by A. C. Arthur
“Malik will be home soon, Mama,” she told her mother as she leaned over to kiss her forehead. “He’ll be home real soon, I promise.”
“You’ll bring him back, won’t you?” Karen asked, her words stilling Priya instantly.
Her mother was asking her for something and it wasn’t new. All her life Priya had felt like she’d been put on this earth to care for her family. She was the youngest and yet she was the strongest, the most dependable. She’d never let any of them down and they trusted in that fact. Even her sisters who had never been as close to her as Priya would have liked, knew who to call when their child support payments were late, or when one of her nieces or nephews needed new shoes. It was always Priya and she always came to the rescue.
“He’s probably checked himself into another rehab,” she said after taking the few minutes she needed to gather her thoughts. Some days there were things she wanted to say to her family, moments when she just wanted to scream for all of them to get their own lives together and leave her the hell alone. “You know how they have the blackout period when they first check in.”
“No,” Karen had said in a low whisper.
It was so low Priya had turned to her, leaning against the counter as she looked at the frail frame of a woman who at one time had a light in her eyes, a luster to her chocolate-brown skin.
“I think it’s different this time,” her mother had finished.
It was different, Priya thought sadly. It was something Priya had never imagined she’d be in the middle of, some sort of blackmail scheme that she couldn’t walk away from.
“He’ll be back, Mama. I promise,” she told her mother as she moved to stand right beside her, rubbing a hand over her shoulder.
Karen surprised her by lifting one of her shaking hands to touch her daughter’s fingers where they rested on her robe. “You always keep your promises. You always do the right thing.”
Priya didn’t know what to say to those words. Karen had never been one for affection, not having anything left to spare after Levi had beat all the good out of her. Priya was used to that, they all were. Certain things just weren’t expected from her mother—compassion, pride in her children, love in her eyes, were just among the few. But this touch, the sound of Karen’s voice—she was right. It was different this time and Priya only prayed she could do what was necessary to give her mother what she wanted, once more.
“Yes, Mama, I keep my promises. Malik will come back,” she told her without another second’s hesitation.
And he would, Priya vowed. If she had to walk right up to the devil and shake his hand she would do it to bring her brother home to her mother. If she didn’t, the idea that another man that Karen had loved with all her heart may have also walked out of her life would be too much for Karen to bear. And watching her mother deteriorate any more would be too much for Priya.
So now, she was officially broke. As she stepped through the doors of Sedona Airport and coughed into dry, stiff air she thought breathing was going to be quite difficult. With only her carry-on bag, laptop case, and her purse she proceeded to hail a cab praying that she still had enough cash in her purse to pay for transport to and from Perryville Resorts.
Her entire life savings, one thousand two hundred and eighty-five dollars, had quickly dwindled down to one hundred and fifty dollars after her round-trip airfare and the exorbitant nightly rates at the exclusive Perryville Resort. No wonder he wore Armani suits and Dolce & Gabbana silk ties, gouging people to stay at a simple hotel the way he did. She frowned as she climbed into the back of the cab and gave her destination. Sebastian Perry was quickly moving up her list of people she detested.
So why was she here? Why had she flown across the country when the notes had directed her to Reynolds? Because Sebastian Perry knew what she was after. He knew the secret Reynolds was hiding and she was going to get him to tell her. He’d warned her to stay away from Rome. Fine. Then he would be the one to tell her what she needed to know. It was that simple.
No, there was absolutely nothing simple about Perryville Resorts. The redbrick building was like a small fortress jutting up from the earth surrounded by nature’s choice and not man’s, by the most beautiful rock formations Priya had ever seen. Sure, she’d never been anywhere farther than Ocean City, Maryland, for a week in the summertime, so saying she hadn’t seen many gorgeous feats of nature was a given. But that didn’t stop her from recognizing the breathless wonder that was the Boynton Canyon and this magnificent display of modern décor that had been dropped inside of it like a penny in an old Coke bottle.
She stepped out of the cab, slipping her sunglasses off so she could see everything without any buffer. The sun had already set, night looming over the resort like a shadow, but even it couldn’t hide the opulence. The front doors seemed much taller and wider than normal doors she’d walked through, gold handles and writing on them added grandeur. She wanted to go back home and slip into her red dress once more, to put on the shoes she’d paid only about a third of her weekly paycheck for at Macy’s. Jennifer, her hair stylist who worked on Florida Avenue, would gladly squeeze her in for a quick wash and curl, and her manicure was still in acceptable condition. The jeans and black fitted T-shirt she wore did nothing to make her feel like she belonged in a place like this.
Still, her green money that held the same value as everyone else’s had paid for a room, so Priya walked up to the front desk and checked in. She tried to ignore the soft music that sounded like a harp over dripping water that played overhead. This wasn’t a vacation. She walked with her chin held high, her duffel bag growing a little heavier in her hand toward the elevators and once she finally stepped inside, let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Do or die?” she whispered to herself, shaking at how true that sentiment actually was in her case.
