Coming Full Circle

by Kian Rhodes

  I pounded him on the back, grateful that my anger had dissipated at the shock. “You okay?”

  Colby nodded, his wide eyes still on the massive black cat-man towering over us. Across the table, I was amazed to see that Charles was watching with mild amusement, no sign of fear or even surprise.

  I sighed and looked back at Ralph.

  “Sorry. I’m under control now.”

  Ralph gave me a curt nod and slowly relaxed, his human half easing forward before he sat back down.

  “Why didn’t your shirt tear?” Colby asked, shrugging when I elbowed him.

  Ralph chuckled. “Interesting takeaway, Colby,” he said with a grin. “My clothes are all custom made with a cotton/spandex fabric,” he explained. “That lets them stretch without tearing.” He smirked. “It helps that panthers are leaner, so I don’t have those big, bulky dog muscles, though.”

  “Wolf muscles, thank you very much,” I huffed in response, grinning at the exchange. It was a debate that Ralph and I had been having for nearly ten years.

  “Whatever,” Ralph winked. “Now, can we get back to business?”

  I nodded, glancing at Colby from the corner of my eyes. Truthfully, I still wasn’t sure why Ralph wasn’t as angry as I was.

  “Back to the list, Rafe,” Ralph said softly, “what it shows is that Colby isn’t the mole and neither is the person he was helping.” He waited until he was sure that he had my attention. “Charles came to me early on to be sure that ODI wasn’t breaking any laws.” He smirked. “They were, of course, but we set up enough safety protocols to be sure he couldn’t access any secure modules. Colby made a bad decision, but his heart was in the right place and it didn’t have anything to do with our actual problem, okay?”

  I nodded and Ralph continued. “The logins that we need to worry about are the ones in orange,” he said calmly, tapping a few keys on the laptop in front of him. “Here’s the CAO office video footage of the time stamp from the first one.”

  The file opened and my mouth dropped. “But..that’s Carol.”

  Ralph nodded, his lips a grim line. “Let’s check the rest.”

  Less than twenty minutes late, we’d confirmed that every one of the unauthorized after-hours log-ins had been by the head of the Crimes Against Omegas division.

  “But why?” Colby asked, confusion lacing the words. “Why Carol? She’s an Omega specialist; one of the good guys.”

  “I’m not sure, Colby,” Ralph admitted, his keys flying over the keyboard. He peered at his laptop screen, deep frown lines adding years to his usually youthful face as he read. “This is interesting.” He tapped a few more keys and the printer in the corner of the room began to whir to life, spitting out papers too fast for the tray to catch them.

  Colby walked over to collect them, but, when he would have handed the stack to Ralph, our boss only took one and indicated that Colby should pass the rest out.

  “It’s Carol’s background check,” Ralph said with a huff. “Anything jump out at you?”

  We scanned the papers, the silence in the room only broken by Colby’s hissed curse.

  “Fuck!” He looked around the table at us. “Daulton. That’s Beehive Hair’s name, too. Beatrice Daulton. That’s the connection.”

  I reached for the laptop in front of Ralph. “May I?”

  Ralph shrugged. “Have at it.”

  Waiting for the Council of Pack’s identification software to load had me tapping my fingers on the table, but, as soon as the search screen came up, I had the search screen filled in in no time. When the red no result alert flashed across the screen, I looked up in confusion.

  “They’re human, Rafe,” Colby interjected before I could comment. “They won’t be in that database.”

  “Shit, right,” I groaned.

  “Try the DNA database,” Ralph suggested. “All employees are automatically entered and it should have a family profile attached to it.”

  A few more keystrokes and the screen flashed, bringing up a digital family tree, complete with driver’s license photos. I turned the screen to face the table at large.

  “There it is,” Chuck sighed, shaking his head. “They’re cousins.”

  “But, she’s the one behind this, why would she kill her own cousin?” Colby asked.

  No one had an answer.

  “Hey, boss?” Our receptionist, Becky, called out from the other side of the door.

