CHAPTER SEVEN
Cap
“I told you that I’m fine. I don’t need to stay in this fucking bed anymore,” I practically yelled at the nurse. “I’ll sign the waiver releasing you and the hospital from any liability. I have men waiting out there for me and I need to get out of here.”
“Sir, you were shot.”
“And the bullet has been removed.”
“But we need to monitor-”
“I’ll still be in the fucking hospital! If I collapse, I’ll be just down the hall from the best medical care in town,” I gritted through my teeth. The nurse didn’t look too happy, but got everything taken care of so I could get back to my men. What a clusterfuck this had all been. If I was being honest with myself, I really did need to lie down for a while. I was a little dizzy and I was fucking exhausted, but there were others that were in worse condition than me. I didn’t even know for sure the extent of the injuries. I couldn’t just sit here and pretend none of this was going on.
“I’ll make sure to look after him,” Cazzo said to the nurse from the doorway. “We’ll be in the waiting area and I promise to make sure he takes it easy.”
The nurse gave a curt nod and scowled at me before leaving the room.
“What happened while I was out?”
“Sinner is getting his leg taken care of. Everyone else is guarding anyone who’s laid up. I have Knight watching Lindsey and Lucy.”
“Any word from Becky?”
“Not yet. I didn’t want to call her and keep bugging her.”
As we walked into the waiting area, I saw Lindsey and Lucy still waiting. They looked tired and if they would listen, I would tell them to go back to the panic room to get some sleep. Knight spotted me and came over. When Cazzo told me he was watching the girls, I was actually surprised that he was here and not in the panic room with Kate and his daughter. “Any word on the guys?”
“Rocco’s fine. He’s being patched up and discharged. Gabe should be released in the morning. He has a pretty nasty concussion. They want to monitor him overnight. Alec will be released soon also. They were all the lucky ones. Burg just got out of surgery a little bit ago. The bullet Lola put in him nicked his bone and was lodged in his muscle, but he should be good for the most part. Ice and Hunter are still in surgery.”
“If they’re in surgery that means they’re not dead.”
“Craig is missing,” Knight said after a moment.
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“We don’t know where he is,” Cazzo said. “We all thought he was with someone else. Nobody saw him leave, but he hasn’t been admitted to the hospital.”
“I checked before we left. The only people left were Lola, Chris, and Jackson. If he was in the building, I would have seen him.” I knew I hadn’t left anyone behind. Everyone else got out.
“But you were out before Chris.”
I narrowed my eyes at Knight, not liking his implications. “I was helping Gabe get to an ambulance. I was about to go back when they came out with Ice.”
“I’m not accusing you, Cap. I’m saying that maybe he went back in. Since you were busy with Gabe, maybe nobody saw him go back in. Maybe he thought he would help get Ice out and got pinned down.”
“Shit.” If we left a man behind, I would never forgive myself.
“Becky’s looking into the security footage, trying to see if she can find him. But there’s not a whole lot before the cameras went out from the fire,” Cazzo said.
“So, we have two missing men. What do you think the probability is that Chance and Craig were both taken?”
Knight leaned in closer, making sure no one else could hear us. “If this was The Broker, he would have gone after Chance because of his connection to Morgan. Why would he take Craig?”
“But if this wasn’t The Broker, Chance could have just been convenient to take. He was by the elevator and unconscious. Maybe Craig was taken also,” I surmised.
Knight glanced back at Lindsey and Lucy who were sitting together, staring off at nothing. “What the fuck is going on, Cap? There’s no way anyone should have been able to get into the building. At least, not as fast as they did. They followed you back and were in the building in less than two hours. It’s like they knew what to expect.”
“They would have to have gotten access through one of us,” Cazzo added.
It still didn’t add up. Why give them access? “The Broker deals in information and if someone crosses him, they end up dead. But the only thing we did was rescue Morgan. It doesn’t make sense that we would be attacked by his men. So, why would they be after us? What information could we have that The Broker would want?”
“Records?” Knight asked. “Is it possible he knows that we’ve figured out who he is?”
“Wait.” Something was missing from all this. Something that none of us had thought of. “When’s the last time anyone saw Storm?”
“You’d have to ask Jackson. I know he was around for a little bit after we got Morgan back, but I don’t know what his plans were after that.”
“What if he’s the mole? He worked at the club. He was the one that called us to help. He befriended Morgan and she trusted him, so of course she would go to him for help. Then, he could make sure Chance was out of the way by telling him Morgan was with The Broker. If they were working together, they set it all up perfectly. Chance was the only one that would have spontaneously shown up at the club. He was the only one Storm would have to worry about. They got Morgan and us out of the way. And then after we found Morgan, we invited him back to our offices. He would have seen all our security measures.”
Knight shook his head. “Even if he was the mole, how did he bypass the facial scanner?”
“You set up the new measures,” I said. “If you were going to break in, how would you do it? You’re the hacker.”
