Relevance (The Six #2.5)

by Sonya Loveday

  “He likes to pretend he’s all big and bad, but underneath that rock-hard exterior, I bet he’s just a big teddy bear,” Riley said, smirking.

  “Maybe, but don’t let him catch you saying that. He’d probably go pour a bowl of concrete cereal and eat it just to prove you wrong,” I replied.

  “Why do you suppose he insisted that Chase had to stay?” she asked.

  “Chase?” Who the hell was Chase?

  She shook her head. “Really, Jake? Chase is the bartender. Don’t you remember? Oliver told us his name before we left tonight.”

  “He did?” Why couldn’t I remember that?

  She nudged me in the side with her elbow. “I guess you had other things on your mind.”

  Her hair.

  “Speaking of other things…”

  “Ace, Flint needs you in his office,” Eli called down the hall to me.

  I sighed. Heavily. “Every. Single. Time.”

  She reached up and patted my cheek. “I’m going to go wash the makeup off my face and change. See ya in a little bit?”

  Before she could turn away, I pulled her close and briefly kissed her. “I’ll try not to take too long.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, stepping back as her lips turned into a warm smile.

  I walked to Flint’s office with an extra spring in my step. It didn’t matter what the hell life tried to throw in our paths. Riley and I would make it work because that was what you did when you loved someone.

  When Oliver walked into the kitchen the next morning, I almost lost it. “Holy shit! What the hell happened to you?”

  His eyes narrowed, pulling one of the many scratches on his face tight. It broke open, and a small bubble of blood beaded on top of the skin.

  Riley held a napkin out, waving it at him and saying, “You were supposed to feed the cat, Oliver, not get in a fight with it.”

  His lips quivered, not quite smiling. “Tell that to the cat.”

  Flint came in, catching Oliver’s reply. He gave him a once over and then asked, “Run into a problem while you were out?”

  “More than one,” Oliver said, ignoring the fact that we stared at the mess of scratches decorating him from the top of his head all the way down to his hands. There wasn’t a patch of skin that didn’t have a scratch, or some sort of puncture wound, either from teeth or claws.

  “How’s the cat?” Flint asked, spooning a rounded pile of sugar into his coffee.

  “Alive. Now can we talk about something else? Like the fact that someone torched the bartender’s house last night,” Oliver answered, brushing past me to grab his own cup of coffee.

  “Chase,” Riley inserted.

  “What chase?” Flint asked.

  “There wasn’t any chase,” Oliver barked.

  “No—Chase. Not ‘the bartender’,” Riley said, throwing her hands in the air in exaggerated quotations.

  Flint, who’d lifted his cup for a sip, lowered it, tilting his head. “The bartender was chased?”

  Oliver heaved a sigh. “No. There was no chase. The bartender’s name is Chase.”

  “Yeah, but who’s on first?” I asked, laughing when everyone looked at me funny. I waved them off. “Never mind.”

  “That’s irony for ya,” Flint said.

  “What is?” Riley asked, pulling the fridge open and taking out a carton of eggs. “Anyone else hungry?”

  A chorus of yeses filled the air.

  “Okay, scrambled eggs it is,” she said, setting the carton down and hauling out a large mixing bowl. “Oliver, you’re on toast duty. You can talk and butter at the same time, right?”

  Flint chuckled, looked over his cup at me, and said, “Grant should have left her in charge. She does pretty good at getting what she wants.”

  Oliver flipped him off as he pulled out a loaf of bread and shoved four pieces in the toaster.

  “So Chase’s house was set on fire last night?” Flint added, heaving himself up to sit on the island countertop.

  Oliver leaned his hip against the counter. “I got there right before the fire trucks and got his damn cat out. I was hoping I’d have enough time to swipe his laptop, but I didn’t.”

  “So where’s the cat?” Riley asked.

  Oliver tensed. “In my room.”

  I busted out laughing.

  Oliver scowled. “Shut up, Ace.”

