by S. K. Lessly
So… I told her everything. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy at all.
I had made it back to my office a couple of hours after Misty’s surprise appearance at the secured facility. Before I did anything that she ordered me to do, I had gone straight to my office, and closed and locked my office door. Unable to keep it together anymore, I fell onto the plush couch that was sitting next to my desk and cried my eyes out. I wasn’t sure how I had safely made it to the office without falling apart. I was in a complete daze throughout the drive. Now that I was safe in my own office, I was finally able to let go.
Misty and I ended up staying in Davies’ office for an hour and a half talking. Better yet, she was doing all of the talking, yelling, and pacing for the both of us. I sat on an old cracked leather couch and suffered whiplash from watching her pace back and forth in front of me.
As I said, I had told Misty everything. I had told her about the bank and their list of clients. I had told her about my plan to come here, about Emily's involvement, and finally what had happened between Noah and me. Misty had looked beyond pissed at me. At some point during her enraged tirade, I had almost wished Josh got here instead of her. Seeing the anger and hurt in Misty’s eyes confirmed I was in way over my head.
“What were you thinking?” she had asked me repeatedly. I didn’t have a viable answer to that. I thought I did, but as I tried to explain myself, the words just sounded foolish. She took the liberty to remind me just how much of an operator I was not, which was something I had realized a bit too late it seemed.
At one point, Davies had walked into the office to check up on me and was surprised to find Misty in his office. Apparently, she’d come into the facility undetected. Before Davies could say anything, the badass beauty stalked right into Davies’ personal space.
“Do you have any idea the shit storm that’s coming your way? How could you let this shit happen? What kind of place are you running here?” Misty barked.
Davies stepped back and placed his hands up in the air, trying to ward off Misty’s rage.
“Whoa, now hold on a second,” began Davies, but Misty cut him off.
“No, you ass, I will not hold on. Explain to me how this super-secured facility was just hacked? Then tell me how one of your own managed to fuck up this bad? Does he have any idea what he’s done? Have you even found him yet? Let me tell you when Josh finds out what happened here…”
Misty let the remainder of her sentence float in the air. Davies, who seemed to have had enough of being chastised like a child, began to show a little heat of his own.
“Listen, we are doing everything we can to figure out what happened,” he barked down at Misty. “Crasse has been with us…with me for years. I know the man. I know his wife and kids. We served together, watched each other’s back, and saved each other’s lives time and time again. Whatever is going on here, there has to be a good explanation for it. You know like maybe he and his family were threatened or—”
“Or,” Misty cut in, the frown on her face never losing its form. “You don’t know the man as well as you think you do and he’s a traitor to this country. But don’t worry, Davies. The moment I find him, I’ll be sure to find out what happened here before I slit his throat.”
Davies stood there a moment longer looking as if he wanted to tear Misty apart. I watched the heated exchange between them, waiting for World War III to break out and consume the entire room. Misty wasn’t backing down. She stayed in Davies’ face waiting for him to do or say something she didn’t like. Davies seemed to be holding on to his own patience and anger. However, instead of indulging his rage, he turned and barreled out of the room.
When the door slammed shut, I narrowed my eyes on Misty.
“You didn’t have to be like that toward him. This wasn’t his fault.”
Misty reeled in my direction, her frown deepening; if that was even possible. “Instead of worrying about Davies and his job, you need to focus more on you. Your husband is going to kill you. In fact, he’s going to kill everyone in this place starting with Noah. You do know that, don’t you?”
I looked down at my hands and grew quiet. They had been shaking off and on since Misty walked into the room. The reason for the shakes was the adrenaline from earlier today wearing off as well as the fact that I’d almost met my maker.
Misty sat next to me on the couch and placed her hands over mine.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, okay? But you know I’m telling you the truth. Hell, I want to kill you. I can’t believe you put yourself in harm’s way like this. I understand what you were trying to do, but babe, you approached this all wrong.”
Fed up with being treated like a child, which was something I hadn’t expected from her. I looked at her and allowed my frustrations to show.
“What did you expect me to do, Misty? It wasn’t like I could have gone to Josh with this. You know how he feels about this Emily thing. It’s taken me such a long time to get my husband back from him waging war on South America because of his need for revenge. I refuse to lose him again. Okay, yes, I made a mistake. I understand that. Instead of you criticizing me, tell me how you can help me.”
Misty leaned back from me, but she kept a pair of cold eyes on me. “First of all, cancel that little attitude of yours. I’m on your side. Second, you know you could have come to me. It’s been more than a week since the last time you told me you wanted to talk, and you had every opportunity to talk to me and you didn’t. Let me ask you something. Did you accomplish what you wanted today? Did you get your answers from Noah? Based on what you told me, he didn’t give you shit but a bruise around your neck that’s bigger than the rings around Saturn. What you have failed to realize is the reason why you didn’t get anything from him. It wasn’t because he was being an ass, which I’m sure he was, but no. The reason why you didn’t get anything was due to your inexperience.”
Misty moved closer to me, keeping my hand in hers as she spoke.
