Fragments of Grey [Book Five of The Alexis Stanton Chronicles]

by Phelps, J. C.

  “Your partners will be waiting for you in the office. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  What the hell have I done now?

  “Nothing, ma’am.”

  He was obviously shaken and knew something I didn’t. I opted not to hound him and just go up and find out what was going on.

  My hands started to shake and I gave Joe a sidelong glance as we waited for the elevator.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Joe. But you might want to go back to the car.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.

  By the time the elevator opened up to the seventh floor, my senses were heightened. My breathing was more shallow and my heart raced.

  “Hi, Gabriella,” I said when we walked into the office.

  “Hi, hon. They’re waiting for you.”

  The look of sorrow on her face only served to agitate me further. I wanted to grill her about what was going on, but I saw all of my partners standing in White’s office.

  Joe and I walked past Gabriella and Red’s voice came to my ears.

  “Ms. Grey,” he greeted me.

  I unintentionally glared and didn’t answer him. He stood behind White’s desk with the rest of the men standing near him.

  “Where’s White? I’m supposed to deliver some information to him.”

  I was visibly shaking now.

  “He’s not here,” Red said.

  “I’m not asking you, Red,” I spit out.

  I looked at Black. “Where’s White?”

  Black shook his head and looked at the ground.

  I looked around the room and they all wore looks of pure agony. “Brown? Where is White?” I was beginning to panic.

  Red’s voice grated in my ears.

  “He’s gone, Alex.”

  “Fuck off, Red! Black. Where is he?” I pleaded.

  “Alex,” Brown came to my side. “For some reason, he thought Will was still alive. He left to find him without telling any of us. The Admiral called a couple months ago and confirmed that he’d been killed.”

  “What do you mean? Where is he?”

  Joe put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t—” I turned to face Joe and he backed away a couple steps.

  “He’s not gone. He’s out there somewhere. Why aren’t you all out there helping him look for Will?”

  “Alex,” Black’s voice commanded all of my attention.

  I looked at him and he held my gaze. He didn’t need to say a word. His eyes said it all. White wasn’t missing. My eyes filled with tears as I looked into Black’s face. This could not be happening. This was not real.

  The fear I’d felt when I watched Ruben shoot White rushed over me, followed by an even deeper fear I didn’t know was possible. How could I live without him? How? This was not real.

  My eye contact with Black was the only thing holding me upright. His face was the only thing I could see. Nothing mattered any more. What was the point?

  I tried to tell Black to go to hell. I tried to shake my head, as if saying no would make it go away. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. The only thing I could feel were the tears streaming down my cheeks and the absolute despair that filled me.

  My vision of Black’s face started to falter and move further away. The ringing in my ears became deafening, and I felt my knees buckle. The normal jarring feeling that comes when your knees give out was absent and so was the pain when my knees hit the floor. Everything was black now. I expected to feel the floor on my face, but it never came.

  Instead, I heard tinny voices as my senses came back little by little.

  I found myself hunched over my knees on the floor and the men were arguing about something.

  I didn’t mean to, but I let out a slight sound as the headache hit me.

  Blue was by my side and helped me sit up. The room had become quiet again.

  “Can you stand?” he asked.

  I shook my head no, but it wasn’t in response to his question. I still couldn’t fully process what was going on. There was no way this was really happening. I got to my feet with a little help from Blue on my left and another pair of hands on my right.

  “We’ll take you to your apartment,” Blue said.

  “No,” Joe interrupted. “She’s coming with me.”

  I now knew it was Joe who’d been the other pair of hands helping me stand, because I felt as if I were in the middle of a tug-of-war.

  Black saved me and led me to the couch. Everyone’s voices still held a bit of a metallic ring to them, but my ears were starting to clear up. I sat on the couch with my head in my hands until Red’s voice cropped up directly in front of me.

  “Alex? Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

  My anger with Red multiplied a million times. I let my hands drop and I looked him directly in the face. That smug, self-satisfied face he dared put within my reach.

  “Red,” I said through sobs. “You’re asking me if I’m going to be okay when it’s because of you I didn’t get to be with White? YOU?” I struck out and had him on the ground in seconds. I screamed at him as I pummeled him. “Months!” I yelled. “I lost MONTHS. And now I’ll never be able to get them back. NEVER!” I intended to kill him with my bare hands. I sat on his chest and stopped punching him and slipped his shoulders under my knees and proceeded to strangle him. He fought, but I had him. My partners would have two people to mourn.

  “I will kill you,” I growled as his face started to turn blue.

  My triumph didn’t last long before Black lifted me off Red. If it had been anyone else lifting me off him, I would have fought them. I crumpled in his arms and he held me tightly.