  “I think it was heroic, saving the cat and bringing it back here,” Riley said, winking at Oliver.

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s not staying in my room. I just wanted to be able to break the news to Chase that he no longer had a house before I dumped that damn she-devil of a cat in his lap.”

  Flint tipped his coffee cup back, taking two long swallows, and then filled the mug again as he said, “What I don’t understand is—why did they go after him? He doesn’t have any kind of link to anything.”

  Riley, busy cracking eggs, spoke over her shoulder. “Maybe he overheard something?”

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it. It might be that Nicco wanted to keep him around so he could keep tabs on his stepfather,” Oliver added, turning to the toaster when it dinged.

  The scent of hot, baking bread rolled through the air, and my stomach gurgled in response.

  “It’s possible,” Flint said, snagging the freshly buttered toast from Oliver’s hand. “Oliver told me about the stepfather selling out and moving to Florida. I’ve got intel working on pulling everything we can on him so we can piece it together.”

  Oliver turned, toast in hand, and took a bite, chewing as he regarded what Flint said.

  “Toss me one,” I said, holding my hands out and catching it like a Frisbee when it flew my way.

  Riley turned, spatula in hand. “So what are you going to do with Chase in the meantime?”

  “Well, first things first, we need to let him know what happened to his house. If Nicco finds out that Chase survived the fire, he won’t stop looking for him. So really, the only thing to do is put him in protective custody until we can nail Nicco’s ass for this one,” Flint answered.

  “Yeah, but proving it was him might be difficult. We’ve tried to go after him before. The evidence disappeared and he walked,” Oliver added.

  “Oh, man, Riley’s cookin’?” Eli said as he walked into the kitchen and made a beeline for the stove, inhaling deeply over her shoulder. “There enough for me too?”

  She chuckled, bumping him with her elbow. “There will be as soon as I’m done.”

  Eli stepped back, grinning from ear to ear. “Nobody makes scrambled eggs like Riley.”

  Oliver shook his head. “It’s not like it’s hard to make. It’s just eggs.”

  Eli walked over to me and slapped me on the shoulder. “Boy, are they in for a treat.”

  I leaned back, rubbing my stomach, stifling a belch before collecting my plate. “That was good, Riles. Thanks.”

  She beamed a smile at me and said, “It was just eggs.”

  Oliver grabbed her plate and got up from the table. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I think that meant—thanks Riley, those were the best damn scrambled eggs I’ve ever had in my life,” Eli said with a grin.

  Oliver ignored Eli’s remark as he rinsed both plates and then put them in the dishwasher. “I’m headed to see Chase.”

  “Wait, I’ll come with you,” Riley said, brushing a kiss to my cheek.

  “Might just be Riley who cracks that tough-ass exterior he’s had all these years,” Flint said, watching as Oliver slowed his pace to allow Riley to catch up to him.

  “If anyone can do it, it’ll be her,” I agreed, following Flint to his office.

  “I don’t want to make any moves towards Nicco until we know what prompted the botched attack on the bartender and the house fire.”

  “What about Trent? Where would he go?” I asked.

  Flint paused in front of his office. “I don’t know. I reported our findings to Cole. Now all we can do is wait to see if intel can find a record of him possibly being relocat
ed to a rehab facility.”

  “But you don’t think that’s the case?” I asked, watching the way his expression turned as he spoke.

  “Something isn’t right. Trent was teetering on the edge of death. No doctor would allow him to leave. And there was no way Trent would have been able to walk out on his own.”

  “Is it always like this?” I asked.

  “Ever changing? Things jumping from one thing to the next before the first thing you were working on is over?” Flint rattled off.

  I nodded.

  “Yep. Better get used to it. Most days, it feels like a demented carousel. And those are the good ones.” He laughed, stepping into his office.

  “I’m starting to get that. See ya later.” I left Flint to do whatever it was he did behind his desk and set out for the training room. At least there, I knew what to expect.