The elevator dinged, doors opened, and she hurriedly stepped out.
“Great. Big expensive resort and no signs to tell you which way to go to your room,” she quipped then looked down at the key card in her hand. It had the number written in small green numbers beneath the gold-printed Perryville logo, the same one that was printed everywhere she’d looked in this building as if anyone would dare to forget where they were or who owned the place.
It took her another five minutes to realize she was on the wrong floor and to curse herself for being wrong once again. Slapping her palm against the UP button she waited impatiently for the elevator. All she wanted to do was talk to Perry again, get some information out of him this time, then go back home where she belonged. The elevator doors opened once more and she stepped inside determined to do her job as quickly as possible and not to enjoy a moment of this gorgeous place for fear that at any moment she might just get used to it.
* * *
Bas stopped where he stood. He waited a beat, his hand paused over the knob of the door leading to the conference room. He was late by about fifteen minutes and it couldn’t have been helped. Maybe it could have had he not given into a basic need, a need that continued to claw at him. But he was here now and they were waiting for him. They had to pull out soon if they were going to make it in time for the drop-off.
Still, Bas didn’t move.
He inhaled deeply, released it slowly, and felt a now-familiar tug inside. It was as if the beast had begun stalking the human, taunting him with what it thought was an inevitability. This time Bas would not give in, not even an inch. He pushed back, sending the beast an undeniable message.
Not here. Not now.
Bas had changed into dark khakis and a polo shirt, the closest he could get to dressing casually. On his feet were his black steel-toed Timberland boots, probably the most urban item he owned. In his front right pants pocket was his cell phone, in the left his keys. He focused on the here and now, the important things versus the unthinkable.
Then there was a sound. He looked down the hall to his left. Nothing.
Conference rooms were located on the second floor. They didn’t
book many conferences here as he preferred the place to be used as a serene getaway and not another place to work. There were no guest rooms or other amenities, just the conference rooms. And only one conference room was in use at the moment. So why did he believe someone else was there?
As quickly as the sense of … who, he wasn’t quite sure, had appeared, it disappeared and Bas cursed softly under his breath. For the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, Bas felt off, unbalanced, and uncertain of something as normal as walking down a hallway. He didn’t like this feeling, not one bit.
“What if this is a setup?” Paolo, a guard with the deceptive looks of a teenager, spoke as Bas finally entered the room.
Paolo had been one of Bas’s blue team members for the last two years and in that time the shifter had more than proven his worth. For that reason, and because he was active in the community as the head of a nonprofit that helped to keep wayward teens off the streets, Bas had a tremendous amount of respect for him.
“We’re planning for that contingency,” Bas chimed in, determined to keep his head in the game.
Jacques, who sat to Bas’s left, ran his fingers slowly over the screen of his iPad. “I’m sending pictures to everyone’s phone,” he announced.
“These are the faces of the rogues who were reportedly at that warehouse in D.C. before it exploded,” Bas told them. “But not after.”
“So these are the ones we’re looking for tonight?” Syfon, the blue team leader, asked from the far end of the room.
“We’re looking for anyone who has something to do with that shipment. Whether it’s a driver or a runner or the goddamned ringleader, I want him,” Bas told them emphatically. “Preferably alive.”
“Rogues don’t come willingly,” Syfon announced, as if it needed to be confirmed.
Paolo gave him a smirk. “And we don’t ask politely.”
“I want everyone to stay sharp out there. We have no idea who may have been given the grand task this time. And if these are the same synthetic drugs that have been killing off humans in D.C., I don’t want them arriving on American soil on my watch. Am I understood?”
Jacques looked around the room to the legion of twenty guards he’d trained personally. When his gaze returned to Bas they both looked to Paolo whose stare was aimed directly at them. The three of them nodded and Syfon stood first.
“Understood, FL,” he said, giving Bas another nod. Then he gave a motion with his right hand, two fingers up, turning in a small circle. The others around the table stood, giving the same signal—the blue team solidarity motion—and they headed out of the room.
“Paolo’s a good soldier, albeit sometimes he can be a loose cannon,” Jacques said when only he and Bas were left in the room.
Bas nodded. “He is. That’s why I want you to keep him close.” No other words were needed. Bas and Jacques had been together for a long time, Jacques being elevated to Lead Enforcer about ten seconds after Bas had been named FL. They were partners in this mission and damn good friends. So Jacques knew exactly why Bas wanted Paolo kept close and agreed with him wholeheartedly. It’s also why Bas felt safe in what he was about to ask.
“Do you smell it?” he asked, his voice’s timbre lower than it had been seconds ago.
Jacques nodded. “The adrenaline is high. They’re ready to hunt in whatever form you command.”
Bas shook his head. “I don’t want any shifting,” he told Jacques adamantly.
It was nothing new that Bas preferred his soldiers to fight as humans. Outside the canyon and the resort there was a small town of about two thousand residents. The last thing they needed was to believe that among all the other legends and folklore that went with the canyon’s history, that there were also cat people living in the mountains.
