The Law of Motion (Law Series) (29 page)

             
Normally when a person has had a few hours to cool off and think, they tended to approach a situation a lot more calmly. Not me, I was more fired up every mile that it took me to get back. My dad, Jackson, Danny, and Jeff were there by the time the five of us made it to Gravity.

             
“What’s going on, son?” My dad asked seeing the distress in my face.

             
I saw Hunter huddled up with the girls in hushed conversation and I just lost it. I didn’t even answer him, I just walked over, spun him around, and punched him right in the jaw.

             
“Adrian!” Doc gasped, and no one stopped me from doing it again, and the a third time.

             
My hand on his throat pressing him against the table kept him from getting up. “Did you do it?!” I accused punching him again.

             
“Stop Adrian!” Tink ordered trying to pull me off of him, but her four foot nine frame barely moved me.

             
“Leave him
alone,
” Kristen demanded using her lower shin to clip the spot behind my knee making me buckle just enough for her to hook her index finger onto the inside of my mouth, turning me, striking two flat palms against my sternum, followed by my clavicles, and one quick finish to the base of my throat.

             
I had forgotten that she was damn near a black belt in everything, especially since the baby she hadn’t had a need for it. She knew exactly what to do to disable me, and she didn’t do it by strength. It happened so fast that I barely saw the shit, but man did I feel it. It didn’t hurt, but it knocked the wind out of me and I was leaning over the table, coughing, trying to breath.

             
“Thanks for the
fucking
help guys.” Kristen spat sarcastically as she helped Doc and Tink get Hunter up.

             
“What the fuck is going on?” Danny demanded as Doc disappeared and came back with an ice pack and a few rags to clean as much blood off of him as she could.

             
I was still coughing, “Tell …the
m
what the fuck you did. …You did it didn’t you? Tell him how you stopped Victor from helping Alyssa, that you let her get taken.”

             
Hunter put the icepack on his eye. “I didn’t have a
fucking
choice!” He groaned somewhat pissed as he wiped blood from his nose.

             
“Damn it!” Victor’s large frame came at him, but Tink and Doc jumped in between him, knowing that he wouldn’t hurt a lady ever, even it if were accidental in trying to get to what he really wanted.

             
Doc’s controlling voice took over. “Easy boys.”

             
“How in the hell can you defend him Tawny?” Dario hissed when Victor stepped back.

             
Macon joined in, “He let Chance get kidnapped.”

             
“
Chance
!” Jackson reiterated.

             
My dad had a low hiss in his voice. “Do you
know
what you’ve done Grayson?”

             
“What
we
helped him to do.” Tink revealed, and my mouth dropped to the fucking floor.

             
Kristen explained, “It’s what she asked us to do. It was the plan all along.”

             
“Chance had a feeling that they would screw her over, and she needed to get to those kids. Them taking her was the only way to do it.” Hunter continued sniffing, wiping blood from his nose.

             
“We chipped her, lined her clothes with a few things, and ran as much interference as we could.” Doc explained.

             
Ross figured it out the same time that I did. “All the shit that went wrong today.”

             
“I distorted our frequencies.” Tink admitted.

             
Kristen continued. “Doc and I sent you all the wrong way.”

             
“And I…tackled Victor.” Hunter admitted again waiting for someone to jump at him.

             
My head was swimming, I couldn’t think. Not only was Alyssa taken to god knows were, but she was fucking handed over to them by our own. On top of that she did it without me,
again
. “You guys didn’t say shit.”

             
“Would you all have let her leave?” Doc asked looking at all of us. Trut
h
no, it would have been a cold day in hell before I let her out of my sight, as well as anyone from Bravo. She was their fucking sister.

             
“The shit isn’t right.” Ross argued shaking her head looking at Doc with a mixture of emotions. “We don’t trade the people we love by offering up other loved ones.”

             
“Well what did you guys have in mind!?” Doc fumed, her chocolate eyes demanding. “Something needed to be done, and Cam is out for justice, you all are out for revenge, which is great, but
I’m
out for Jua
n
revenge later.

             
No one forced Chance, she did it willingly, knowing everything that it could possibly entail. I have a
son
that has been missing for over a week, with three crazy people and god knows who else. He has asthma with no inhaler, and he’s scared with his friend and
no
means of defending themselves.