  Red coughed on the floor for a couple of seconds before he took his place behind White’s desk again.

  When my sobs settled down and I stood motionless in Blacks arms, he quietly asked if I wanted to go to my apartment or go with Joe.

  “Joe,” I whispered.

  Black’s grip didn’t loosen as he led me out of the office and onto the elevator with Joe in tow.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I really thought they were going to let you kill him,” Joe said after he’d led me to my room at Mesa.

  I didn’t answer him. I’d already forgotten my attack on Red. My mind was swimming in thoughts of White.

  “What the hell did he do to make them just stand there while you beat the shit out of him and almost kill him?”

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now, anyway. Please, just leave me alone,” I said.

  “I’ll come and get you when it’s time to brief Posner. I’m sure he’s going to want to get our version before Jake shows up,” Joe said.

  “Fine.”

  “You going to hold it together, Alex?”

  “I’m fine.” I took in a shaky breath.

  “Keep in mind, Posner doesn’t know where we stopped first and if he knows you still have such deep ties, it could be problematic.”

  Joe left me alone in my room with a promise to return soon.

  I went to bed, hoping to sleep the time away. I fought my emotions, but managed to contain the tears even though I couldn’t fall asleep.

  “Joe, Alex,” Posner greeted us when we walked into his office.

  “Please, take your seats.”

  We did as we were told and he asked us to fill him in on what happened.

  Our stories were similar. We were both off shift and woke up to an explosion. At which time, we hurried to usher Ruiz to safety.

  “Why you two and not anyone else?” Posner asked me.

  “I’m not sure. I do know we were the first to reach his room and Jake opted to stay behind to fight for the refinery. It happened pretty fast.”

  “Okay. Thank you both for acting so quickly.” He turned his attention to Joe. “As soon as Jake arrives, I want him here.”

  I followed Joe’s lead and rose from my seat.

  “Understood,” Joe said.

  Back in my room, J
oe said, “Glad to see you can put things behind you.”

  I just nodded and asked him to leave. He didn’t argue.

  Once I was alone I curled up on my bed and cried myself to sleep.

  Jake’s face came into view as he shook me.

  “Alex,” he said. “You need to get up. Joe says you’ve been in bed since you got here. You need to get up.”

  My mouth was dry and I could barely speak. “Why? What’s going on?” I barely had the strength to sit up.

  “You’ve been in bed for five days.”

  White.

  I leaned over the edge of the bed and dry heaved for a couple minutes while Jake rubbed my back. When my body gave up on trying to purge the nothingness that inhabited my stomach, Jake pulled me close to him and I cried.

  “It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” he said.

  I woke up in Jake’s arms. He was curled up next to me, holding me tight. I tried to get out from under his grasp without waking him, but didn’t manage it.

  “Alex? What’s wrong?”

  “I need to use the bathroom,”

  “Oh, good.”

  He let go and I sat up. It was hard work and I was shaking.

  “After you’re done in there, I’ll take you out for something to eat. I’m sure you could use some fresh air as much as you need food. You’ve actually lost weight since I saw you last.”

  I took a long, hot shower. My mind wouldn’t stop replaying every single moment I’d spent with White until I wondered how he died. What’d happened? Why did he think Will was still alive? Did he have proof or was it his grief pushing him?

  If he had proof, it couldn’t have been strong enough for any of the colors to agree with him. Why did he do this? I had to know what happened.

  When I exited the bathroom in my towel, Jake was sitting on the edge of my bed. I considered worrying about what he might see, but decided I didn’t care.

  “I need to find out what happened,” I said.

  Jake didn’t pay my towel any attention and spoke to me as if I was fully dressed.

  “I talked briefly with Black. He said White was acting strangely. He even got all his affairs in order.”

  “You think he did this on purpose?”

  Just the thought pissed me off. White would never do that.

  “No, but he did think he might never come back. Why don’t you give me a second and I’ll see if one of your partners can meet us for dinner.”

  “It better not be Red.”

  “Yeah, I know. Joe told me how you just about killed him and no one tried all that hard to stop you.”

  Jake stepped out of my bedroom and shut the door. I assumed he did that so I could get dressed in private.

  I dropped my towel and caught my reflection in the dresser mirror. I had lost weight. I’d have a bit of work to do if I wanted to get back some of my muscle.

  I shrugged on some clothes and stepped out of the room. Jake was just concluding a phone call.

  “Green said he’ll meet us. You ready?”

  As we drove to meet Green, I asked him how things turned out at the refinery and what he told Posner.

  “I just told him the truth. Someone must have placed that charge on the barge as a diversion. Not sure why they didn’t attempt to follow through. Maybe the charge went off before they were ready. At least we got Ruiz out of there.”

