Chapter Twenty-Six

Jensen

B y the time we finally get back to the safe house, we are all absolutely exhausted, and I am ready to fall into bed. We did manage to find a diner, which wasn’t too far away from the alleyway, so it only took us stepping outside and looking up the street to see if the police presence was still there. As is typical in these sorts of situations, they hung around for a while, and we didn’t get back to the car until nearly three hours later.

After the excitement of the first half of the night, the rest of the night was predictably dull.

“How did it go?” Cash asks, suppressing a yawn as we all walk through the door.

We still have to check in with Trick, and give him an update and to save us telling it twice I simply say, “I’ll fill you in when we tell Trick, it’s got nothing to do with Hunt though.”

Ever tucks herself under my arm cradling a coffee in her hands as I kiss her forehead, and sigh happily, it always feels better when she is with me.

“That was a confusing statement,” she says, yawning halfway through and setting the rest of us off.

“Coffee, guys,” Cash says as he nods to the cups on the side. He grabs mine and his as Ezra and Quinn grab theirs and then presses a button on the laptop, calling Trick.

“You guys look exhausted,” is the first thing that Trick says.

“Thanks, dude,” I reply, rolling my eyes.

He chuckles, “No problem. You are all clearly tired, so fill me in quickly.”

“Unfortunately, we didn’t see anyone that we could link to Hunt,” Cash says.

“We didn’t even see anything mildly interesting,” Ever adds, clearly not happy about it.

Trick nods, “Okay, what about you guys?”

“We didn’t either, but we may have missed them,” I explain, and when Trick’s eyebrows rise, I continue, “We saved a woman from being mugged and murdered by fighting off five guys, and one of them might be responsible for two recent murders in the area.”

Trick stares at me for a moment before he says, “I am going to need some more detail. Explain.”

I launch into a detailed description of what happened, making sure I don’t leave anything important out as Quinn and Ezra chime in with their versions and points of view as well. By the time I'm done, Trick is shaking his head and Ever’s staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Only you three could find that much excitement on a stakeout without even looking for it.” Trick replies.

“What he said,” Ever adds.

I shrug, “I don’t really know what to say to that.”

Trick rolls his eyes, and smiles, “Okay. That is all I need to know for now but before you go and get some rest, I need to fill you in on a couple of things that have happened here.”

I frown; what could have happened in such a short amount of time?

“Liam got in contact with Atlas,” Trick starts, “he’s hoping to get a meeting with Hunt set up and we’re hoping to use that in order to take him down.”

“Why do I hear more urgency in that sentence than before?” Cash asks.

Trick’s face is serious, and I know him well enough to know that we aren’t going to like what he says next, “Hunt is trying desperately to find the identity of Shadow.”

Quinn speaks up, “He’s been obsessed with that for a long time, that’s not a new thing.”

“Shit, do you not know?” I ask.

Ezra shakes his head, “It hasn’t come up.”

“Know what?” Quinn asks, “Why has him wanting to know the identity of Shadow ramped up the urgency.”

No one says anything for a moment, not even Ezra, which is something I really appreciate. He is leaving it up to Ever to decide.

“Because I’m Shadow,” Ever says, yawning like it is no big deal.

“What?” Quinn asks, “The Shadow?”

“Yep, that’s me,” she replies.

We all watch somewhat amused as he goes through all the emotions and realisations that we did.

“But that would have meant that you were only . . .” he starts trailing off.

Ever smirks, “Yep.”

“Wow,” he mutters, leaning back in his seat.

“Obviously my skills only come out to play in certain situations now which is why Shadow is considered semi-retired in the criminal world,” she explains, still snuggled into my chest.

“Wow,” he repeats, and we all chuckle.

Trick smirks, “Okay, while he is dealing with that we will carry on. Obviously, because of the Shadow issue we want Hunt taken out before he figures it out. If we hadn’t already had a kill request granted Mr R would have granted it. There is now even more urgency to get him out of the picture.”

“Is Ever safe up here, being this close to where Hunt potentially could be?” Cash asks.

Trick nods, “Yeah, as far as we can tell, he doesn’t suspect that Shadow is anything to do with us, Blake must have kept the information to himself. We don’t want to do anything that could arise his suspicions and make him think that he needs to look closer at us than he already is.”

Cash nods, “Good point. I still don’t fucking like it but understood.”

“None of us do,” Trick replies seriously and then looks at Ever, “there is something else. I would wait until you weren’t so sleepy, Sweetheart, but I think you probably want to know now.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Ever says, and then sits up, “everyone’s okay, aren’t they?”

