NAC & The Holly Group - Box set: Alpha Team

by Chelsea Handcock

  “Ah, Pet, it seems we still have some work to do. Have the men here hurt you?”

  Sophie didn’t bother to lie this time squeezing her internal muscles only once. She felt his body stiffen under her with her answer, but didn’t dare elaborate.

  “Will you be safe if I leave you here alone again tonight?”

  Sophie took some time before she answered, she knew things he did not. Calming her breathing and focusing on her body, Sophie did something with Ethan she had never done before and took on the persona she had developed to be able to survive with the Overseer. Clinching herself on his finger once Sophie waited to see if he bought the act.

  “Ah, pet it seems we have more work to do, you don’t trust me yet.”

  Ethan removed his finger and sat her back up, directing her to remove herself from his lap. Sophie felt awful, and she allowed a tear to slip from her eye. When he didn’t direct her further, she went down on her knees, shielding her face from anyone’s view. When he stood, Sophie was afraid she would never again get the chance to tell him what she needed. Grabbing onto his pant leg, she looked up to him

  “Master?”

  Ethan bent down, Sophie was pretty sure to kiss her on the cheek again and leave, but she needed him to hear what she had to say. Once his face was level with hers, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close, turning her mouth to his ear.

  “You need to leave here and never come back, it’s not safe for you. You and your friends are being set up to get information regarding Skylar Thomas and a female child that is in your care.” Ethan tried to pull back, but Sophie held tight.

  “Don’t think about me again. I’m a decoy, a person these men are using to get the information. I was planted here for your benefit alone. The moments we have shared will always hold a place close to my heart, but that is all they were moments. It’s time to let them and me go, protect your people, your family. They have already hurt so many, don’t let their taint enter your world. Protect the weaker, just as you are meant to; it is what you were born to do, Master. I am not weak, but I am also bound, do you understand? One squeeze for yes and two for no. Ethan squeezed her once, and she let him go. Afraid to see the disdain in his eyes, Sophie focused on the floor. Her job for the night wasn’t nearly finished. It didn’t take long for Williams cold, clammy hands to touch her skin, yanking her to a standing position.

  “It must be a record, Sophie, you managed to repel a man who thrives in no holds barred sex in less than fifteen minutes. When I informed him that you would not be available tomorrow, he laughed, stating that his time with you was done. Do you know what that means?”

  Sophie knew what she was about to do was tempting fate, she would either live through it or die. She was hoping to live. She was also hoping that the Overseer’s orders were still in place.

  “I would assume, William,” she said purposely using his name without his preferred title, “it means you didn’t train me well enough to keep his interest as I have done everything in the way that you taught me.”

  The slap was expected, William wrapping his hands around her neck and squeezing were not; shit, had she gone too far, played him wrong? As the black dots started to form in her eyes, she listened carefully to what William was saying.

  “I see that Masters Ethan's lessons have given you a false sense of your place, Sophie. How about I teach you a few of my own, starting with the proper way to address me?” As her vision began to blacken Sophie squeaked out the words, ‘Sorry Master William,’ and she hated the taste of them on her lips.

  William taught Sophie lessons until he tired, he then turned her over to his minions, allowing them to do more and more damage to her body. When she finally passed out and awoke, she wasn’t surprised to once again find herself in the little cell. Seeing the syringe on the table by her bucket of water, Sophie forced her body to crawl towards it. She again forced her body to move toward the grate, calling out his name.

  “Lucas.” When he didn’t answer she started to panic and begged, “Please, Lucas, you need to answer me, please.” After a little while, a weak ‘Sweet Sophie’ answered her. “Lucas, listen to me. I don’t know how much time either of us has, but I need you to do something for me.” Reaching her hand through the grate, Sophie dropped the syringe on the other side. “Lucas, are you listening?”

  “Sweet Sophie, what have you done?”

  “Don’t worry about that, now. I need you to inject that into your thigh. It may not be enough to heal you, hell, it might even kill you, but it’s our only chance. You need to free your animal and get out of this place. Once you are safe, you can send someone back for me, but not before then, do you understand? Ethan is still here; go to him he can help you the rest of the way.”

  “No, Sophie.”

  “Yes, Lucas, you know this is the only way. I won’t let you die in here without your animal when I might be able to give him back to you.” Sophie was losing steam fast, she needed to get the rest out before she passed out. “When you inject it, the medicine will burn. I don’t know if it will be lessened by your shifter side or strengthened. You need to breathe through it since this is your first injection. The process will be quick, fifteen minutes maybe, before you start feeling the results. If nothing has happened within thirty minutes, then I have failed.”

  Sophie heard Lucas calling her name, but the draw of black was stronger. Shit William was right she couldn’t do anything right; even her attempt at saving Lucas seemed doomed for failure. Ethan’s image once again popped into her mind, and Sophie started to dream of a time when barriers didn’t exist, where she could love him the way she wanted, and he could love her back without the sting of betrayal marring their time together.

  Chapter 17

  Ethan didn’t bother going back to the parking lot at the park, this time choosing to run his bear to the cabin on Little Traverse Lake. Sophie’s words and actions played over in his mind on a constant loop. She’d lied to him, never once asked him to help her, but warned him away. She was working with William and the other men in the building, but not of her own free will. He knew that much, but could he get over the fact that everything she had done with him, every action was a lie?

