She’d blacked out, coming back into her body, waking slowly. Emma wasn’t sure if she’d passed out. She managed to open her eyes in little slits, but when she saw Dalton smiling above her, she forced them open further.
“Your mine now, Emma, both the bear and I have claimed you. Now and Forever. Look at your wrist,” he said, a smile on his face and love in his eyes
Emma could barely focus. Still basking in her spent lust, she couldn’t figure out what exactly she was looking at, but right above her pulse point was a little mark that resembled a Celtic knot, but was more elongated. It was hard to explain, but beautiful none the less. Looking up into Dalton’s eyes, Emma was about to ask how, when he brought his wrist up to show her had had the same symbol.
“Baby, our mating has been blessed by the Gods. The story told to me was if the Gods bless a true mating, then a symbol will appear,” Dalton nearly purred. “I have never seen a mating symbol, and Jacks and Ryleigh have never said anything about it, but that has to be what these are,” he said lovingly, rubbing his thumb against the mark. “I knew we were meant to be from the very first time I saw you at Ruby’s. I love you, Emma, with all my heart.”
“I love you, too, Dalton McKenna Hayes, you own me mind, body, and soul from this day forward to the end of my life. I know what I’m saying is true because I have felt it from the very first time I set eyes on you as well,” Emma said, letting the happy tears fall from her eyes. She had a feeling fate had been pulling her towards Dalton and her destiny back in the Diner when they first met, but having proof made the moment even more special.
Dalton kissed her deeply, and Emma was hoping for round two, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Their time was short, and Dalton needed to leave soon. The mission was a go, no matter how much Emma wanted him to stay right where he was, at her side.
Chapter 42
Cash flew the group into a small airport about 30 miles from the facility everyone suspected was the very same one where Emma had been held. The flight was quick and painless, but leaving Emma and Kenna for the first time was not. His bear was shredding him from within with each mile that passed. His only saving grace was that Cash, Ethan, and Bas seemed a bit off as well.
Now, sitting in an SUV driving towards the scene of Emma’s torture, Dalton wanted to inflict some pain. Straightening in his seat and building his resolve to be as professional as possible, Dalton took a couple of deep breaths, an attempt to settle his beast as best he could. He was aware his anger wasn’t affecting only him, but his team mates as well. None of them needed any added distraction. Dalton gave himself and his bear a little shake. He would be strong for Emma. He would find the answers she needed, and he would get her the justice she deserved.
When they arrived at their destination, none of them were prepared for what they found. The building had been leveled. Cash got on the phone and Bas got on his computer. The building had been set on fire and recently. After a few calls, they determined it had happened last night and even more surprising was that the city had been immediately called in to level the remains of the burnt structure. Nothing ever worked that fast! Someone with major power had pulled some major strings in order to destroy any evidence the building held. The timing was unnerving as if they were expected to be there on that very day. They were a day late and a dollar short it seemed. Cash informed everyone they had a new objective, to locate Hamilton’s house, but they needed time to regroup and figure out their next move. Dalton was disappointed, he wanted all of this to be over. More importantly, he wanted to get back to his family. Damn, wasn’t it typical another obstacle was put right in their way?
From the intel they had gathered, Hamilton seemed shady enough to have covered his ass at least that was what they were hoping. He would have information or dirt on the people that hired him to protect his worthless ass. They could possibility pick up a trail from there to find the real threat to Emma and McKenna. Because Hamilton was a non-issue now they needed a new jumping off point and he hoped that they could locate it at his place.
Dalton was chomping at the bit when they finally got there. He needed to bring something home to Emma. Something. What they found was a shack, not a house. It looked like it was barely standing. The house was tilting precariously to the side like one of those houses in a Tim Burton movie. The yard was overgrown with weeds, and the driveway was a dirt trail with massive pot holes. Parking down the street, not knowing what they were going into, the guys skirted the house coming in from all side. Getting closer, the shack looked even worse. Half the windows were broken and the dingy wood siding looked like it might have been painted at one time, but it had almost all fallen off, and what was left looked as though a strong wind would strip it off altogether. There were no lights on and from the looks of the mailbox at the end of the driveway, no one had been there for quite a while. It was stuffed full to the point that some of the mail had fallen on the ground in a heap.