Trick smiles, “Yes, we’re all fine.”

“Oh good,” she replies, relaxing back down into me, “what’s up then?”

“Liam also mentioned that it’s Amelia’s funeral soon, and he’s sent the details to Atlas in case you would like to go.”

She tenses and I can just about see the frown dragging her eyebrows down, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Cash asks gently.

She nods, “I'm not going to think about it now; it will throw me, and I want to focus on the job that we have got to do up here. I will deal with it when we get home.”

Trick nods, “Okay, if that’s what you want to do, we will leave it for when you get home.”

“Thanks,” Ever replies.

“Is that everything?” Ezra asks, “I’m fading fast.”

“Yep, you guys get some sleep, we’ll talk tomorrow,” Trick replies.

“Love you,” Ever says sleepily.

Trick’s smile is soft as he replies, “Love you too.”

When he has hung up, we all get up ready to head to bed, Ever still tucked underneath my arm but she stops me and turns us back to Quinn.

“You, okay?” she asks, “I’m still me.”

Quinn grins, “Yeah, and even more awesome than before. You are a fucking legend.”

Ever’s tense frame immediately relaxes at his words, and I realise that she was worried that he was going to be scared of her or something.

“Thanks,” she replies, smiling.

“I’m exhausted and we’ve got to get up in a few hours and do it all over again.” Cash says.

“Night, guys,” Ezra replies as they go into their room, and we head into ours. There are only two bedrooms in this safe house.

**********

Ever

T he second day of stakeout was as boring as the first was, even for Jensen and the guys this time. None of us saw anyone noteworthy, and in fact we didn’t really see anything suspicious at all. Whereas that would normally be a good thing, and we would be leaving and calling this a write off, to me, it seems too squeaky clean, and thankfully, the others all agree with me, so we are not going anywhere. At least not until we are one hundred percent sure that Hunt has nothing to do with this place.

“I’m already bored,” I say as I stretch in the car.

Cash chuckles, “We’ve been here for ten minutes.”

I sigh, “I know, remind me never to agree to do a stakeout again. We are only on day three and I am so done.”

“Don’t lie, you were done after day one,” Cash grins.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” I reply honestly.

“Hopefully, we will find something today,” Cash says, and then side-eyes me as he adds, “If not, we really need to stay for a week just to make sure.”

I groan but nod, “I know. I think it is just getting frustrating because we need this lead; we need this to be where Hunt is so that we can finally end this; it has been going on for too long.”

“You know he’s not going to find out who you are,” Cash says firmly, that deadly expression flashing through his eyes.

“I know, but I will feel a lot better when he’s taken out,” I reply. “Even better if I do it myself.”

“I get that; he’s escaped situations that should have been impossible and then popped up again; I want to see with my own eyes that he’s dead and that there’s no possible way that he’s going to pop back up again and cause us shit.” Cash replies, completely understanding where I am coming from without me needing to say anything.

“Exactly,” I agree, “I need to see him dead.”

We fall silent as we watch and wait. Thankfully, the silence is comfortable, and we pass the next few hours only broken with the occasional conversation. When I see a car pull up to the gate, I watch it casually, not really thinking anything of it, until I catch sight of the driver.

Sitting up straighter I say, “That’s one of Hunt’s inner circle, I’m almost sure of it.”

“Driving the car?” Cash asks, his eyes already on the vehicle.

“Yeah,” I reply.

“It looks like it to me as well,” Cash agrees. “Let’s wait for them to head in, and then we can follow them.”

“We need to get pictures, and see if we can hear anything,” I remind him.

Finally, something to focus on. If I had to spend one more hour trying to stop my thoughts from drifting to my mother and Liam, I would have gone insane. I know it is not healthy, but I am outright refusing to think about it until I am back home, and even then, I might just ignore it for a while longer until it goes away. I don’t know what to do, and that is as far as I have allowed myself to get in the thought process but inevitably, I know I'm going to have to think about it and confront some feelings about it all.

One thing that is reassuring about the whole thing is that I know no matter what I decide to do, or however I decide to handle it, my men will back me up and support me in whatever way I need them to and that is why I love them. One of the many reasons at least.

“Alright, let’s park the car around the corner and then we can head in through that blind spot that we noticed yesterday,” Cash says, as he starts the car and moves it closer to where we will be going in and out of the shipping yard.