  Roaring his anger out into the woods, Ethan allowed his animal to turn and run back toward the mansion and Sophie. He no longer cared about orders or his loyalty to NAC and the Shifter community. He was getting her out of there, and she would answer all his questions, or he would paddle her ass red. Everything he felt and sensed in her couldn’t have been a lie. There was always some truth hidden between each false statement.

  When he felt the sting of the dart, first his chest then his side, he instantly went into attack mode, but the drug was too strong. What the hell? How could he have been so stupid and not paid attention to his surroundings? Looking around, he tried to control his bears breathing, but their line of communication had been severed somehow. The beast no longer heard his call. When Wyatt came into view, all Ethan could think was why.

  “I know you are angry Ethan, and I don’t blame you. Fuck, man, I didn’t want to do this to you, but you're out of control. You haven’t slept in days, and I don’t think you’ve eaten or drank anything since we first shared that beer on the porch.”

  Ethan could feel his supposed friend fingers running through his fur, but they didn’t bring comfort, they brought rage. He didn’t want to be touched by this man, he didn’t want to be incapacitated; he wanted one thing, Sophie.

  “We are going to sit here, my friend, until the tranquilizer has worn off and you can shift back. Matthias arrived and is planning the rescue of your girl and Lucas. You just need to sleep now. You need to think about your girl and the future, about the happiness you’ll have that was absent before. But remember when you wake, I did this only for you own good. The drugs you have been breathing in for days and the mating call have compromised you, making you weak. Sleep and your mate will make you strong.”

  Wyatt sat by Ethan's side and waited;
he knew Peyton and Jacks were close by, he was just waiting for them to come out from the shadows.

  “Jacks,” he came from behind him as soon as the beast closed his eyes, “he is pissed. What would you expect him to be, he was taken down by friendly forces in a situation where he is questioning everything in his life, including us? Fuck, man, Matthias has been screwing with his head for years; what he had us do today could destroy all we have built with Alpha.”

  “I know,” Jacks said, sitting down on Ethan’s other side, offering his hands for more comfort to the beast. When Peyton walked out in front of him with tears in her eyes, Wyatt only had to open his arms for her to come running. Peyton didn’t understand any of what had been going on and fought fiercely to allow Ethan to follow his own path and not the one Matthias had laid out.

  “It will be okay Baby, Ethan will be good, and we all will get through this, it might not seem like it right now, but it will happen.” Her weak, ‘I know,’ wasn’t convincing anyone. “Jacks, you need to leave, Ethan can’t know you were here or involved in any of this. If we have any hopes of pulling him back in later, you have to be gone. My betrayal will sting, yours will shatter.”

  “I know, I but I’m not going anywhere, just yet, hell, I’m not going anywhere for a while. I think it’s time that Alpha started policing the Elders. Declan’s disappearance, our new secret mission, Matthias’ odd orders and diversions. Fuck, man, I can feel that we’re being left out of something bigger than any of us know. Declan’s refusal to even speak to Ryleigh on the phone proves that alone. One of the things I can’t figure out is why they are putting Ethan through this, first exposing his past, then putting his mate right within his grasp, but demanding he let her go. What the fuck is that all about? I couldn’t have let Ryleigh go it my life depended on it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Wyatt said pulling Peyton closer, “this one is never leaving my sight. Can you just imagine the strength it took for Ethan to do that day after day? If I had to guess I would say he is still in denial about Sophie, that’s why he fought the connection so hard and forced himself to put our race and NAC first.”

  “Sophie?”

  “Yeah, we finally got all her information, well at least the information we could find up until she turned nineteen.”

  “Let’s hear it. I have a feeling that we need this information now more than ever.”

  “Sophie and Carley Rossi fraternal twins of Steven and Ann Rossi were a result of IVF, in-vitro fertilization, at the hands of one Dr. Franklin. Steven and Ann had tried for years to get pregnant, but until the good doctor came into their lives, all other attempts failed.

  “Ann’s medical records showed that she had tried to become pregnant with several doctors, fertility drugs, and several rounds of artificial insemination until their funding ran out. We got ahold of her medical records from one of her doctors and some social media accounts. Ann suffered from severe endometriosis. We were able to put together a timeline; Steven and Ann had given up hope of having a child by birth and were looking into fostering or adoption when Franklin approached them with his new guaranteed-to-work IVF procedure. Steven and Ann gave him thousands of dollars for the initial procedure, and we were able to track more money going his way throughout the girl's lives.

  “We know that Franklin approached them because Ann consistently thanked him, specifically on social media and other groups for infertility she was a member of, often recommending his services to other couples who had issues conceiving. When the girls reached the age of ten, the family moved out of Kentucky to Chicago. We couldn’t find any reason for the move. Steven obtained a job, but his pay rate was much smaller than he had been making in Kentucky.

  “We also didn’t find any mentions from Ann about the move on any of her social media sites, which for a woman who seemed to spend a lot of time chatting with friends and family seemed odd.

