Edge of Brotherhood (Love on the Edge Book 6)
Page 14
Behind me I heard Wade smack him and say, “Feels like we should hug this shit out, bro,” followed by a quick umph and a “Fuck off” from Easton. I wanted to turn to see the exchange but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the contents of the room we occupied.
“Holy hell,” Connell muttered as he came to stand on my left. Wade stopped on my right, and Easton and Rain stood to the right of him. In the center of the chamber, we simply . . . gawked.
Intact shelves made of stone took up the entirety of the huge walls, the room so large I had to arch my neck to see the ceiling, and even then I was squinting. I’d never seen so much gold in all my life. Hell, I hadn’t seen any of this kind.
Massive stone tables lined the center of the room like a giant maze and intricate carvings, smooth swirls wrapping around jagged triangles, decorated their sides. Golden trinkets from cups to chests to small Sun God statues piled on top of the tables, each one appearing to be sorted by the size of the object. Several pieces had the same seal on some portion of the item—the same one Easton had shown us on the tiny gold bar he’d tossed in the river. There were at least a thousand more of those bars overflowing from a broken clay pot that rested on the floor in the corner of the room. Two dozen other identical pots surrounded the broken one, and I wondered if each pot held the same amount of gold.
The beams from our flashlights coated the room in light, which radiated more golden than they had outside, and for one obvious reason. “This is it, Easton. The City of Gold,” I said. The scent of dust and precious metal coated each excited breath I took, the air a metallic tang on my tongue.
“You really fucking did it,” Connell said, huffing as he gazed upon the treasure.
“This is so much better than the National Treasure set,” Wade said before shrugging at my raised eyebrow. “What?”
I chuckled, and it started a chain reaction from our group.
“Dad would be proud,” Rain said, wrapping her arms around Easton’s waist. He smoothed his hand up and down her back, and I quickly returned my focus to the treasure before me.
They should’ve had this moment alone, as they would have on any normal expedition of theirs. But I suppose this wasn’t a normal expedition. We’d been hand selected to do this television special, and while the footage we got was insane, most of the action came from our trek to find Rain. I doubted Easton would allow that to air, but if Robert was anything like Daniel, I knew he’d push for it to be.
I tilted my head, chewing on my lip as something nagged at me. Something more than the exhaustion this trip had caused, more than the overwhelming sensation of being in the presence of a legend. Something that Easton and I had been discussing after Rain had fallen asleep in his lap outside the campfire last night. It never made sense to us how Corrine had not only managed to follow us without our knowing, but she’d done it long enough to know about the uniqueness of our little team.
“Not impressive enough for you?” Rain asked, having noticed my dazed expression.
I blinked a few times and opened my mouth to ask her something, but quickly clamped it shut. Now wasn’t the time.
“Dash?” she prodded, coming closer. Easton followed her as if he’d handcuffed their wrists together. “What is it?”
I pressed my lips together, eyeing Easton. “Um,” I said, not sure how he would like me bringing this up. “Well, something is bothering me.”
“Other than everything that went down?” Rain tried to joke, and more guilt tore up my insides. She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Which, for the hundredth time, wasn’t your fault. I really wish you’d believe me already.”
I shook my head. “That’s not it,” I said. “Well, I mean it does. Bother me. But . . .”
“Dude, you are usually not this shitty with words.” Wade shifted his weight, he, Connell, and Easton were looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
Maybe I had.
“When I was up there with Frank, trying to get him to hand over the keys before the rest of you got up there, he said something that didn’t really register until right now. Something when he saw Connell come rushing up the stairs.”
“What’d he say?” Connell asked.
“He called you Aquaman.”
“Hey,” Wade whined. “That’s a bros-only name.”
“Right?” I asked, my eyes slitting as I locked gazes with Easton. The wheels were turning for him, too.
“Yeah, Corrine kept talking like that, too,” Rain said, and she stepped closer to Easton, something I’d noticed she did every time she said that bitch’s name. “She kept referring to you as the weather wonder boy”—she motioned to me—“and him as Hollywood hunk.” She glanced at Wade, who smirked.
“Ha!” He quickly dropped his shit-eating grin. “Well, as far as code names go, I win.”
“Rain . . .” I tilted my head, silently continuing the conversation Easton and I had started last night. “Did you give Corrine the satellite phone number?”
After a few moments, she slit her eyes. “No.” She shifted her weight, glancing up to Easton. “How did she know it?”
Easton’s knuckles cracked from the fist he’d clenched. “Robert,” he growled.
“Whoa,” Wade said, pointing at Easton. “That’s the face he makes right before he goes Hulk on someone.”
Easton took a visible deep breath.
“Fucking studio,” I hissed. I didn’t want to believe it, didn’t even want to think it, but I’d seen Daniel push us closer to F-5s and beg me to kiss my wife for the pleasure of the viewing audience.
“No way,” Connell said.