  When Ralph nodded, Colby opened it to allow her in.

  “Thanks,” she smiled at my Omega before walking over to hand a cellphone to Ralph. “You left this on my desk. It shows a missed call and keeps vibrating, so I thought I better let you know.”

  “Thank you,” Ralph accepted it graciously, waiting until she closed the door behind her to thumb through the call list. His jaw tightened. “Odd. The call I missed was from the Coruscations. Excuse me for a minute.” He stood and crossed the room as he waited for his voicemail to connect. As he listened to the message, the thick scent of anger filled the room, making me take notice.

  Ralph shoved the phone into his pocket and turned to face us, his eyes flashing as he snarled, “That fucking bitch has my Omega. She waltzed right into the packhouse and used her department ID to get them to release him to her.”

  I rose immediately, reaching for my phone. “I’ll start making calls.”

  “Wait,” Colby caught my wrist, shaking his head. “We need a plan.”

  “He’s right,” Ralph snapped, balling up his fists at his sides.

  I dropped back into my seat. “Where would she take him?”

  “She’s cleaning house,” Ralph snapped. “That’s why the rehoming center is still standing and why she needed Colby to tell her how we would infiltrate the place. She took him there to bait the trap.”

  I reached for my notepad and looked to Colby. “Tell me everything that you had in the plan that you uploaded.”

  Colby nodded, took the pad and pen from my hands, and began to draw. When he pushed the pad back several long minutes later, I was looking at more than just an infiltration plan.

  I cocked my head and Colby shrugged. “The top is the original plan that I had on the server. The bottom is how I would have planned an attack, knowing that my enemy would use the plan up top.” He sighed. “We know it’s a trap, right?”

  “Of course, it is,” Ralph agreed shortly. “But she took Cass and I don’t fucking care.”

  Colby stood and stretched. “Then I’d say it’s past time to shut this bitch down.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Casen

  The dark blue SUV barreled down the highway, tossing me between the seat and the seatbelt as it bounced over ruts in the pavement at an absurd speed.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked, forcing myself to stay calm. If I knew where we were headed, I’d know if the car would be slowing down enough that I could safely bail out of it.

  Carol gave a rude snort-laugh noise. “What’s it matter to you?”

  I forced back a frown and sat quietly, trying to seem as cooperative as possible. When I didn’t respond, Carol took her eyes off the road long enough to glance at me.

  “We have a stop to make,” she said with a sigh. “Then, you and I are off to meet your new master and, once I have cash in hand, I’m on the next flight to Morocco.”

  Morocco.

  Interesting choice since they don’t extradite to the United States.

  But then something else caught my attention. She said I and not we. So, either she was screwing her partner over or, as I suspected, Ralph had absolutely shit to do with my current predicament. And that left me with serious questions about why she would try to make me think he did have.

  I was so lost in my thoughts that I almost missed the SUV slowing down to make a sharp turn. Bracing for impact, I grabbed at the door handle and wrenched with all my might.

  Nothing.

  Unless, of course, you counted my kidnapper’s nasty snort-laugh.

  “You didn’t
really think that was going to work, did you?” she cackled. “These cars are literally designed to lock people inside.” In the reflection on the windshield, I saw her roll her eyes. Then she patted her left hip in warning. “And just in case you have any bright ideas of trying to overpower me, I’m a crack shot.”

  Nifty.

  When she turned the SUV down a dirt road, I realized that I knew exactly where I was. Back where I’d met Ralph to begin with. The stupid abandoned rehoming center. I started to sigh but caught myself.

  If I was back in the rehoming center, all I had to do was get away from Creepy Carol. Once I was free, my attic retreat was waiting for me.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I said, catching her by surprise. “Risk being shot, I mean,” I added a little whimper for good measure. “I’ll be good.”