  “You have to understand, Jacks,” Peyton said, “this woman, Ann Rossi, took to Facebook and the internet like a dog with a bone. She loved it, posted everything from pictures to daily reports of what was going on with her life, to mundane things like a good deal she had gotten at the grocery store. The fact that she never mentioned the move brought up huge red flags.”

  “We think that their Dad, Steven,” Wyatt continued, “must have gotten suspicious and started to look into Franklin more closely. We know that the girls were often taken to his clinic for check-ups. Which, let’s be real, isn’t the usual practice; he was an OB/GYN, not a pediatrician. We think that Steven may have realized that he was not their biological father and became suspicious of Franklin. In one of Ann’s chat room discussions, she was telling an online friend about how angry she was about her husband’s demands that the girls stop seeing the good doctor. Calling him paranoid.”

  “Fuck, man, don't tell me Franklin and Pandora did something to the Dad.”

  “Steven wasn’t as active on the net as Ann, but he did speak with a cousin often enough that I gave the man a call. The cousin, Aaron Rossi, opened up quickly, immediately naming Franklin, and Steven’s suspicions. He offered to send us paperwork Steven had left in his care, just in case something happened to him. I took him up on the offer, but we are still waiting for it to get here. The cousin was adamant that Steven’s death was an act of foul play. He stated that he tried speaking to the local police as well as the fire marshal, but was shut down quickly, even threatened. He had a family of his own and was worried, so he let sleeping dogs lay.

  “He was the one who mentioned the lack of similar traits between the girls and their parents. Ann and Steven both had medium to dark complexions, blonde hair, and brown eyes. Sophie and Carley have light skin tones, black hair, and blue eyes. They are also small in stature, petite; Ann was five ten and Steven was over six feet tall, both sported stocky builds.

  “Peyton was able to uncover correspondence from Steven’s company computer and by pulling phone records; Steven had written to a few doctors asking about traits and blood types. We know that Steven had made an appointment for the girls to see a geneticist. A reminder message for the appointment was the last call logged on Stevens cell phone.

  “Two days before the appointment, Steven was killed on the job due to a freak accident involving some equipment. He worked as a contractor, but most of his duties remained in the office portion, scheduling, sales, billing, and what not. According to the Fire Marshall’s reports, there was a gas leak, and when Steven turned on the light switch, the place blew. Within two days, the incident was deemed an accident.”

  “Fuck, man, that isn’t even possible, we all know that investigations of that nature take a hell of a lot longer than that to report their findings.”

  “Yeah, the Fire Marshall happened to receive a large deposit into his bank account one day after he submitted his final report.”

  “Jesus, what about the Mother?” Jacks asked.

  “After the death of her husband, Ann Rossi moved the girls and herself back to Kentucky to be closer to family, which also, made them closer to Franklin. We can’t find confirmation anywhere that the girls continued to see Franklin, but I suspect that might be the case.”

  “Jesus fuck, what about the mother, is she still alive?”

  “No Ann Rossi died during a routine gynecological procedure when the girls were nineteen. The doctor performing the procedure nicked an artery and Ann bled out of the table.”

  “Fuck!”

  “That’s not the worst of it, although it is pretty sad. Sophie and Carley were left with nothing but debt, losing their family home and ultimately ending up on the streets. The string of events which happened after their mother’s death doesn't add up. Both girls were ranked at the top of their high school class and received full scholarships to attend a local university, but within two weeks of their mother’s death, the scholarships were both rescinded, sighting a moral clause. The family home was foreclosed on even though Ann had never once missed a payment and held a pretty hefty life insurance policy.


  “The doctor who had performed the procedure wasn’t even sanctioned or sued for negligence, which was blatant malpractice. From what we gathered, the girls were left homeless and penniless. Both had worked as waitresses in high school and while attending college, but we couldn’t locate a single trace of income or employment after the family home was taken. The girls also haven’t had cell phones, social media accounts for email addresses, nothing in the past six years. Sophie showing up at the Club is the first time we can account for her whereabouts in six years. Carley is still off the grid.”

  “Does Ethan know any of this?”

  “Some, we only put the final pieces together after he left for the club.”

  “We need to get him out of here and back to the cabin. When he wakes up, he is going to be pissed. Peyton are you still good to stay with him until we complete the mission with Matthias?” Jacks asked.

  “Yes, Mia gave me instructions; once his heart rate and breathing reach a particular level, I’m to either allow him to wake up or dose him again. She also cautioned and advised against using a second dose. They are still trying to determine if there are any long-term effects from the drug. The first dose should give us at least twelve hours. I’m hoping you guys can get the mission done and be back before that time runs out. I don’t want to hurt Ethan any more than we already have; none of this is his fault.”

  “We know baby,” Wyatt hugged Peyton close, “but you have to understand that while we might not agree with the methods, Ethan was becoming a loose cannon. If the mission goes well and we can get Sophie out of those men’s hands, he will be able to calm his beast and get his head back in the game.”

  “Would either of you be able to do that if someone did this to you?” Peyton asked.

  “After a bit of bloodshed, sure,” Wyatt quipped. He could tell by the look on Peyton’s face she wasn’t buying it.