Chapter Twenty-Three

Trick

A fter that I hang up with Elijah, I make a couple of notes about the call and then send a message to Mr R requesting that he send me the details of the teams that he is sending to aid them. He emails me back within five minutes and doesn’t even ask me why.

I don’t need the names for any reason apart from the fact that if there is an issue, then I have their names to hand easily, and I know who they are. It is a precautionary measure rather than one that I actually need to do. Once that has been done, I message back my thanks and tell him that Elijah and his team will be out for longer than the week that we usually take off after a job due to the complication in their current job and the mental toll that it is causing them. As usual, he doesn’t question it and says he will make sure that no jobs are sent my way, which may mean that they can’t help themselves and they want to be involved.

“We have a complication,” Rage says as he walks into my office, all of the others following behind him and looking curious.

I frown, “Is the barn in worse shape than we thought?”

Rage shakes his head and then replies, “No, well, there were a few loose boards that we fixed, and I need to go into town this afternoon for a new part for the generator, but other than that, the horses will be fine, and the barn will remain standing.”

“That’s great, what’s the problem though?” I ask.

Everyone takes seats apart from Atlas who stays standing and looks like he has too much energy zinging around his body.

“Liam called,” he says.

Ah, that would explain the extra energy.

“What did he want?” Luc asks.

“To help mostly,” Atlas replies, frowning in confusion, which I understand. Liam’s current need to help us is confusing on a lot of levels.

“And to warn us,” Rage adds.

My eyebrows raise. I don’t like the sound of that at all, “Warn us about what?”

“Hunt is trying to find out the identity of Shadow,” Atlas replies.

Curses sound out in the room, echoing loudly as the implications of what that could mean flood our minds.

“Wait, wouldn’t he already know?” Peter asks, and when we look at him confused, he adds, “Blake knew, didn’t he? And Blake worked with Hunt, so wouldn’t Hunt know?”

Atlas shakes his head, “I don’t think Hunt knows, Blake must have kept that information to himself, probably in some kind of power play that he was expecting to use later on. Liam has a soft spot for Ever. I don’t think he would play us on this.”

“As much as I hate to agree,” Riot starts, “Atlas is right, if Liam is concerned that Hunt is looking into Shadow then we need to take it as a serious thing.”

“Agreed,” Luc says. “Did he say he had any idea who Shadow was?”

Rage shakes his head, “No, he didn’t but he was very careful not to say he or she or mention Ever’s name, so he obviously wasn’t entirely sure that his line was secure that he wasn’t being listened to.”

“We have got the phone call recorded. Do you want to listen to it?” Atlas asks.

I nod my head, “It might be a good idea.”

We listen to the whole thing; there is nothing really being said that they haven’t told us about until it gets to the end and Ever’s mom’s funeral.

“Shit,” I curse, “I don’t know how she’s going to feel about that.”

“That’s what we said,” Rage replies.

“When’s she supposed to be checking in?” Rafe asks.

I frown slightly, “Tomorrow morning, they are settling in and then heading to the shipping yard, since we are assuming it's one of the night shipments that is going to have Hunt’s men surrounding it, that is what we are watching first. They will check in the following morning.”

“Okay, so I don’t think we should wait too long to tell her about her mom's funeral, but I do think that we should wait until she checks in tomorrow morning,” Rafe suggests.

Hums of agreement sound around and I nod, “Okay, we can fill her in on the check in call.”

“I’m even more glad that we got the kill order approved now,” Atlas practically growls.

“Me too, he absolutely cannot ever get his hands on Ever, that would be even worse than Blake,” Luc replies, his eyes hard.

“As unlikely as it is, I am kind of hoping that they manage to take the shot this weekend. Him actively trying to identify who Shadow is adds a whole other level of fear to this whole thing,” Peter says.

“Yeah, it does.” I agree, “She is safe though; not only does he not know anything yet, but she has got us to protect her, Jynx to protect, D will protect, and hell, even Liam won’t let anything fucking happen to her. Hunt would be bringing down hell on himself if he tried to touch Ever.”

Atlas nods, “I agree with all of that. The problem is that Hunt doesn’t know that.”

“He’s right. Hunt doesn’t know exactly how protected Ever is, so there is no warning in place that may make him wary.”

“True, but he doesn’t know that Ever is Shadow either,” Peter says, “if we start making it known just how protected Ever is and by how many strong and powerful people, on both sides of the law then it’s going to make Hunt suspicious and he’s going to look closer at Ever to see why she’s that protected. We could potentially be telling him exactly what he wants to know.”

“Peter’s right,” Riot agrees, “for now, we just need to carry on as we are and hope that we can get to Hunt before he figures out who Shadow is.”