  If Carol was surprised by my sudden capitulation, it didn’t show. Instead, her wide lips spread into a cocky grin as she pulled to a stop next to a line of cars in front of the building. “Good boy,” she said, condescension dripping from her words. “Even better, it looks like the gang’s all here.”

  She exited the car and walked around to open my door, stepping back to let me out.

  “Stay in front of me,” she snapped, patting the gun under jacket again. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Of course not,” I murmured, stepping carefully as I walked up the path toward the door. In my mind, I was tracing the path that led to the attic, desperately trying to remember which hallway led to the tiny hidden door.

  As we wound through the building, bits and pieces seemed familiar. Then, when we reached a fork in the hallway, a lightbulb flared in my mind and I knew exactly where I was.

  Knowing that I needed a helluva distraction to get enough of a head start to make it down the hall without being caught, I waited until we were abreast of the ancient old fire extinguisher outlined in the dust on the wall and pretended to trip, catching myself with a hand on the wall above it.

  “Oh, for pete’s sake,” Carol huffed. “You’ve got to be the clumsiest Omega I’ve ever seen!”

  “Sorry,” I whined, shifting my hand on the wall until I was able to release the plastic collar from the brace holding it in place. When I caught it, the weight made me grunt and Carol’s head snapped to look at me. I brought the fire extinguisher around with all my might, cringing at the hollow thud when it impacted her skull.

  Carol’s eyes widened in shock and she stumbled one step forward before collapsing to her knees, the gun clattering helplessly from her fingers.

  I hesitated for just a second – remembering all of those cars in the front of the building and having no idea how many of her henchmen were around any corner – then I grabbed the gun and raced for the far hallway and the door hidden at the end of it.

  I wrenched the door open and tugged it closed behind me, racing up the narrow steps to the hidden apartment in the attic where I huddled on the bed, gun trained on the un-barricaded door, and waited.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Ralph

  “They don’t move in until I have Cass,” I reminded Rafe for the fifth time as we crouched in the woods, watching Carol poke and prod at Cass as they moved between her department issue SUV and the building.

  “I know,” Rafe huffed. “They know. Hell, everyfuckingbody knows, okay?”

  “Rafe!” Colby’s whispered scolding made his Alpha sigh.

  “Sorry, boss, but you know these are the best of the best. I promise, no one is going to endanger Casen.”

  I nodded, my jaw tight. I did know that the handful of elite Boxenwolf soldiers, the Blood Valley agents, and hell, even the bounty hunter slash tracker Kade who’d somehow ended up joining us were the very best professional mercenaries available. I also didn’t give fuckall about anything except getting Cass to safety.

  Colby’s strong hand squeezed my bicep reassuringly. “We’re going to get him.”

  “I know,” I managed to choke out, forcing my beast back for the umpteenth time since this pain of a case had turned personal; since it was suddenly my Omega who was missing.

  “Look,” Rafe hissed. “I think we’re clear.”

  Sure enough, the door had swung closed and there was no sign of anyone or anything lurking in the woods nearby. Nothing that wasn’t on our side, anyway.

  Thanking the cloudless sky for our cover of darkness, I rose to my feet and waited. On Rafe’s muttered command, our band of fighters that had taken up positions surrounding the building began to move in, creeping in unlocked windows and shimmying up drainpipes to second-floor fire escapes. Everything except the points of entry that Colby had warned them to expect.

  When the front door eased open and stayed that way, a stick driven between the hinge and door jamb, Colby gave a satisfied grunt. “That’s our signal.”

  Guns in hand, we crept through the night air already thick and wet to reach the porch. Then, one at a time, we drew the door open further and slid through the crack into the near silence inside.

  Hall after hall, we cleared as a team, leaving no corner uninspected. In my mind, I had the floorplan ready and was tracing our route. We were nearly to the center of the large building, to an oversized space that was labeled auditorium, when Rafe cursed and dropped to his knees.

  Peering around Colby’s broad shoulders, I cringed. Fear raced through me as Rafe confirmed what I was seeing.