“See, that’s what I don’t understand. I tested all these things out for weeks. Even the most experienced hacker wouldn’t have been able to get past all our sensors and into the building in less than two hours. They got past all our external sensors at the entrances. They were up on the roof and no alerts went off. I had backup systems in place in case we were hacked, but none of those systems were activated. Once they were past those, they had to get through the security measures in the elevator, at the roof access, and the back stairwell. There are five different doors they had to go through to get up the back stairs, all with different security measures. Whoever did this had to have access to our prints, and that’s something you can’t get on the fly. You can’t just hack a person’s handprint and scan it. They would need the actual hand for our sensors or the full print on a glove. Not only that, the eye scanner can be hacked, but it would take hours to reprogram the system to get in. And then there are the codes, which change daily. How did someone get the codes for the day on top of everything else?”
“We need to have Becky go through the records and see who has used the scanner over the past month and when. It might not give us anything, but we need to know if there are any abnormalities. If the information wasn’t destroyed, maybe we can get whose scan was used right before we were ambushed.”
“Fuck, this has to be a leak,” Cazzo growled. “How else would anyone get all that information? They would have to have it weeks in advance, right?”
“To get it all done in one shot?” Knight asked. “Hell yeah. It would take a lot of practice. All the security measures are timed, so it’s not like they could take their time if something went wrong. The whole system would have shut down and we would have been alerted immediately that we had intruders.”
“Which means it couldn’t be Storm,” Cazzo surmised. “At least, it can’t be just him. He would have to be working with someone.”
“So, who is it then?”
Knight and I looked around the room and I knew what Knight was going to say before he opened his mouth. “It’s possible Craig is the traitor. It would explain why he’s not here.”
“
I never thought Cal would be a traitor either, but he turned on all of us. I suppose anything’s possible. Fuck, I just don’t want to believe it. I’d like to think I’m not such a bad judge of character that I would employ two traitors in ten years.”
“I saw no signs, if it makes you feel better. But I’ve been fooled before.”
“Let’s keep this between the three of us for now,” I said quietly. “We don’t need any distrust right now. We’re already broken. We need to regroup and find out who the fuck is behind this.”
“Agreed.”
“For now, we keep everyone posted outside the rooms. You said Rocco’s being released?”
“Yeah. He should be out any minute now.”
Commotion to my left caught my attention as Lucy and Lindsey stood and rushed to a doctor that was walking out.
“Who is it?” Lindsey said urgently.
“Family of Hunter Papa-”
“That’s me,” Lucy practically shouted. “How is he? Did he survive? That man is so stubborn, there’s no way he didn’t make it out of surgery.”
“He did make it out. He’s stable, but in critical condition and he’s being moved to the ICU.”
“What happened?” I asked calmly.
“He was shot in the neck, but the bullet didn’t exit. The bullet bounced around in his chest, hitting some ribs. It’s currently lodged in his shoulder, but for now, there’s no need to remove it. We had to crack his chest to tie off veins and arteries. He lost a lot of blood and we had to give him multiple transfusions. He flatlined several times, and unfortunately, he’s not out of the woods yet. With as many blood transfusions as he had, he’s at high risk for blood clots.”
“But he’s going to live,” Lucy said.
“We’ll see how the next few days go. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you, but it really is up to his body right now to continue fighting.”
“And what about the bullet?”Lucy asked. “You said it doesn’t need to be removed, but isn’t that dangerous?”
“It can be just as dangerous to remove the bullet. And he’s in no condition for any more surgery. We’ll keep an eye on the bullet and if it’s not causing any problems, it’s best to leave it in and let him recover.”
Lucy swiped at her eyes and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder to show my support. “When can I see him?”
“He’s being moved to the ICU right now. The nurse will get you when he’s all set up. He’s in a medically induced coma right now to allow his body to heal. He’s on a ventilator and we’ll keep him on that for a few days as he recovers.”
Lucy nodded and the doctor smiled sadly as he walked away. Lucy turned to me and I wrapped my arms around her for a hug. She started making strangled noises against my chest and was flailing around. This had to be so hard on her. She shoved back from me, but she wasn’t crying. She was pissed.
“What the hell is wrong with you guys? You’re all a bunch of military experts, but you keep getting shot. Hunter got shot in the neck. Seriously? There’s all these other areas to get shot that are larger targets and he takes one to the neck? Did he stand up taller to stretch his neck for better access? Geez, you guys talk about needing to put us in bubble wrap, but I’m beginning to think we have to take over for you. Look at all of you! You’re shot in the shoulder. Hunter is on a ventilator, and John is still in surgery. Who knows how everyone else is. And Chance is missing!”
Then she spun around and grabbed Knight by the shirt, pulling him closer. “And you suck at your job. You’re supposed to teach these guys how to protect themselves and half of them are in the hospital.”
“Lola,” I snapped as she walked out with Rocco. He looked like he had seen better days, but at least he was able to walk.
“Yeah, Cap.”