But that had not been the scent Bas was referring to. And since it had been Jacques’s first response that meant he likely had not picked up the scent Bas had. In all actuality Bas wasn’t sure he’d actually picked up a scent. It was more like a feeling, a presence that brought with it the taste of a yearning he’d always dreaded.
Chapter 8
Nogales, Arizona
They were late, Palermo Greer swore as he waited at the base of the tunnel. It was almost ten forty-five and they were supposed to do the pickup at ten a.m. sharp. He didn’t pace, like Black, the six-foot-five-inch-tall shifter who was built like a running back and had the personality of the feral cat that he was.
“We wait ten more minutes,” Palermo said solemnly. The hair along the base of his neck stood straight up, his cat pressing like a giant boulder against his spine, ready to break free for any reason. They were alone out here, standing in a building looking down a hole that went more than fifty feet down. The tunnels had taken two years to build and were perfected with a state-of-the-art ventilation system, beamed walls, and six-foot-high ceilings. It began at the back of a building at the border checkpoint in Mexico and ran the length of two football fields to this abandoned strip mall in Nogales. This was Palermo’s first time being near one, but he’d seen the blueprints and knew exactly where the rogues bringing the shipment in would meet him and how they would use the rope and pulley to lift the drugs up into the building.
That’s where they stood right now, at the top, waiting for the signal that the shipment was ready for transport.
“If they don’t show we’re fucking screwed,” Black mumbled on another pass by the spot where Palermo was leaning against a wall.
“They’ll show,” Palermo stated, his eyes glued to the opening in the floor. Watching. Waiting.
“What if they don’t?”
“They will,” he grumbled.
Black slapped a beefy fist into the palm of his other hand. “They’re late.”
“I know,” Palermo said with a nod.
“And you’re not fucking pissed off? I am! They’re wasting our time. We should be back in D.C. working with Darel to build our base.”
The shifter was talking about Darel Charles, the rogue shifter who now thought he was running things after the cold-blooded way in which he’d cut Sabar out of the picture. Black was afraid of Darel. Palermo wasn’t, because he knew that despite Darel’s posturing and grandstanding he couldn’t run this operation by himself. That had never been the plan. Unfortunately, Darel had no clue what was actually going on around him, and Palermo planned to keep it that way.
“They’re here,” he said finally, pushing from the wall he’d been leaning against and going to stand right over the hole in the floor.
Black joined him, breathing harder than was necessary but Palermo knew that wasn’t from any type of exertion. Instead it was the rogue’s adrenaline pumping. He was ready for anything and so was Palermo. Reaching behind his back he slipped out the UK semiautomatic rifle. The rifles were designed by Robert Slakeman at Slakeman Enterprises and were intended for use by the US military, or the military of some other country. Instead, for whatever reason, Slakeman had sold them to the highest bidder. And now they were in the hands of the rogues, an army of such warriors the humans could never have fathomed.
A golden light appeared at the bottom of the hole, it flashed four times, then went completely dark. Palermo looked up to Black then nodded. Black grabbed hold of the rope that had been tied and wrapped around a nail just beneath the entrance of the hole. The rogue then reached up with his thick arms, punching in one of the rectangular ceiling panels from its base. Overhead there was a metal drum that Black laced the rope over and around. He let the length of the rope fall down to the base of the hole. Minutes ticked by and Black looked from the hole up to the drum then back down to the hole again.
Palermo, however, looked in another direction. He looked at the door that they’d come through. They were in the center building of the strip mall, the place that used to be an old hardware store. The windows were intact, but they’d been spray-painted on just like the walls. The door was relatively new as they’d installed a keypad lock system to keep out unwanted guest
s. But that wasn’t what Palermo was concerned with. What bothered him was the scent he’d just picked up, the musky rainforest fragrance that could only belong to one other species. With his finger on the trigger he stepped away from the hole.
“Where you going?” Black asked him. “We’re about to get to work here.”
Palermo ignored him initially until he was standing right in front of the windows looking out into the night. He saw nothing and yet he knew it was there, he knew they were there. Raising his arm, ready to fire at will, he whispered, “We’ve got company.”
* * *
“Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be?” Paolo asked Jacques as they stood in the parking lot of what looked like a totally abandoned strip mall.
Around them was nothing but deserted land, dirt, and dirt, and even more dirt. There was no humidity, just what felt like a fleece blanket draped over them so that each time they breathed it was stale air that clogged their lungs instead of helping to reinflate them. It was dark, no street, so no streetlights. Luckily for them shifters possessed night vision all the time. Still, as Bas looked around he frowned, because there was absolutely nothing to see.
What probably used to be a thriving mall was about eighty thousand square feet, half of that consisting of parking lot while the rest was dilapidated buildings. About ten miles down the road, back in the direction they’d just come from, was an abandoned trailer park, units still sitting on cinder blocks. Now there was no one, not in the trailer park and not at the mall. The idea of a mass evacuation sat like a rock in his chest and his fists clenched at his sides.