The guys worked like a well-oiled machine, they were like smoke in the wind. It only took twenty minutes to clear the house and ransack it for any information. The place was a pit. Dalton was sure no one would notice anyone had even been there.
“Fuck,” Cash was the first to speak after returning to the SUV, “I feel like I need a shower and we weren’t even in that dump for very long.”
“Yeah, I’m with you brother. What a fucking sick bastard,” Bas replied.
“Dude,” Dalton agreed, “that guy was a fucked-up sick bastard, and he had Emma for months. We knew from his record that he preyed on women, but we didn’t know his tastes ran more towards kids. What the fuck! Why the hell would those sick fuckers hire a child molester to care for their fucking breeding stock. This doesn’t make any sense. Good fucking thing you found that fucking wall in that root cellar.
“We’re going to a safe house about a half hour from here, so Bas can go through the computer, thumb drives, and all the mail we collected. With any luck, the asshole has something on his former employers. At the very least, we might be able to find enough information to close down a kiddy porn ring.”
“Even if we don’t find anything to answer the questions about Emma’s captivity or McKenna’s conception, we could put some terrible people away. At least that’s fucking something,” Bas mumbled.
The team drove towards the safe house each lost in their own thoughts. Once they arrived, they got to work. Cash immediately called Jacks to give him a sitrep. Dalton wanted to talk with Emma, but he needed to start on the information they’d collected. He wanted to give her something, assure her in some way when he talked with her. He wasn’t listening to the other men, but his Shifter hearing picked up on Bas’s raised voice. Something wasn’t right! The words that rang out next, sent a shiver up his spine.
“What do you mean my sister isn’t there? Where the fuck is she? She never goes anywhere…” and then the door slammed.
Dalton looked up from his task at the computer, and followed Bas, closing the door behind him. Damn it, they didn’t need any more crap right now. Watching Bas pace around the room, Dalton remained by the closed door. He wanted to be there in case his friend and teammate needed him. Bas didn’t pay any attention to him. The conversation became more heated and then Bas threw his phone a crossed the room, smashing it on contact.
“What’s going on, man?”
“Wyatt went to my sister’s place, and she’s not there. Her assistant, an assistant I didn’t even know she had, said she was spending some time with Judy.”
“Who the fuck is Judy?” Dalton asked.
“That’s the thing, man, Judy is her fucked-up mother. Peyton wouldn’t be spending time with that bitch. I don’t know what the hell’s going on and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it.”
“Dude have you tried to call her?”
“I’m not fucking stupid, Dalton. I’ve been trying to call her for days, every time it goes to voicemail. That’s why I sent Wyatt there. Fuck, man,” Bas said, sinking down to sit on the bed. Putti
ng his elbows on his knees, cradling his head. “I don’t know if I could handle anything happening to Peyton. She’s an innocent. I don’t know what to do.”
“What you’re going to do is let Wyatt do his job, if anyone can find her, it will be him. You need to have some faith brother. Pull yourself together and we can go out to talk to Cash. This mission seems like a bust and all the information we found can be sorted through at base. I know it sucks, man, but we'll figure it all out, and we’ll find your sister,” Dalton assured him.
“I know your right, I just don’t like it. This is my sister, man.”
Dalton left the room, leaving Bas to his thoughts. He thought about going to find Cash or Ethan to let them know what was going on, but he knew his teammate would talk when he was ready. Right now, he needed some space to come up with a plan. Buckling down, he got to work, hoping the information he needed would be found quickly. The faster it was found, the faster he could get back to base and Emma. Taking a seat in front of his laptop Dalton, got to work.