“I want you posted outside Hunter’s room in the ICU. Let me know if you have any issues with the staff.”
“I’m on it, Cap.”
She walked off with Lucy to the ICU and I looked around to assess who I still had available to help out.
“Rocco, everything good?” I asked.
“Just a scratch,” he said with a shrug.
“They don’t admit people for a scratch.”
“Just a few stitches. I’ll be good as new in no time.”
I nodded, not sure I believed him, but he was a medic. He knew how far he could push himself.
“We’re going to have to take shifts being on watch. I don’t want anyone left unprotected.”
It was sometime in the early morning before we heard anything about Ice. A tired looking doctor came out and sat next to Lindsey and I.
“Your husband was shot in the heart.” Lindsey gasped and I tightened my hold on her hand, though I wasn’t sure if it was for her or me. “His chest had been properly packed, so he made it into surgery and we were able to put him on bypass. The bullet hit his left ventricle, but luckily missed the aorta. We were able to repair everything, but he’ll have a long recovery ahead of him. We’ll keep him on bypass for a day at least.”
“If you fixed everything, why does he have to stay on bypass? Are you not sure that he’ll be okay?”
“It’s to make sure he retains a good sinus rhythm. It’s normal for heart surgery.”
Since Ice was already in the ICU, the doctor led her to see him, answering the questions she continued to ask. I slumped in a chair, feeling exhaustion hit me hard. I hadn’t spoken to Becky in hours, but if she had found something, she would have called. I needed sleep, but at this point, I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to get back to the panic room and see my girls, but we had men here that were severely injured and there would be no one to watch out for them if we left. In short, we were just too beat down to do much of anything right now.
Relief and worry filled me when Becky called. She would only call me if she had found something. I slid the touch sensor to answer and held the phone to my ear.
“Bossman, I have news you’re not going to like.”
My eyes slipped closed as I dropped my head. “What is it?”
“Rocco’s handprint was the one used on the scanner.”
My head whipped up, my eyes searching for Rocco. I didn’t see him anywhere and he wasn’t watching anyone right now, but that didn’t mean jack shit. Any one of our guys would allow him to visit with our injured men. He was one of us, at least, that’s what we all thought.
“How sure are you about this?”
“One hundred percent. I don’t have any other proof that he’s the one that did it. I’m just saying it was his handprint.”
“Do you have any way of telling if the handprint came directly from his hand?”
“No, the scanner doesn’t have thermal imaging or a skin detector. There’s no way for me to know if someone placed his prints on the scanner.”
“Alright, thanks, Becky. Let me know if you find anything else.”
I walked over to Knight, gesturing for him to follow me. When we were out of earshot of anyone that might walk by, I laid out what Becky had told me.
“What do you think?”
“I’m thinking that it sounds too much like a setup,” he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
“How do you figure? You suspect Craig and we don’t have anything pointing to him.”
“Craig is missing. No one’s seen him and we most likely don’t have any footage that will help us. To me, a missing person is more suspicious than a handprint. Given the right technology, anyone can hack a scanner.”
“You said it couldn’t be done.”
“No, I said it couldn’t be done in under two hours along with everything else. If you think about it, anyone could have gotten Rocco’s handprint at some point. They might not have even targeted him. It could have been whoever was easiest to get a print from.”
“So, what the hell do we do then?”
“We run his handprint against the one that was used and look for inconsistencies. The program is designed to allow minimal flaws because yo
u might have a cut on your hand or something. If we compare the two, we should be able to see if there’s anything that doesn’t line up right. That should tell us if it was his handprint or a double.”
I nodded, pulling out my phone to dial Becky and relay the information. This was all way too fucking complicated. We were too vulnerable right now and that led to mistakes. We needed to get out of this fucking place and back to safety before someone else got hurt.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Chance
My head was killing me. I vaguely remembered being tossed around in the back of a truck or van. I remembered that my hands and feet had been tied, and not being able to move, but then I passed out again. Wherever I was now, the light was bright and made my headache even worse.
I felt around my restraints, but couldn’t concentrate enough to find a way out of them. It was rope, but it felt really tight. I swiveled my head and blurry images came into my view. I blinked again and again until my vision cleared slightly. There were men sitting down on sofas, but we were moving. I shook my head again, looking around the room some more. A plane. We were on a plane.
I let my head fall back to the floor. I felt so sluggish, but not like I normally felt when I had a concussion. This was different. It was like something was weighing me down, like I had something in my system. That had to be it. They must have drugged me.
“Looks like your friend is waking up,” one of the men said. My head swiveled on the ground, but I still couldn’t make out any faces. Everything was just too damn blurry.
“Give him another dose. We’re not taking any chances until we reach our destination.”
That voice, it sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It must not have been one I heard often or I would recognize it right away, right? I felt my arm being jerked and the slight prick in my arm. I briefly thought that I should be fighting back, but thinking was not something that came easily right now. It didn’t take long for me to slip into blackness.
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