  “It’s Carol,” he said grimly. “Looks like someone got the drop on her.”

  “Not somebody,” I corrected, swiveling my head to check in every direction. “Cass.”

  “Probably,” Colby agreed, following my eyes around the massive room. “Where is he?”

  As if I could know. I ignored the question, my eyes on the body on the floor. “Is she dead?” I demanded, biting back a snarl.

  “No.” Rafe pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket before rolling the unconscious woman onto her stomach and snapping them on her wrists.

  Carol chose that moment to begin to come around, groaning loudly as her eyes fluttered open, revealing that her pupils were unequal. It seemed Cass had struck her hard enough to give the bitch a concussion.

  Good.

  Shoving past Rafael, I grabbed Carol by the front of her department t-shirt, twisted the fabric in my fist and jerked her to her feet, holding her on tiptoes as I snarled into her face. “Where. Is. The. Omega?”

  Carol gasped and tried to shrink back, not that she could go far with her shirt in my grip. “I..what? Who?”

  “Don’t play games with me, bitch,” I growled, not bothering to swallow the blood as my fangs poked through and scraped my lips. “Where is he?”

  “In the cafeteria,” she whimpered, swaying in my grip as her legs buckled. “Down the hall and to the right in the other wing.” She gave a small scream when I bared my teeth. “Don’t hurt me – please!”

  Colby stepped up and caught Carol around the waist with one arm as I released her, not caring whether she hit the floor or not. “I’ll take her out to the car,” he offered, waiting until Rafe nodded.

  They exchanged a look before he strode off down the hall, her shorter legs making her run to keep pace as he all but dragged her back the way that we’d come.

  “That would put Cass all the way on the other side of the compound,” Rafe observed once she was out of earshot. “No way she had time to make it there and back that fast.”

  “Nope,” I agreed. “Which begs the question of why she wants us in that cafeteria.”

  “Colby’s plan,” Rafe reminded me. “The first one when he thought we were looking for a way to manage a large-scale infiltration of this place. The skylight in the cafeteria was the point of entry.”

  “Which would make it the prime place for her trap,” I said with another growl. “So that’s probably where the people belonging to those vehicles out front are.”

  “I’ll send the force that way,” Rafe informed me. “We’ll start searching for Cass in this wing.” He raised his radio and be
gan barking orders. When the final roger had echoed, confirming that the team was on their way to storm the cafeteria – after I’d insisted that he remind them again that Cass was an innocent bystander – Rafe clipped the radio back onto his belt and turned to me. “You want to split up or stay together?”

  Before I could respond, the radio crackled and Colby’s voice screeched out. “COPSD! Abandon mission! Repeat, abandon mission! That entire building is rigged to blow!”

  Rafe and I looked at each other in shock.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “Get out, Rafe,” I ordered tersely. “I’ve got to find him.”

  “Rafe, this is Kade,” another voice rang out from the radio. “We’re evacuating, but I thought you should know that we breached the target and the Omega isn’t there.”

  “Thank god,” I sighed. “Is anybody in there?”

  Rafe repeated my query as we started for the exit at a run and Kade’s panted response made my blood run cold.

  “No one to worry about. There are seven DOA. No need to plan a rescue.”

  “If Cass isn’t there, where is he?” Rafe growled in frustration. “Where would he have gone?”

  And then, I knew.

  I opened my mouth, but, before I could say, before I could turn away from the door that was looming before us to search out the tiny attic entrance, an immense concussive wave tore through the hall, a rush of energy that threw us through the plate glass of the door and left us flattened on the sidewalk a second later when the ear-splitting boom crashed over us.

  Then, everything went dark.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Rafe

  One second Ralph and I were running toward the exit, the next, I was face down on the pavement nearly fifty feet away, buried under a couple of hundred pounds of dead weight. That thought alone was enough for me to force back the dizziness washing over me in waves and struggle out from under Ralph’s body.

  As soon as I managed to roll him off me, I crawled toward him, intent on checking his pulse.