“Men like Noah need to be kissed before they roll over and take it in the ass. That’s just how men like that operate. The way you walked in that room with your pregnant belly and your pink Converse showed just how much you didn’t belong. All he saw was the helpless girl he met years ago.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Misty. Don’t you see that? All I wanted to do was ask him some questions. This place is supposed to be super secured. How was I supposed to know it was infiltrated? How was I supposed to know Noah wasn’t chained correctly? Huh? Tell me that?” I asked again, desperately trying to get her to understand.
A frustrated sigh escaped Misty’s tight lips, but she didn’t reply.
I was equally frustrated with this whole ordeal. The lengths were taking talking about what happened was counterproductive. Mistakes happened. I knew that. What I wanted to know now was how we were going to fix this. How was she going to help me?
I turned to face her, bending my leg and tucking it under my other knee.
“Look, Misty, I understand that I fucked up.”
“Kenya, you could’ve gotten killed,” she replied harshly and I was momentarily taken aback, hearing my real name fall from her lips. “Noah could have killed you with no problem.”
“Noted, but he didn’t,” I said quickly then explained, “And to be honest, I don’t think he’s that stupid. He talked a good game. However, he knew damn well if he would’ve killed me, Josh would’ve cut him into little pieces while he was still alive, mind you, and fed him to his father. No, there was something else at play here. Also, think about Crasse. It’s protocol to have all prisoners chained to the floor and the D-ring. Davies didn’t have any indication that he needed to check over his subordinate. Why would he? They’ve done this countless times before with every prisoner here. But for some reason, Crasse didn’t chain Noah.”
“Yeah, I get that. Where are you going with this?”
“Think about everything I told you. I don’t think the plan was to set Noah free. Seriously, Misty, just think about wh
at I’m saying here. If Crasse wanted to help Noah escape, he could have done it multiple times over. When he escorted him to the meeting today, he could have taken him to either one of the hidden exits in this facility and set him loose. Or he could have waited until I asked my questions and set him free during the chaos of the lights going out.
“I’m not saying that there couldn’t have been a plan to set Noah free. All I’m saying is what happened today wasn’t part of the plan. Like I said, I believe something else was going on, something more than just an escape. Look, it wasn’t a secret that I was coming here today. Davies probably told his team about my arrival and Crasse probably told Noah. I told you when Crasse walked past me, he gave me this look as if I was a missed opportunity or something. He didn’t think Davies was going to stay in the room with me and kick him out. He was planning to be there the entire time and serve me up to Noah. Then think about this, the moment I mentioned that bank and Perchenko’s name, that’s when all hell broke loose. I saw this look come over Noah. He glanced up at the cameras scared as hell and then back at me. You said it yourself that he could have killed me, but he didn’t. Instead, he warned me. He said I was too smart for my own good and that if I wasn’t careful, he, meaning Perchenko, would be coming for me.”
“Did he give you a hint to anything else? Did you feel he was telling the truth?”
I nodded. “I think he knows more than he’s saying. I believe he knows something about Emily too and based on what I told you about his connection to the bank, I’m sure he’s hiding something. Unfortunately, he didn’t reveal anything to me.”
Adrenaline started to course through my veins again as I spoke. Things were starting to come together in my head. The truth about what we were up against and where to go from here coming to light. That last part was dependent on what Misty was going to do with everything I had told her.
I studied her as she sat in front of me. Her eyes were transfixed on something in the distance instead of on me. She was thinking hard, assessing my words. I could see the reels of her mind working through her eyes. I remained quiet, hoping whatever she was coming up with was going to work in my favor. Finally, after a few minutes had past, she looked at me. I bit back a smile as I could see from the look of determination and fire, that I had her.
“Okay, Detective Cooper, you have a point. Something is going on here. While I don’t appreciate you almost giving me a coronary, your steps taken on this case make sense. It’s what I would have done if I had been in your shoes and based on the research you completed. Your results, however undesirable, are salvageable. Here’s what I want you to do. Go back to the office and get with the geek squad. I want everything you three can find on this bank, background on the members, and get me the name of whoever is running this ONW. Then I want you to work with Nickels on pulling everything we have on Perchenko. I want his history, his possible locations, everything. I know, I know, just hear me out.”
Misty put her hands up to stop the rebuttal from leaving my lips. We’ve been searching the web for anything on Perchenko for days, weeks even, and we were coming up empty.
“Listen,” Misty directed. “Put your heads together and think of another direction on this. Maybe use the connections with the bank. Give us locations on the other members so we can shake those trees and see if we can get some info from them. We have to attack this another way. Better yet, see if you can locate the whereabouts of Ms. Parsons using any bank transactions she has made. I want to know what she, Perchenko, and Simon all have in common with Noah and vice versa. Hell, Emily may be the link to all of this.”
I nodded my head vigorously trying not to smile from excitement. My excitement was short lived as Misty continued.
“I will look into this and see what I can come up with before we speak to Josh. But, best believe you are going to tell your husband everything. I’m going to give you some time to figure out how you’re going to tell the fire-breathing dragon that is Josh Cooper, but you have to tell him. He’s going to be pissed, I know, but think about how he’s going to feel if he hears this from someone else like Davies.”
I shivered and fell back against the couch. She was right, of course, but I just couldn’t bring myself to formulate the words in my mouth.