I sigh, “I have to admit that a part of me wants to pull her back from surveillance knowing that Hunt is after Shadow. He was a threat before but now he’s a particular threat to Ever herself and I don’t like that. The only thing stopping me, actually two things, one Ever would kill me, and two Hunt doesn’t actually know who Shadow is.”

“If we get even a sniff that he is beginning to suspect something then I want Ever kept close, she can hate it all she wants none of us can go through another Blake situation.” Luc says fiercely, memories shadowing his eyes.

None of us like to remember that time, it was not good for any of us, and Ever still struggles with the aftereffects of being taken, although thankfully not as regularly as she used to, thanks to lots of therapy and healing and the fact she murdered the person responsible, I mean that helps a lot.

“Agreed,” everyone says together.

We can’t lose her; we almost did, and none of us will survive that situation again; it is as simple as that.

“Okay so this is the plan,” I start, summing the most recent events so that everyone is on the same page, “we’re going to fill the others in when they check in, and find out what Ever wants to do about her mom’s funeral.”

“I don’t think she’s going to want to go,” Riot says thoughtfully.

Rafe shakes his head, “She won’t, but she might feel like she has to because Amelia was her mom, and now she’s dead, and that’s what you do when your mom dies; you go to their funeral.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Atlas agrees, “we need to make sure that she knows that she doesn’t have to go if she doesn’t want to and that whatever decision she makes, we will support her.”

Once again, we all nod in agreement and I have to admit that I will forever be grateful that the majority of the time we all agree, if we didn’t it would make this family of ours a pretty impossible place to be and we probably wouldn’t work as well as we do.

We are all silent for a moment as we absorb the information that none of us thought we would get today.

“Elijah, Callan, and the others are good. I think they are all ready for this job to be over with. They had an altercation, and they are a bit banged up,” Peter’s eyes widen, and I quickly add, “They are absolutely fine, and Elijah is waiting for you to call him.”

Pete doesn’t bother to reply; instead, he jumps and leaves the room, pulling his phone from his pocket as he goes.

“When are they thinking that they’ll be back?” Rage asks.

“A week or so, probably longer,” I reply.

“For a job that was only supposed to take a week at most, that’s a lot,” Atlas replies.

I nod, “Yeah, but we know that things rarely go according to plan.”

“That’s true,” he replies.

“Alaric’s calling me,” Atlas suddenly says, “I bet Liam’s called him.”

I nod, “Probably, put him on speaker.”

“Hey,” Atlas greets his uncle, “you’re on speaker, I’m assuming Liam called you.”

“Yeah, he did. I'm worried about Hunt trying to figure out who Shadow is, especially since Ever has used her particular skill set at headquarters, and we have no idea if the people that were working as moles for Hunt told him about it.” Alaric says, and I appreciate that he has gotten straight to the point of his call and not beat around the bush.

“Fuck,” I curse, “I hadn’t thought about that at all.”

“Surely, if he knew, he would have taunted that he knew by now; that’s what he does; he loves having information and would have loved to hold that over us,” Riot asks, “and surely he would be trying to get to Ever a lot more than he actually is.”

“All good points and the fact that Liam is certain that he’s looking for Shadow’s identity and doesn’t know yet is also a good sign, but it still makes me nervous,” Alaric replies, the concern heavy in his tone.

“Yeah, us too. Mr R gave us the permission to kill, if the opportunity arose, Ever, Cash and Jensen are all staking out the shipping yard at the moment with Ezra and Quinn.” I tell him.

“Okay, well, hopefully, he’ll give them the perfect opportunity to take him out, and he doesn’t figure out who Ever is while she’s in such close proximity to him,” Alaric replies.

“We are not even sure that the shipping yard is still being used by Hunt. The information in Drake’s floor was years old, and since Hunt knew it was there, it is quite possible that he moved the operation a long time ago,” Luc points out.

“Yeah, I’m not sure if I’m hoping that’s the case and Hunt’s no longer there, so we know that there’s no chance of him realizing who Ever is, or that he is there so we can end this quicker,” Alaric says, it’s evident by how much he’s panicking that he cares a lot about Ever.

I go over the same reasoning that I did with the others especially emphasizing that Ever will be pissed if we make her come home on a maybe.

“She’s also got Cash and Jensen with her,” Rage points out, “they are fucking terrifying when they want to be, and you can guarantee that if something threatens Ever, then Cash will deal with it ruthlessly; he’s already proven that this week as if we needed any more proof.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Alaric replies, “you guys are all family, and this one is hitting a bit close to home; it’s been a while since we’ve had to deal with cases that are so personal to us.”