  Mopping the sweat from my face, I eyed Flint suspiciously. “Why exactly does Cole want us to pick up a dead body from the morgue?”

  Flint scowled. “I didn’t ask why.”

  Looping the towel around my neck, I watched his jaw tick. “Why wouldn’t you? It’s a dead body…”

  “Cole asked me to, and now I’m asking you to come with me,” he replied.

  “Asking me, or ordering me?”

  “Does it make a difference?” he asked.

  I wiped my face again, taking a second to calm my racing heart from both the hour on the treadmill and Flint’s request. A body from the morgue… why?

  “Give me a few minutes,” I said, heading for the showers.

  After I showered and dressed, Flint and I took one of the tricked-out intel vehicles that looked like a delivery van to the city morgue.

  Flint left me in the van, telling me to move to the driver’s seat and stay there. I was sort of relieved to be left behind. Dead bodies, but more so morgues, creeped me out.

  Less than ten minutes later, the rolling door of the van opened. The suspension dipped and swayed as something, or rather someone, was loaded. A moment later, Flint climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Let’s go. We don’t have much time,” he said.

  Much time for what? It wasn’t like the body would get up and walk off on its own. Flint had turned on the refrigeration unit. For all intents and purposes, it would be cold enough inside to be its own mini-morgue.

  A shiver ran through me, and I pressed the gas pedal a little harder. “Doesn’t this creep you out even a little bit?”

  “Considering I’m technically talking to a dead man right now… not really,” he answered, flashing me a partial smile.

  “Funny. Very funny. However… I’m not dead. I’m living and breathing—not dead person.”

  “Well, that’s good. Otherwise, this would just be awkward. Relax, Ace. You’re not the first dead person at Cole Enterprise, and you won’t be the last,” Flint said, settling a pair of sunglasses on his face, hiding his eyes from me.

  “What the hell does that even mean?” I asked.

  “Just like I said,” he answered. “Drive around the building and back into the loading dock. Cole will have someone there to unload the body.”

  I backed up to the loading dock and put it in park. “You’re really not gonna tell me what he needs a body for?”

  “Nope,” Flint answered, getting out. “Head back to the parking garage once it’s unloaded.”

  After parking, I headed back to the training room and found Riley sparing with Oliver.

  Calling Riley to a halt, he pulled off the flat-padded gloves he wore, and scowled at me. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Flint needed my help with something.” There was no way I’d tell him where I’d gone with Flint with Riley in listening range.

  He gave a quick nod, but didn’t ask anything else about it.

  “You’re done for the day, short stuff. Hit the showers,” he said to Riley.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Dismissing me now?”

  “Yep,” Oliver answered as he tossed the training gloves at her. “Put those up for me before you go.”

  “See ya for dinner, Jake,” Riley said, giving me a quick smile before crossing the room and putting up the gloves.

  “Did I miss something?” I asked as soon as the door closed behind Riley.

  “Miss something?” Oliver repeated, brows pulling in as if he didn’t understand what I was asking.

  “Riley just did everything you asked her to do… without an argument or a raised middle finger.” I was more than a little confused. Had anyone else dished out orders like that, she would have told them off and then some.

  “She asked me to train her to fight. So I told her I would—on one condition,” Oliver answered, shrugging.

  “And what condition was that?” I asked.

  “No attitude. If she gives me a hard time while we’re here in the training room, I won’t teach her anymore moves,” he answered.

  I could feel my eyes widen. “That actually worked?”

  Oliver chuckled. “So far, but it’s only been a few days. So you went with Flint to the morgue, huh?”

  “How the hell did you know that?” He hadn’t been anywhere around when Flint recruited me to go with him.

  “Because he knows better than to ask me to go. And by the look on your face, I put it together when you said Flint needed your help,” he answered.

  “Wait… does this happen a lot? Going to pick bodies up from the morgue, I mean?” I asked, silently freaking out a little.

  Oliver shook his head. “No. Not very often.”

  “Why bodies? What is he doing with them?” I asked, wondering if Oliver would shut me down like Flint had.