“Has to be.” Easton crossed his arms over his chest.
“You think?” Rain asked, looking up at him as she gently traced the outlines of her purple bruise around her eye. “They’d go this far?”
“Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” Wade snapped. “I hate not being able to telepathically communicate like you all do. Was I that late to the meeting? Damn.”
I huffed. “Dude, his producer Robert told Corrine where we’d be.”
“What in the hell?” He dropped his flashlight, the crack the sound made against the hard floor jolting the entire room. He quickly scooped it up, the angry, skeptical look never leaving his face.
“Right?” I shook my head. “I don’t want to believe it but look at the facts.” I started ticking them off on my fingers. “She found us, in a fucking lost city that hasn’t been found for hundreds of years. She had enough intel on us to know recent nicknames. She knew our professions enough to crack jokes about them. And she had the fucking phone number just a few of us had. You can’t get all that from observation and even if you could, she would’ve had to watch us for a hell of a lot longer and we definitely would’ve spotted her. There is no way she could’ve hidden within close enough range to pick all that up and we not notice.”
Wade glanced up at his GoPro, jerking it off his head. He pointed the lens away from him and mouthed the question live?
“No,” Easton answered. “There is no way the GoPros could be rigged for live feed without a WiFi spot with twenty-times the juice of the one Dash has for his radar equipment.” He shook his head, glancing at Connell. “I called you Aquaman when I’d phoned Robert about the helicopter debacle.” He sighed. “Fuck, Robert must’ve given her our coordinates, the intel in our files about our jobs, everything.”
“Fucking hell.” Connell flexed his fist. “What kind of sick assholes—?”
“Money.” Easton and I spoke the word at the same time. We both had our own shows—him much longer than me—but we knew what the execs at the network pushed for.
Danger shots.
It’s one of the reasons why our shows did so well, because we were constantly in life or death situations, but this? Setting up Easton’s wife to be taken? That was a new level of low I didn’t know existed.
“Why would he risk Corrine waiting until we left to make the claim for herself?” Wade asked.
Wade nodded. “It’d be like watching a movie, but where the stakes are real,” he said, turning his camera off, too. “Can you think of something that would be more popular than that?” He spun the GoPro in his hand. “In a world,” he said, mocking a movie trailer voiceover, “where reality shows are gold, and people get bored watching nothing but arguments over what bag to buy, comes a show with actual danger. That’s right, maybe even death. Stay tuned to see if these four suckers save the girl, or wind up looking like class-A assholes.” He grunted out a frustrated groan at the end of his mocking speech. “I hate that it isn’t a stretch for me to believe it.”
Connell and I nodded, slipping off our cameras and shutting them down, too. A silence stole over us as the reality of what the studio did sank in. We didn’t have solid proof yet, but I had a pretty damn good idea where to find it.
From the look on Easton’s face, he did, too.
I GRIPPED THE memory card in my hand, trying like hell not to break it as Robert ushered us into the same conference room where they’d introduced us—and the idea for the special—not seven days ago.
Funny, it felt like I’d known Dash, Connell, and Wade much longer than that. Bonding over a mission to get Rain back had that effect on us, I guessed. Or maybe in some bigger-picture plan we were all supposed to work as well as we did together. Either way, I wouldn’t have gotten Rain back without them. Then again, she wouldn’t have been in danger if the studio hadn’t called up one of my oldest enemies and given her our location.
Was I one hundred percent certain of that? No.
Was I about to find out? Hell fucking yes.
Dash and Blake sat on my right, Rain on my left. Connell and Sadie were across from us and on the other side of Sadie was Wade. This little family was much more tight-knit than we had been when we left, and I knew it would grow stronger with time. Studio’s mistake for fucking with the wrong guys.
Robert took his seat at the head of the table, but Daniel was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is Daniel?” I asked, eyeing Dash, who shrugged.
Robert folded his hands together. “He took a leave of absence.”
Interesting. “Didn’t agree with your methods, yeah?”
“Excuse me?” Robert fumbled with his tie. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course not,” I said, slapping the memory card on the table so hard he jumped. I forced a grin. “This is all the footage taken from our expedition. You know, which was interrupted by the abduction of my wife. I kept the cameras rolling though . . .” His eyes lit up at that and a breath of relief left his chest. “Because I wanted proof that would put Corrine and her team away for good this time, if I didn’t kill her first.” He raised his eyebrows at that, and I swore I saw him squirm in his seat.
“I am relieved to hear you were returned unharmed, Rain,” Robert said, addressing her directly.
The black eye Corrine had given her was visible, and she traced the line on the bruise with her middle finger. “Mostly.”
Robert cleared his throat, his eyes darting to each of us before returning to me. “I am sorry this happened, Easton, but you can rest assured you’ll have your funding for a bigger crew, more equipment, and better resources upon your return trip.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the butterfly knife Harrison had given me for my fifteenth birthday. A flick of my wrist and the blade was fluttering out, the tip hovering over the memory card. “There are no backups of this footage. And it will never see the light of day unless you tell me the truth.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Robert snapped, his eyes trained on the knife threatening his next golden goose egg. “We sent the team that secured the perpetrators. They’ll never be your problem again.”
