15. Chapter 15

The fifteen minute drive to Elsa's place feels like an eternity. I try calling her again and still get no answer. It is the first time she hasn't answered when I called.

Never before have I been so thankful she lives close to the city. I was never normally in this city for long periods of time, and the fact that I am close at this time is a coincidence I am thankful for.

She lives in a converted basement apartment beneath an elderly couple on the outskirts of the city. Her favorite mode of transport is a motorbike, but she uses a bicycle most of the time when traveling around the city. She would have ridden the bicycle today and I would have loved to have seen the reaction from Kallen when she told him some suggestion of where he should put it if he insisted on taking her home.

Which I figure he would have just shrugged, secured it to the SUV and forced her into the car. Ignoring the venom that she would have been spitting at him.

I know I'm mentally trying to distract myself because I don't want to find that we have all gotten to her too late. The feeling of dread grows with each passing moment, and I can"t shake the thought that something terrible might have happened to her. As we pull up to her building, my heart races with anticipation and fear.

I can feel something is wrong the moment I step out of the SUV. The front door of the main house is open and silent, but my focus is on the apartment underneath. When Beck moves to go toward the main house, I silently motion no and point him in the direction we need to go. We move silently, and it feels strange that we smoothly work together, quietly moving and covering each other"s backs until we have made it to the open doorway of Elsa"s apartment.

Her bicycle is resting against the side of the building next to the entrance, and we stop there to listen. I can hear movement inside. Whoever is there isn"t trying to be quiet. Taking a quick second look, I"m thankful the occupants are focused on their tasks and not on the doorway so they don"t see me.

There are two of them, dressed in black, covered in weapons and balaclavas. I can"t see Elsa, but they wouldn"t still be here if they killed her, unless they needed information she had hidden somewhere. The situation is tense, and my mind races with possibilities of what could have transpired inside before I shut it down.

I convey what I have seen to Beck and Rick using military hand signals, hoping that they understand. When they both nod, I sigh silently before I concentrate on my breathing, my focus narrowing down to what we are about to do. I count us in, and on the count of three, we move, entering the apartment with stealth.

I take out one of the men with a headshot, which almost mirrors the one Beck puts into the other one. The sound of their bodies hitting the floor is loud and draws a third man out of the bedroom. Rick drops him before he even knows what the source of the sound was. With our guns still raised, we check the rest of the apartment, finding no one else.

"Elsa?" I call out, hoping she is still here and someone hasn"t taken her while the men were left to ransack the place. Moments pass before I hear the sound of metal on metal, and an entire section of the floor lifts from the ground. I almost cry tears of joy at the sight of my blue-haired friend when her head raises from the opening.

She huffs, ignoring my concern for her and says, "I would have gotten rid of them, eventually." I can"t stop the laugh from escaping as Beck and Rick each reach a hand down to help her out of her hiding spot.

"How did you even know to hide?" I ask, and she shakes her head in disgust as she kicks one of the bodies.

"They weren"t all that quiet when they took out the Harts upstairs. I don"t think they realized I lived down here and not up there," she responds with a shrug. "I had time to grab my hard drives and hide."

I hum in contemplation as I look around the room. She has a good setup, but she won"t be able to stay here now. I look at Beck. "I thought she was meant to be safe if they thought you were taking the contract," I say, and he scowls.

"They must have put the hit out to multiple organizations. It"s not uncommon, especially when they don"t have to pay out unless they get the evidence that it"s complete. Obviously, only one organization would be able to provide that."

I nod in understanding, but that creates a dilemma. How many companies did they contract for Elsa"s life?

As much as I want to hide her away with us, I have my own problems at the moment. Pulling my phone back out, I call Kallen back. "We are almost there, two minutes out," he snaps through the phone, indicating that he abandoned whatever job he was doing to come back here.

"We are already here," I say. "We had to take out a team that was already here, so you have a clean-up."

He growls, "Fuck, that"s fine. What about Elsa?"

I resist the urge to smile at the worry and stress in his voice, since I was experiencing the same thing only moments before. "Safe, and annoyed obviously, but the threat is still active," I respond.

He curses again. "Tell her to pack a goddamn bag, she isn"t staying there even if I have to drag her out by her pretty blue hair," he snaps before hanging up on me.

I roll my lips, resisting the urge to cackle like a mad woman. Instead, I swallow it down and turn to her. "Pack a bag, Frostie, you"re taking a vacation," I say, a smile tugging at my lips anyway. She gives me a droll look and rolls her eyes before stomping away into her bedroom.