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “Some kind of cutting-edge science experiment shit. I’d explain it better if I knew what the hell he was talking about in the first place, but I don’t. All I know is that whatever it is he’s doing will be a highly coveted thing. Once he gets all the fine tuning done, anyway.”

  “Fine tuning? What the hell could he be doing with bodies that needs fine tuning? They’re bodies—not robots.” I really had no idea what to make of Oliver’s explanation.

  Oliver’s eyes crinkled at the corners, squinting at me as if trying to make up his mind on how much more he wanted to say. “You know what? Fuck it… you’ll hear about it eventually. Cole has a program he’s been working on for years. A program that can bring someone back, so long as they haven’t been dead for more than a few hours.”

  “Back from the dead?” How gullible did Oliver think I was? “You expect me to believe that?”

  He crossed his arms. “You’re the one who wanted to know.”

  “The truth, Oliver. I just wanted the truth, not some crazy-ass story,” I shot back.

  “Well, here’s the kick in the ass… I’m not lying.” His arms fell to his sides as he shrugged. “And if you don’t believe me, go ask Cole. He’ll tell you the same thing, only with scientific words that make no damn sense.”

  There wasn’t a single telltale tick on his face that would lead me to believe he was trying to pull one over on me. “You’re actually serious.”

  “About that? One hundred percent. Trent was the first person Cole brought back. He thought he had all the bugs worked out, but something had to have happened. Some kind of a glitch or whatever,” Oliver said, tossing his hand. “Which conveniently happened a few days before Trent was found in the tunnels with a gunshot wound. Add Nicco sniffing around like a damn bloodhound to the picture, and you have too many things not lining up.”

  “What purpose does it serve though? To bring someone back after they’ve died, I mean?” I asked, trying my hardest to wrap my head around what Oliver told me.

  “It wouldn’t be just anyone. Trent was ex-military, special ops. A real badass, with no family or ties to anything. Basically, he was the perfect candidate for our program. You see how it is down here. The shit you have to go through to remain hidden. To keep to the shadows. How hard do you think that is for som
eone who has family outside these walls? How hard is it for you knowing you might never see your mom again?”

  “Never see her again?” What?

  “Not a good feeling, is it?” He didn’t have to wait to hear my answer as it was clearly written on my face.

  “If you didn’t have anyone, it would make things a hell of a lot easier on you and those around you. I still don’t understand why they brought all of you in. Nothing but trouble waiting to happen if you ask me,” Oliver said.

  “They never told me I’d never see my mother again,” I said, latching onto the hope that what Oliver said couldn’t be true. At least, not in my case.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, cocking his head to the side with a slight shake before continuing. “Look, Jake, for whatever reason, Grant and Nadia chose to bring you and the others in. Why isn’t my concern. My concern is making sure we all work together as a team. The body? That’s not any of our concern until Cole tells us otherwise. So my suggestion to you is forget about it and stick to training. As cliché as it sounds, we’re only as strong as our weakest link.”

  He didn’t stick around after that. He just walked out, leaving me behind with more questions than answers.

  Could I just forget about it? Tuck it all to the back of my mind and not worry that Cole had a dead body he planned to bring back to life? I shuddered, shoving my fingers through my hair as I paced the floor. What the hell had we been brought into?

  A week later, I still had no solid answer to how I felt about Cole Enterprise, or what I’d come to think of as Cole’s zombie. The thoughts wouldn’t leave my head. Nothing, short of wiping my memory, would ever erase what Oliver told me.

  I’d kept it tucked away, not telling Riley about it. I couldn’t tell her. She’d freak the hell out. Sort of the way I was freaking the hell out.

  “Jake, Flint wants to see you in his office,” Eli said, sticking his head into the training room.

  I’d turned to exercising my demons. Every day, I spent more time in the training room than anywhere else. I could close myself off from everyone while I jogged four miles on the treadmill or stepped up for a few rounds with the punching bag.