  “I haven’t given anyone the information you wanted me to give White.”

  “Not a big deal. I need to create a relationship with another one of your partners now, anyway.”

  I swallowed my sorrow.

  “I’m sorry, Alex. I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. I really respected White.”

  “It’s okay, Jake.”

  Green was already at the table. He rose to greet us.

  “Jake. Alex.”

  I nodded my hello and Jake reached out to shake his hand. Green responded with a brief handshake.

  “You’ve gotten thin,” he said as soon as we sat.

  I shrugged it off. “I need to know what happened.”

  “I know. I’m not really sure. He just up and disappeared. None of us even knew where he was until Red went into his apartment and found a note. It just said he went to get Will. We spent a month looking for him. Then the Admiral called and said he had it on good authority that White was killed trying to break into a well-protected compound.”

  “What compound?” I asked.

  “The Admiral wouldn’t say, and we tried to get him to talk. Red’s still trying to get the details.”

  “Excuse me, please,” I said as I left the table.

  “Let me know what he says,” Green called after me.

  I walked to the ladies restroom and checked the stalls. I was alone.

  I called my dad.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, dad,” I said.

  “Alex.”

  I could picture his haughty expression.

  “It’s been a while. How have you been? I hear you’ve been working with the undesirables over at Mesa.”

  “I want to know what happened to White.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  His tone completely changed and he was very sympathetic.

  “What happened?”

  “I’ve already told your boy, Red, everything I know.”

  “Red is not my boy, and I don’t believe you. What compound was White trying to break into and why did he have reason to believe Will might still be alive?”

  “You ready to give up Red, then?”

  “There’s nothing to give up. But, just so you know, if I have any further problems with Red, he’ll not be causing anyone else any problems. Now, I want to know what happened to White.”

  “Sweetie—”

  “Don’t sweetie me. Just tell me what compound and why.”

  “I don’t know. I received a communication from one of our contacts in Brazil. He told me White was caught trying to break into a highly guarded government facility. He assumed White had gone rogue and brought the break-in to my attention before it could become an international incident.”

  “What compound?”

  “He refused to tell me.”

  “Why would White think his little brother was still alive?” I asked.

  “It might have something to do with the fact that we never did recover his body. People do strange things when they are grieving. Speaking of, why don’t you come home for a while?”

  “No. I’m not coming home, but I will give you the information that I was meant to bring back to White. I recently did a stint as a security guard at an oil refinery down in South America as part of a Mesa team. Turns out the oil refinery is also a drug refinery and is owned by Ruiz. I thought this might be information you could use since you had us do some surveillance on Ruiz several months back. This ties Posner and Ruiz together.”

  “I already knew they worked together. You snapped me some nice pictures of Mesa security down in Jamaica. Where is this refinery?”

  “Somewhere in South America. My sources didn’t tell me exactly where it was, sorry.”

  “You just said you were on the team,” he said.

  “Did I? Wanna trade information?”

  “What? You’re bargaining with me? Alex—” His volume had escalated before he took a breath. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to trade,” he said in a more controlled tone.

  He hung up on me.

  I stormed out of the restroom and back to the table. By the time I reached Green and Jake, I’d expended the little surge of energy I’d gotten from my anger. I was shaking when I sat down.

  “You need to get some food,” Jake said.

  “What did he say, Alex?” Green asked.

  “Who?” Jake interrupted.

  “The Admiral,” I answered him.

  “You have a direct line to the Admiral?” Jake was incredulous.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed.

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything either, but I hav
e a little tidbit of info I can hold over his head. Not sure if it’s good enough information to get him to talk, though. Only time will tell. Let the guys know I’ll keep on him,” I told Green.

  “Good. If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know,” Green said.

  He stood from the table and left me alone with Jake.

  “You know the Admiral? I mean, I knew you’d worked for him, but so do a lot of other people. They don’t get a direct line to him.”

  “It’s no big deal, Jake. He’s an ass, anyway.”

  “I knew that, and I’ve never had a conversation with him. But, he’s a connected ass. You need to stay on good terms with him. He can make or break you. He’s more ruthless than Posner.”

  “The Admiral knows more than he’s telling me. I’ll find out what it is and then, whoever is responsible for this, is dead.”

  I didn’t say this for Jake’s benefit. It was a simple fact. When I found out who’d killed White, no matter what the reason, they’d cease to exist.

  THE END

  Discover other titles by J.C. Phelps at your favorite online bookseller

  The Alexis Stanton Chronicles

  Color Me Grey

  Shades of Grey

  Reflections of Grey

  Traces of Grey

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  J.C. Phelps

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