I grabbed at my angry, hot neck and sighed.
Misty’s features softened as she regarded me. She lightly touched my bruised neck and I could see the sadness fill her eyes. I felt my own eyes filling up with tears as the memory of what had happened came flooding back.
Misty moved closer to me and squeezed my hand. She pushed back a strand of my hair from my cheek, a soft, warm look coming over her face.
“Sweets, do you trust me?” I nodded, unable to get words past the knot forming in my throat. “Okay, so know that I have your back 100%. I will figure something out. I will get some help on this, someone that I trust so don’t worry, okay? We will figure out what’s happening here and then figure out how to tell Josh together.”
I didn’t know how everything was going to pan out. The uncertainty was eating away at me. However, I nodded that I understood and Misty gave me a huge and welcoming hug before she sent me on my way. She told me she was staying behind to assist Davies with his investigation. Those two guards that Davies had called on his radio were okay, thank goodness. Their radios and phones were just down, which was why Davies couldn’t get a hold of them. Honestly, I felt bad for Davies and his team. When I left Misty, she was past irate, which was never a good sign. She’d mentioned she would speak with Noah if he was conscious. Hopefully, she would be able to get answers that I couldn’t.
After the much-needed cry fest in my office, I stepped into my en suite bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I took a deep breath to get myself together. I could see the bruise around my neck getting redder. There was no way I could walk around here looking as if someone had choked the hell out of me. I stepped back into my office and searched the room until my eyes fell on a silk scarf hanging on a coat rack in the corner of the room. I went to grab it and wrapped it around my neck. I checked my reflection in the window of my office and if it was winter outside, I’d look normal. Unfortunately for me, it was the middle of summer. But I didn’t care if people looked at me crazy. They wouldn’t question me for fear that they would upset me and I’d send the Cooper brothers after them or worse, Misty. No, this would be fine until I could get home. After that, I’d think of something. No way could Josh see my neck. No freaking way.
With my neck now covered, I went in search of Nickels and Junior and found them in our computer room, sitting at their stations banging away at their keyboards. I announced my presence and received two sets of narrowed, unhappy eyes. They were pissed at me, which I understood. We were a team and I had purposely kept them in the dark. However, once I brought them up to speed on what I’d found out about One New World bank and its members, they forgave me. Like sharks, they smelled blood in the water and went hunting, my indiscretions yesterday’s news.
We spent a lot of time gathering as much data as we could on all of the members of ONW. We created a file for each member, first in the system for convenience, then we printed out the relevant things and placed them into folders for the teams to review together. Dante Perchenko, for instance, had a folder that was quadruple the size of Osama Bin Laden’s folder. This man was bad and far worse than what Noah had told me. I saw the pictures of some of his victims and it made my stomach turn.
When we got to Emily, my heart dropped. I had never seen a picture of her before in my life and when her face came up on Nickel’s computer screen, I froze. She was very beautiful like a goddess with long, flowing, blonde hair. The structure of her face—her cheeks and jaw line—were striking. There was one thing that I noticed kind of off about her picture. Her eyes had zero warmth in them.
They say that the eyes are the windows to a person’s soul. Well, as I looked into this woman’s eyes, I saw she had no soul. They were very scary and also very familiar. Had I seen
her before?
Emily’s deadly eyes weren’t as scary as Misty’s had been a bit ago, but still, I swear I had seen that look before. I tried to think back to where I’d seen it, however, nothing came to mind.
I looked over at Nickels and Junior, wondering if they were as bothered by Emily’s picture as I was and began to shake my head. Apparently, they were moved but for very different reasons. Nickels and Junior were practically drooling over their keyboards as they looked into this woman’s eyes. They then looked at me, cleared their throats, and continued working. I rolled my eyes.
So much for loyalty!
As the day went on, I could feel my body starting to shut down on me. The events of today began to weigh on me. I was surprised that I was still upright.
I stood from my station and told the guys I was done. They looked solemnly at me and assured me that they would keep digging until they found something useful.
I escaped to my office as fast as my tired legs could allow so I could wallow in self-pity alone. I should have expected the tears that fell for the second time, but I wasn’t ready. My body seemed to convulse with every tear that fell from my eyes.
These bouts of tears took longer to dry up than the first. After my eye faucets finally dried up, I was spent. My entire body ached. All I wanted to do was go home, take a long hot bubble bath, and take a nap. Plus, despite everything that had happened, I was hungry. Maybe a nice stack of pancakes, smothered in syrup along with eggs, sausage, bacon, and home fries would make me feel better.
Feeling my stomach growl, I stood slowly and gathered my things to leave for the day. Before I escaped, though, I needed to touch base with Josh.
I had managed to avoid him most of the day. He had called and texted me a few times during my visit to hell with each message getting more and more frantic and demanding. Once I had gotten to my SUV, before coming to the office, I had sent him a quick text telling him how sorry I was for missing his calls. I then proceeded to lie to him, something I didn’t do, and explained how I had gone for a walk to try and wrap my head around the fact that someone was gunning for him. I further explained that my phone was on silent and that had been why I didn’t hear the phone when he called and texted.