“Yeah, we’ve spoken about that,” I reply, honestly, “I think we are all going to be really glad when Hunt is put away, or better yet, dead. He has got a link to far too many of us, and now, with him wanting to find out the identity of Shadow, we are done taking it slow and carefully.”

“I agree,” Alaric says, “and I know that Mr R will as well. I am confident in saying that the job has changed; the objective now is to take Hunt out as soon as you have the opportunity. After that, we can work on dismantling his businesses and taking down his associates; none of them are as dangerous as he is.”

“Agreed,” we all say at the same time.

Knowing that the objective has now officially changed is actually a significant relief. It doesn’t change anything immediately; we still need to see if Hunt is using the port and shipping yard. If he is, then that is a massive operation that he is running out of there, and dismantling that would be our top priority anyway. Not only that but because it is such a big operation, then it would stand to reason that Hunt is likely to be there fairly regularly to check over it and make sure that it’s running as it should.

If we can prove that then we can stake the place out and take the shot at him when he is there, it would save us chasing him, instead we wait for him to come to us. We just need to prove it all first, which is why we need to make sure that he is still using it otherwise it’s back to the drawing board.

“We’ll get a couple of plan b’s and c’s in place just in case we need them, and we will make sure that we fill Ever and the guys in on what’s happening when they next check in which hopefully will be no later than tomorrow morning,” I tell Alaric.

“Good. I’ll keep in contact with Liam. Hopefully, he is going to be able to set up a meeting with Hunt; if he manages to do that, then we will have the perfect opportunity to take him down,” Alaric replies. “We can get Liam to choose a place where we can set up a lot of surveillance and failsafe in place so that he can’t escape. Or get knowledge of the place that Hunt wants to meet before they go. There are all sorts of advantages that it could give us, and we will finally be one step ahead of Hunt for a change.”

“That all sounds great and would be a pretty solid plan if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re putting a lot of our faith in Liam,” Rage points out.

“He’s right, we’re assuming that he’s not going to screw us over at some point.” Luc agrees, a frown drawing his eyebrows together.

“Not at all, I am actually assuming that he is going to screw us over at some point, but I don’t think it will be with this. Liam wants Hunt dead as much as we do; he killed Amelia, who Liam put his life and reputation on the line for, he had Blake dealing in all sorts of things that Liam absolutely fucking hated, and although I’m certain that Blake would have done it anyway, Liam still blames Hunt for that. He is also partially responsible for Liam’s business going to shit.” Alaric makes some really good points, “Not only is there all of that, but he is a threat to Ever and to you, Atlas; I know you don’t like it, but he wants to protect you as well. It’s for all those reasons and probably some that we don’t know about that I don’t think Liam will fuck us over with Hunt.”

“I really hate to agree,” I start earning myself some looks from the men in my office, “but I do. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is probably a pretty good chance that he is going to somehow swing it in a way that he gets a really good deal of it all, but I think he wants the same end result as we do. Hunt dead.”

“Exactly,” Alaric agrees. “He seemed to think that he would be able to let me know by the day after tomorrow if he had managed to get a meeting with Hunt.”

“That’s quicker than I thought,” I reply, “I’m glad though, I’m fucking done with all things to do with Hunt now.”

“Aren’t we all?” Alaric replies. “Atlas, I want to check with you, and I need you to be honest, if he pulls this off and he manages to set up a meeting then we are going to be working with your father, and you are going to have to interact with him to a certain degree. Are you going to be able to handle that?”

“None of us would blame you if you had to sit that part out,” I add as gently as possible.

Atlas’s fists clench, and his icy blue eyes flash with anger, “I’m good. There is absolutely no way that I'm letting you all go into a massively dangerous situation like that will be, with my fucking father, no less, without me. It’s not happening. I will be absolutely fine.”

“I thought you might say that,” I grin.

“There are enough of us that we can keep the direct interaction between you and your father to the very minimum anyway,” Rage points.

I nod, “Yeah, that’s true. It will be easy enough.”

“What about you, Alaric? Will you be okay?” Atlas asks his uncle, a concerned look on his face.

“I have been dealing with your father for decades. I'm used to it by now,” Alaric replies and then adds slightly hesitantly, “I’m starting to think that we may have gotten a few things wrong.”

We all share a look, it is something that the majority of us have been thinking since Liam started to help us, and quite honestly, none of us have brought it up because of Atlas.

“Yeah, but I’m not dealing with that now, we sort Hunt out and then we can maybe revisit that.” Atlas surprises me by replying, and it's clear that is as far as he is willing to take the conversation.