We caught a lucky break yesterday when we noticed that there was a small area that was a blind spot to the cameras. We are still going to have to be very careful when we go in so that we remain undetected, and have some hard hats that we will wear in case we get spotted. We should blend in well enough that no one is going to ask too many questions and just tell us to move on if we are in an area that we shouldn’t be.

As soon as the car is parked where we need it to be we double check our weapons, grab the hard hats that everyone on site seems to be wearing and then head for the blind spot. It is a good job that it’s dark out and we are in the warehouse district because otherwise we would definitely draw attention to ourselves since we have to climb over the fence in order to get in.

Fortunately, it is a fairly easy fence to climb, and we both get over it pretty quickly, landing on the other side and using the blind spot to dodge the cameras and hopefully not be seen anywhere that is suspicious. The theory is that when the cameras do pick us up, they are just going to see two workers and not question it any further. We don’t want to be questioned though, ideally, we don’t want anyone to see us but if we are we have a backup plan.

“I imagine that they are going to be by the main office,” I say as we stick to the shadows, walking through the towering shipping containers and making sure that we are avoiding people as we do.

Cash nods, “From what I can recall from the aerial, it should be this way.”

We continue forward, needing to stay as silent as we can so we can hear if anyone is approaching us or if we are about to run into anyone. The port is loud, people yelling to each other, machinery running, the clanging of metal, all of it going on around us and yet walking between the towering shipping containers stacked at least three high, more in some places, makes it seem strangely eerie.

Honestly, we would have no way of knowing if someone is watching us from above, and I find myself looking up every so often. I get distracted from doing this when I hear voices, and Cash and I stop before we head down the next row of containers. We both stand still and listen, trying to gauge exactly where the voices are coming from so we can avoid them.

I point to the left, and Cash nods in agreement, we are just starting to turn around, to go back and find a different offshoot to go down so that we can avoid the people, when someone speaks, and the voice is familiar.

“Hunt,” I sign to Cash, who immediately nods.

We change our direction and move cautiously toward the voices, sticking close to the shipping containers, and relying on the shadows in order to keep us hidden. Cash is closest to the end, so he peeks around the corner ever so slightly and then looks back at me nodding, and confirming that it is Hunt. He pulls out his phone, sets it to record, puts it low down, and tilts it up so that it still gets a good view of them. He makes sure only the camera is pointed out. People are a lot less likely to notice something that is not in their immediate eye-line than they are if it is at the right height, hence why when you are filming a target, you either have the recording device up high or down low. Sometimes that is not possible, but it is the usual rule of thumb.

“The shipment is arriving as we speak,” one of the women says. “It will be on the boats in a matter of hours.”

We didn’t see it arrive through the entrance that we are watching so I am assuming that it's through the one that the guys are watching since she said it will be ready to go on the boat and not come off it.

“Excellent,” Hunt replies, “everything is as it should be?”

“Yes, we had no issues with this one and no one looked closer than we wanted them to.” A man replies this time.

“What about the police presence up the road from the other entrance?” Hunt asks, an edge to his voice.

I share a worried look with Cash, he is talking about the mugging that the guys prevented, Hunt knows what they look like and most likely has his people memorise what we all look like too, just in case they come across us, this could potentially blow the whole thing for us.

The man clears his throat, “A local thing, a robbery I believe, nothing to worry about and absolutely nothing to do with the business here. The cops didn’t even question anyone here.”

Hunt hums in a pleased sort of way and replies, “Good. We don’t need any extra eyes on us at the moment. Not until the main shipment has gone in a couple of weeks time, on the twentieth. We will keep everything quiet and above board after that, just in case anyone does decide to come looking around, and then, as usual, we will filter in the shipments slowly and carefully before we do another big shipment out.”

“Understood.” They both reply together.

“Anything else that I should be aware of?” Hunt asks.

“Yes, actually,” the guy replies with a dark kind of joy in his voice.

I tilt my head to the side as I hear a muffled grunted and then a pained sound. Cash’s eyes narrow, he glances down at his phone but can’t see much without jogging the video so I shift to see if I can see anything on the screen.

As soon as I work out what I'm seeing I start signing, “Guy with a bag over his head, hands tied behind his back, and kneeling in front of Hunt.”

Cash nods and then motions for me to move back to where I was, clearly not liking that I am so close to the edge and could be spotted with one false move.

I have to say I agree with him, it would blow everything and would most likely end up in Hunt escaping while we fought his people, he’d also probably pull his involvement in this place and from the sounds of it, this is exactly where we want to be and a perfect opportunity to take him down, and I don’t want to lose that, so I move out of that way.