Page 41 of Targeted By Fate
Okay. Maybe he had a friend there or he’d taken another job and not told me about it. Nope, we had a pact that he’d always disclose any new clients or jobs because of what happened with the club.
The room was silent as four of my brothers shared worried glances.
“Just tell me, Ezra.”
“It’s in or close to the office rented by what remains of the Ironclaw pack.”
“What? But I took out Cassian at the club, and you all killed his bodyguards and Betas.” With the top echelons destroyed, the pack was in disarray and would take years to recover.
“Seems like there’s someone with enough power and know-how to want to hurt you specifically.”
Cassian’s mate, Asher. It had to be him, because that was what I did when Cassian tried to kill Keane.
I removed the gun from the holster and checked the bullets. “I’m going to get him.”
“Of course you are.” Riggs stepped forward. “And we’ll be with you, but you can’t go in blind, Boaz.”
He made sense. I liked plans. They prevented people from getting killed, and these were my brothers. Alpha would be pissed if we caused another incident as we did at Moonbound. But mates came first, and as angry as he might be at us drawing attention to ourselves, he wouldn’t fault me for doing it. My methods maybe.
“Fine. I’ll give us fifteen minutes to plan, and after that, I’m in the car.”
We sat around the kitchen island, each of us researching. The roads surrounding the building and any dead ends. The location of the CCTV, how many pack members were likely at the headquarters, and how many of those were aware Keane had been kidnapped and on their premises.
My mind went back to the night Keane and I met, and I struggled to breathe. He was a cat. He didn’t have a ferocious wolf inside him. Cats had nine lives, and my mate was a wily one. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.
But he had our baby in his belly, and he’d protect our little one until his last breath.
Maynard put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t think that. It will blunt your skills, and we need you to be on top of your game.”
Lake and Riggs went to the basement and got ammunition and more weapons. Thiago had his knives.
“We drive to here and cut the engines for the last fifty yards.” Ezra showed us a place two blocks from the Ironclaw building.
Four of us would surround the building, while I’d be the distraction by knocking on the front door. But while I knew few details of Asher, he’d been mated to Cassian for years according to what we’d discovered, and he would expect me to come with my brothers. But while our headquarters was on five floors, theirs was ground level.
And that gave my brothers the opportunity to do something unexpected.
20
KEANE
My head pounded, and I tried to reach over to pat my mate, have him help me… or I didn’t know what… but I needed his comfort and a pain reliever at the minimum. I couldn’t remember having a headache like this before.
Except when I went to grab him, my arms didn’t move. I tried again and again, but it was like they were stuck, filled with lead. They didn’t move even an inch.
A voice I didn’t recognize, far too close, far too sinister, broke through the silence. Something akin to a smelly pillowcase was pulled from my head and before I could adjust to the lighting, water came gushing down on me. Cold-ass water.
My eyes popped open.
I was sitting in a chair, not lying down like I’d originally thought. I was so disoriented. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes as water still cascaded over me.
“Where am I?” It came out harsh and broken, like when I first woke up after being drugged. Had I been drugged again? No, that didn’t make sense. I went to the library, and then?—
Everything started coming back to me. Following the man I half recognized. Turning down the dead end. Getting caught. Being thrown in the trunk of a car. A bag being shoved over my head. It had been moist, and everything tasted weird.
And then… nothing. Nothing until I woke up like this.
“You were far too easy to catch.”