Cash whipped up some sandwiches and called the guys in to eat. Everyone was running on pure adrenaline. What they had found in that shack was disturbing, and now the shit with Bas’s sister. The Team didn’t need this shit! They needed a couple month of peace, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Ethan came in first, giving Cash a look. He was concerned, but as usual he wasn’t going to comment until he was done observing. The guy was like a shadow, always there, but hardly ever noticed unless he wanted to be. Dalton walked in with Bas.
“What’s going on Bas?”
“I’m not sure, my sister handed her dogs over to her new assistant and took off. Peyton has never trusted anyone with her dogs, let alone taken off to parts unknown without letting me know what’s going on. To say this is out of the ordinary for her is an understatement. I knew Wyatt was heading there, so when she didn’t answer, I gave him a call and he told her house was empty and Wyatt was met by her new assistant. Peyton told the woman if someone came by, to tell them she’d gone to spend some time with Judy. that’s her fucked-up mother she hasn’t seen since she was 13 years old. Shit, I have been trying to track the bitch down for years. It doesn’t add up, any of it! Wyatt’s hacking some street cameras to see if we can track her. I’m just… Fuck, man, if Peyton doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. The bitch taught her that much at least. Cash what did Jacks say?”
“Not much. He told me to let you know your sister is a priority, and he wants the assistant checked out fully, but if we can get any intel on what we pulled from the pervert’s house, we’re to follow up. Dalton, he wanted you to know that Emma and Kenna are doing great. The women are having a girl’s night, or in Jacks words, their doing some girly crap, painting toe nails or some shit.
“How do you want to work the data we retrieved and look for Bas’s sister?” Cash asked the group. “Family has always taken the priority; we could upload the thumb drives and electronics to one of the other teams, so we could get started on Peyton,” Cash said looking to Bas. “I know I don’t need to say it, but she has been working with us for years. The information she has can’t be let out.”
Cash was always thinking of the team, that was his job, but sometimes Dalton wished he would look at things from a different perspective. Cash was all black and white, no gray areas. He understood, but the man needed to take some lessons in tact.
Bas didn’t like Cash’s comment, and he could now relate to what Dalton had been going through when Emma first arrived. It wasn’t the same, but Peyton was his sister, family, and his first priority.
“Peyton wouldn’t sell me or our team out for anything,” he told Cash, gritting his teeth together. “She believes in what we do, and I know my sister. She would rather harm come to herself than have anyone else harmed. You don’t know her, I do! And because of that I’m asking, no telling you she would never betray NAC or The Holly Group. Shit, she could’ve used the fucking Holly Group herself, asshole.”
“Dude it might be a hard pill to swallow, but you know I’m right. This is your sister, you're freaked the hell out, I get it. But she’s an operative and a valued one, whether she or anyone else knows it, and we’re in a touchy situation right now,” Cash said.
“Shit, man,” Dalton took over, “we don’t know who we can trust, we can’t even let people know that Kenna exists or that Emma is with us. Your sister knows about Emma, she knows about the facility which mysteriously went up in smoke, and she fucking knows about Hamilton,” Dalton all but yelled and then felt like an ass. Man, he owed Jacks and Cash an apology; when the shoe was on the other foot, it didn’t fit as well.
“Listen, both of you need to calm the fuck down. We don’t know anything right now. Let’s not jump to conclusions yet. Peyton could be taking a breather or even a vacation. Plenty of women have the name Judy, it could be all a coincidence. We don’t know anything at this point give, Wyatt time to do his job. If foul play is suspected, we’ll talk to Jacks about shifting our focus. Right now, we need to concentrate on the case at hand,” Cash said.
“I think we need to work in teams, cover as much ground as quickly as possible. Ethan and I’ll get on the phones and try to get more intel. Cash and Bas, you need to hit those fucking drives hard. We know the fucker is somehow associated with Davis Defense, we need to determine if Pandora is also involved. It doesn’t seem logical that Emma would be the sole person at the facility or that the facility was so loosely guarded after Kenna’s conception. that’s not SOP with either Davis Defense or the Pandora Group. Every facility we’ve come in contact with had been heavily guarded if they were active. Look what happened to Echo Team. We have questions and they need to be answered, people.