I"m surprised she isn"t putting up more of a fight, but then I"m assuming she may think I"m taking her somewhere safe as she wouldn"t have heard the other side of the conversation.

Rick looks at me curiously, and I just shake my head. He'll know soon enough anyway.

It isn't long before Kallen and Lake are walking through the open door, and I've never before seen the utterly intense looks on their faces. As it's only them that are here then I have to assume that Nikolai and Wilder were left at the job they were on when I called.

When Kallen raises an eyebrow in my direction I motion toward the bedroom just as Elsa exits it with both a suitcase and a hard protective case as big as her suitcase. She opens her mouth at the sight of the two hulking men but she doesn't get the chance to voice any protests. I will give it to Kallen though, he doesn't drag her out by her hair, but he does throw her over his shoulder before turning to exit the way he entered.

Lake flashes a grin at me, tipping an imaginary hat, "Darlin," he greets briefly before picking up both abandoned cases and turning to exit, almost running into Kallen as he stomps back in with Elsa still over his shoulder. He picks up a backpack and another bag before walking back out again as though he doesn't have a woman trying to jab at his kidneys.

When they are gone, and I hear their car start in the distance, I lose control of my laughter, bending at the waist and cackling until there are tears sliding down my cheeks.

After a few moments of my uncontrolled laughter I manage to pull myself together. Standing back up, I rub a hand across my face while Rick grins at me. Beck is still scowling at me and when I huff at him he says, "If given the chance I would have done the same thing to you."

That has my laughter dying a quick death. With a sigh I do a quick scan of the room before I motion that we should leave.

"What about the bodies?" Beck asks, hesitating to leave.

"Kallen and his team will be back, we just have to close it all up, the guns and bullets are clean anyway so they can't be traced if someone does disturb the scene before it"s cleaned," I explain as I close and lock the door behind me.

Rick gives a nod and moves ahead of us, moving to the open door of the main house and sealing that too.

We are back on the road in moments and I sigh, leaning my head against the glass window. Sometimes I hated the quiet times between work and contracts, but now I wish I could just go twenty four hours without the drama and chaos.

I let my eyes close, exhaustion pressing down on my body. I'm not sure when I fall asleep and for how long, but I do wake to being carried, the scent of Rick invading my senses until I want to nuzzle the skin of his neck.

He chuckles and stops walking. My other senses start to return and I slowly register that something doesn't feel right. Blinking my eyes open I find myself in a dense forest, surrounded by towering trees. The scent of damp earth fills the air, suggesting that it must have rained recently. The diminishing light filters through the canopy above, casting shadows that dance around us.

"Where are we?" I ask, my heart beginning to race as Rick lowers me to the ground. He waits until I"m steady on my feet before walking over to where Beck is standing a few feet away.

"It doesn"t matter where we are," Beck says, his tone serious.

"We should get back to Nix and Kacey," I suggest with a frown, tilting my head in confusion.

"They know where we are. Unlike you, we stopped and let them know what we were doing," Rick says with a grin, adding to my confusion.

"What are we doing?" I prompt, trying to make sense of the situation.

Beck chuckles darkly. "You like to run from us, little rabbit? Well go ahead, run. Only here we are going to be chasing you."

Rick crouches down and runs a hand across the leaf covered dirt lining the floor of the forest. "And when we do catch you, we're going to fuck you so hard you won't ever be able to run again," he says as his lips pull into a wicked smirk.

Laughter bubbles up inside me. My heart is still racing but it's now more adrenaline than fear. "What if I scream?"

The look that crosses Beck's face at my words should have told me everything but he still responds. "Scream as loud as you want, little rabbit, there is no one here to hear you. In fact..." he walks over to me and stands close, trailing a hand softly across my collarbone before he grabs my throat and squeezes. Hard. "I want you to scream. I want to hear your voice shake the leaves in the trees. I want to fuck you so hard for leaving us that you won't be able to breathe or speak or move without it causing you just as much pain as you caused us, without you regretting the moment you left us," he growls, his face inches from mine.

My hand comes up to grip his wrist and he eases off the pressure slightly. "You think it didn't? You think I haven't been in pain since that moment?"

"Not enough." His voice is a harsh gravel, like rocks scraping against a mountain.

Rick steps up beside him, his face having also lost all humor. He brushes a soothing hand down Beck's arm while looking directly at me. "You have a twenty second head start, pretty girl. Run." He barks the last at me and the moment Beck's fingers release my throat I'm already running. My feet echoing softly on the ground as I aim to lose myself in the dark forest in front of me. With two hungry wolves on my trail.