will let the others know. You fill in Alaric, get that meeting, we can use that to get to him.”

“Will do,” Liam says, which surprises me because there was a time when there was no way that he would take an order from Atlas.

It has clearly caught Atlas by surprise as well because he hesitates before replying, “Great.”

“Wait, before you hang up,” Liam says, and Atlas and I share a look.

“What?” Atlas asks again, impatience in his tone.

“Amelia’s funeral is next week,” Liam starts, and my eyebrows rise, “I just wanted to let Ever know in case she wanted to go.”

I'm not sure how Ever’s going to feel about that.

“We’ll tell her,” Atlas replies.

“I’ll text you the details,” Liam adds.

“Fine,” Atlas promptly hangs up, clearly having had enough of talking to his father.

“Well, fuck,” I say.

“Summed it up perfectly, brother,” Atlas smirks, “let’s finish checking this and get the horses in and then we can go and fill in the others.”

“Good plan.” I say as I continue to look over the generator, “I think I’m going to need to head into town, this part here is looking a bit worn, it’s got some life left in it but if we’ve got bad weather heading our way, I’d rather not risk it.”

Atlas nods, “Alright, let's go and get the horses. We can head into town this afternoon?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I reply.

Trick

W e have checked everything that could possibly need checking. Rafe’s made a list of things that we could need if the power goes out or if we run out of heat or get stuck up here. We do have a generator which seems to be working perfectly, so if the power goes out, we have at least got a backup. We would all rather be over-prepared though, just in case for some reason, the generator packs in too.

The exterior of the cabin looks good and thankfully nothing looks like it needs repairing.

“Right, I’m going to head into town this afternoon to grab all of this stuff, but first lunch,” Rafe says.

“Thank god I’m starving,” Riot agrees.

“I think I’m wasting away,” Luc smirks, being overly dramatic.

“Me too,” Pete adds with a smile. “Do you need a hand?”

Rafe nods, “Yeah, that would be great.”

Before they walk off, I say, “Pete, I need to check in with Elijah and the guys and see how they are getting on. Do you want to join the conversation?”

Pete smiles and shakes his head, “No, it’s okay. I spoke to him last night. He is managing to stay in contact quite regularly, and I don’t want to get in the way of the debriefing.”

“You just want first dibs on the food,” Luc grins.

Pete grins, “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Alright, I will catch up with you guys in a minute then. This call shouldn’t take very long; they are pretty much stuck at the moment,” I tell them.

“We will try and save you some food,” Riot grins.

I flip him off as I grab my coffee and head for my office, it’s not technically just mine but I am the only one that uses it, and everyone pretty much just calls it mine, so I have claimed it now.

Settling in my chair, I open my laptop and pull up the video feed, clicking on the button and waiting for Elijah to come on. There is no point in putting it on the big TV screen here when it is only me who is on the call with them. I'm even more glad that I haven’t done that when Elijah finally makes the call.

“What happened?” I demand, seeing the bruised faces of Elijah and his team in front of me.

“We ran into a slight issue,” Callan smirks, stating the obvious, and then adding, “we won.”

My shoulders relax slightly at his usual joking, but I still need to know what has happened, “Of course you did. An issue with the case, or an unrelated issue?”

“With the case,” Elijah replies, “one of his associates recognized us when we went to the bar for some food; he thought he and some of his people would deal with the issue, as he put it. We took care of him and all of the people he had with him. They are now in custody.”

“They were wanted in several states, so the arrest is a good one and one that will stick, just not the arrest that we wanted,” Marty adds.

“They have been extensively questioned, and as far as we can tell, he didn’t tell anyone else that we were watching our target. We are just waiting to hear back about any information found on their devices; as soon as that comes back clear, then we can head back out to carry on the observations,” Noel explains.

“That’s great. Are you all okay? Nothing serious?” I ask.

They all shake their heads, and Callan says, “We are all fine. I actually enjoyed it, we have done so much watching and evidence gathering without being able to do anything that I needed the fight.”

“Yeah, me too,” Elijah agrees.

“Are you getting any closer to being able to extract the children and then bring him in?” I ask.

Elijah sighs, and I can see how much it is wearing on him. This case has been a fucking difficult one, and he and the team are going to need some decent time off after this for their mental health; I grab a pen and make a quick note to clear their schedule and rearrange a couple of things pushing any case a bit further away. We always have at least a week off between jobs, but I think that they are going to need more.

“We are getting closer, thank fuck, but there are so many things that we need to put in place still. It is an incredibly delicate situation. We need to get them out as safely as possible, but if we don’t time it perfectly, then he will just kill them because he is that twisted.” Elijah explains.

I nod, “I understand. Have you got some backup there now? Do you need us to come up?”

“We have got backup on the way, and I am going to be coordinating with the teams in order to figure out the best way to approach it; we are hoping to have everything resolved by the end of next week, but there is no guarantee. Nothing has gone according to plan so far,” Elijah replies.

“Okay, got it. If you need us let us know, I know that Lucien, Creed and the others said that they were out but I think they are already struggling and Lyric’s already got Quinn and Ezra to go with Ever, Cash and Jensen to stake out the shipping yard, so I’m sure we can call them in if we need to as well.”

They all start laughing. Callan grins, “I knew Ezra wasn’t going to last.”

“Yeah, I don’t think any of us are too surprised about that,” I reply.

“We should be fine. Mr R is sending some teams with guys that we’ve worked well with before, so they know how we work, and we know that they are actually going to listen and not try to take over or waste time arguing with me that they know better because they’ve been agents longer than we have,” Elijah adds.

I sigh, “Yeah, I’m glad he has found you teams that work well with you. To be fair that reaction has been happening far less since the whole poisoning inside job thing.”

“Yeah, it has, but it is starting to pick back up again,” Noel says.

“It is fucking ridiculous and childish, I would expect it if we were still in high school, but we aren’t. We are grown-ass adults.” Callen comments, rolling his eyes.

“Let me know if anything happens and I’ll have a word with Mr R,” I offer.

Elijah shrugs, “It’s not a massive problem, it's more annoying than anything, if it ever becomes something that we can’t handle without getting really violent, I’ll let you know.”

I smirk, “Maybe let me know after you’ve gotten a little bit violent.”

“Done,” Callan replies immediately before anyone can argue.

Callan likes violence as much as Jensen and Ever do, so it is no surprise that he is willing to give them a bit of a lesson before sorting it out officially.

“Alright, is that everything that we need to know for now?” I ask.

Marty smiles, “Yeah, that’s the highlights.”

I grin, “Good, you guys go and get some rest and let me know if you need anything. Keep me updated on any developments too.”

“You got it,” Eijah says, and then adds, “er Trick when you tell Pete could you make sure that he knows that I’m okay.”

“Yeah, of course,” I reply, “you know he’s going to call you immediately, right?”

“Yeah, we are free now. I can talk,” he smiles.