“Jacks wanted Ryleigh to relax a bit with the girls, so he hasn’t yet told her what we found. We need to do this on our own, for now. Once he tells her what we found, she’ll be on the horn demanding we upload all the information to her. We need to have something tangible before that happens.”
Several hours later the guys weren’t any further along. Bas and Dalton had decoded several files; they were all filth, but contained a lot of useful evidence including names, faces, and locations pertaining to child pornography. When they got through all of them, they would forward all the contents to the proper authorities. Some pretty fucked-up people were going down, many who held high profile jobs, but from what they were able to determine, none could be traced back to Pandora or Davis Defense.
“Fuck!” Cash screamed, “get your shit together, we need to bug out. That fucker had a brother and he’s on his way to the base as we speak. Tori is tracking his On-Star right now and he’s about to cross into Traverse City. If we get to the fucking plane, we might be able to cut the fucker off,” Cash said holding the phone up to his ear. “Jacks, listen, Hamilton has a brother and Tori has tracked him to Traverse. I don’t think it’s a fucking coincidence. Lock down the base; we’re bugging out and will be there as soon as possible.”
The next few minutes were chaos. The guys threw everything they could into their bug out bags and made tracks. Dalton hoped they made it in time. Fuck, he should’ve stayed back with Jacks. The only thing keeping him sane at the moment was that the fucker coming after Emma was only a human, and Jacks was something else altogether, someone not to mess with. But what if the fucker had help? Damn it.
Chapter 43
Emma wasn’t dealing with Dalton’s absence well. She wanted to cry and call them back. She’d been holding a vigil at the window since they left, hoping they would return and knowing it was too soon. Why did this hurt so much? She knew there would be times Dalton needed to leave to do his job, but this felt different, worse, a foreboding of some kind, Emma wasn’t really sure.
Ryleigh surprised her by putting her arm around her shoulder. Emma hadn’t even heard her come into the room she was so focused on her vigil.
“Hey, sis, how does sappy movies, pjs, lots of junk food, and nail polish sound?”
Emma cou
ldn’t help the giggle that came out of her mouth; that all sounded pretty good. It wasn’t going to bring Dalton back faster to stand watch, but maybe a little fun with friends would distract her enough to make the time go faster.
“Oh, wait what about Kenna?”
“No worries, Jacks has her. He said he would teach her how to be an Alpha. So, we’re good.”
Seeing Mia standing off to the side, Emma couldn’t be happier. She’d never had girlfriends before, and it felt nice. Ryleigh and Mia had supported her and when she was down, they helped bring her back up, that’s what friends were for. Emma knew Ryleigh had planned all this because Rye knew first-hand how hard seeing Dalton leave would be one her. She promised to do the same if Jacks ever had to leave. Sometimes, you needed to let loose and let someone else carry the burden.
The three women had watched several sappy movies, crying during the mushy parts, Emma loved it. Never having girl’s night before, she could see the appeal. Ryleigh was sweet, endearing, and more than a little crazy. Mia surprised her with her quick wit and dry sense of humor; her professional, no-holds barred attitude was gone. Emma was going to be sick, they had eaten so much junk food and downed more than a few of Mia’s special margaritas, so she wasn’t feeling any pain. Ryleigh had the virgin version, of course. It was the first-time Emma had ever seen Ryleigh truly relax.
Unable to resist just one more of Cash’s secret biscotti stash, Emma reached forward. The man genuinely knew how to bake. She bet if he opened up a bakery, it would make millions.
“Oh, my God, you did it.” Ryleigh grabbed her wrist. “You and Dalton are mated and from the looks of this little gem,” Ryleigh said pointing to the mark on her wrist, “not only are you mated, but fated as well. Okay, I want details.”
NAC & The Holly Group - Box set: Alpha Team Page 56