Well, that much was true. The evidence on the memory card was enough to ensure Corrine and her crew rotted in jail where they belonged.
“Tell me, Robert,” I said. “Why did you contact Corrine? Was it all your idea to go after Rain, or did she offer you that tidbit?”
“What?”
“Did you think I would be glad to see someone who had tried to kill the both of us in our past? A secret you and a select few were privy to?”
“What?” Robert stuttered again, his face flushing red. “I don’t—”
His words stopped when I raised the knife, fully prepared to bring it down on the center of the drive.
“Tell me, Robert!” I dropped the knife an inch, and he jerked his hand out to stop me.
“We didn’t think she’d take it that far!” he screamed and I stopped the knife’s descent.
A collective sigh hit the room, as if everyone had been holding their breath, hoping we all were wrong. I clenched my eyes shut, controlling the bubbling rage inside my chest before focusing on him again. “Explain.”
His trembling hands fiddled with his tie. “We wanted a lock. An added bit of competition would be sure to do that.”
Shaking my head, I slammed my free hand down on the table. “Competition? You told someone who had tried to kill us before where we were for . . . competition?”
“She said she just wanted the screen time. We thought she’d show up and act like she was after the treasure, too. We didn’t know she’d go to those lengths—”
“That’s a load of shit,” Connell snapped.
“Agreed.” Dash leaned over the table. “You knew. You were praying for her to take it farther, to drive up the stakes along with the ratings.”
“Yeah,” Wade said. “All you could see were dollar signs. People wouldn’t be able to get enough of our show after this aired.”
Robert threw his hands in the air. “Is that so awful? I knew it would all work out. Knew they would never really hurt her.”
Rain pushed back from her chair so fast I hadn’t even realized she’d moved. A hard crack sounded throughout the room, her palm connecting with his face. “She kept me in a cage over the fucking Amazon River! For two days! And I nearly drowned!” Tears coated her eyes, and I quickly stood up, wrapping my arms around her waist.
Robert sat there, stunned, with Rain’s handprint on his face.
I gently pushed Rain behind me, and Blake was there, coaxing her to sit next to her. Wade, Connell, and Dash were at my side in an instant. Together we formed a line that I imagined was pretty fucking intimidating with the way Robert’s hand shook even more.
“We can work this out,” he said, his voice trembling. “I’ll split the profits of the show between you evenly. Won’t even take a cut of the first special.”
Connell huffed, Dash sighed, and Wade laughed. I seethed. One second I was there, staring him down, the next I was slamming my knife a centimeter away from the memory card, driving it into his table to release all the pent-up anger I had.
“No deal. Not with you. Never. Again.”
Robert recovered from the shock of me almost destroying the footage quicker than I thought, his face flashing red. “You are under contract for Unearthed! Or did you forget?”
Connell jerked his fist back, going after him, but I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Don’t worry, Aquaman. I’ve already had my lawyers look at that contract.” I turned to Robert. “Turns out, after a decade’s worth of time, I’ve earned more control over the show’s content than you. I can end it whe
never I choose. And you just sealed its fate.” I held up the intact memory card before pocketing it. “This is my insurance. Evidence of not only what Corrine did, but that you were behind it as well. And you can bet your ass I’m taking this to the top. You should resign while you have a slice of dignity left, and be glad I’m not pressing charges against you for neglect.”
I semi-believed him that he didn’t know Corrine would take it as far as she did, but it didn’t mean he was stupid enough to think things couldn’t go south. He knew, and still gave her our location. And while it hurt to say I was done with Unearthed—the loss of a show I’d loved doing for so many years—his betrayal was stronger than my love of the show. He ruined me for producers. I would no longer work with anyone other than a backer because I needed full control of every aspect of my excavations from here on out. Never again would I leave it in the hands of a money hungry studio. And I knew there would always be another way to allow my discoveries to reach the public just not as well funded as before.
“You should leave now,” Wade said. “Before you piss your pants.”
Robert quickly pushed back from the table and exited the room like a scared dog with his tail between his legs.
Slowly, we sank back into the chairs nearest us, and I wiggled my knife out of the table, flicked it closed, and pocketed it.
“Am I the only one who feels victorious and defeated at the same time?” Wade asked after we’d all sat in silence too long.
“No,” Dash said.
“Me, too.” Connell raked his fingers through his hair.
Blake hugged Dash’s arm. Rain reached for my hand over the table.
“You really have something here,” Sadie said, glancing at each of us. “Don’t you?”
Connell nodded at her, and they had a silent conversation.
“It could’ve been epic,” Wade said. “No, edgy. It would’ve been fucking edgy.”