             
Yes, Alyssa has been kidnapped before, and yes that worries me, but she’s lethal fucking machine armed or not and is capable of fighting to survive. She begged us to make this happen, not the other way around. So if you’re upset, take it up with her when she gets back with my son!”

             
There was a silence, no one knew how to react, I was practically shaking with anger, fear, and pain. Fear that Alyssa wouldn’t come back, anger towards my friends, and Hunter, for letting her do this, and pain that she and my friends kept it from me. But she was right, Chance was a fighter.

             
“What is her plan?” My dad asked, though the tension was still there.

             
Tink took that one, “She is going to let them take her where they want. When she sees the kids, she’s going to take them to safety, and she’ll use one of her chips as a signal that she as them and she is ready for us to come get her.”

             
“Then that’s the plan we follow.” My Dad sighed in defeat. “But Son, you and the guys should still head north to be closer.”

             
I nodded. “My guys, clean up, we head out in ten minutes.”

             
“Were going to stay here and see if we can get a facial recognition on the driver through Hunter’s system at the Pentagon” Tink announced.

             
“Let’s go get you leaned up.” Doc offered leading Hunter down the hall to Chance’s office.




             
"Thanks, kid. I was starving," Dario grunted as he took an enormous bite of a fast food burger. "You might as well park back here for now," he mumbled with his mouth full.

             
I nodded, parking in the back shaded area of the restaurant's parking lot. It faced the two lane highway we'd been traveling on, but once the sun had started to set, everyone in the car complained about empty fucking stomachs.

             
"Eat, Playboy," Ross piped up from the back seat. "You're gonna need it, Adrian."

             
No one was talking about the betrayal that happened a few hours before from half of our fucking team members, our partners, and lovers. For some reason we just took to Alyssa’s plan like it had been the one from the start. I suppose it was because they weren’t exactly wrong. We had been double crossed, and they were just the ones that prepared for it. "Fine," I sighed, taking the burger she was handing me.

             
What I wanted was a stiff drink, something to take the edge off, but I couldn't do that. I needed to stay sharp, stay alert. I wanted Tink to call and tell me Alyssa had activated the GPS trackers. I wanted to find both my girl and those kids and go the fuck home. And i
f

no,
whe
n

either of those things happened, I needed to be sober and ready.

             
We'd dropped off my chopper a few hours prior, making sure we had everything we needed out of it before leaving it. Once we'd checked back in with Tink, she told us to start north. Apparently, Chance had yet to turn on either of the GPS chips.

             
"I fucking hate this waiting shit," Victor muttered, wadding up his burger wrapper and taking a long drink from his cup. "I'd rather just…fight."

             
I snorted, turning toward the back seat to look at him. "No shit," I huffed.

             
"Damn, you don't think...the chip isn’t working" he gasped, his eyes wide. Thinking of Juan’s watch.

             
"No, definitely not this time," I chuckled, rolling my eyes. "Tink and the others have tested those damn things so many times that they're fucking experts."

             
"Tracked her ass to the damn grocery store," Dario laughed, his head falling back to the headrest of the front seat. "Tracked her ass to the mall...the movie theater...the woods...you name it. They have put those chips to the test, along with the rest of us. They were using them long before we met them."

             
I grinned over at him, remembering it well. The girls were determined never to let something happen when it came to an emergency. It was like a statewide game of hide and seek around the time Juan was here, which had resulted in Tink becoming damn good at narrowing down location, direction, and even satellite image.

             
I sighed deeply again, taking a sip of soda. "No...this is just...waiting."

             
The phone rang, breaking the silence that had settled over all of us. I hit speakerphone, answering, "Talk to me, Tink.”

             
"What road are you on?"

             
"That county road you told us to stick to. Why?" I asked her, taking another bite of burger I wasn't even fucking tasting.

             
"Good, good, good," she chanted, sounding worn out and frustrated. "Stay on that. As you get further north, you'll see some hotels. Call it a hunch, but I have a feeling they stopped around there. They're old, nasty, cheap things from the looks of it, but they serve a purpose to truckers and shit."

             
"What have you heard from Liam?" Dario asked her.

             
"Not much," she stated. "He called to check in just after he interrogated those guy, and you’re right they were from C&K. They both were loyal to David and Myles, but after they were threatened with being charged with acts of terrorism by Hunter and Cam, they opened up a bit."

             
There were a few chuckles in the car, but I asked, "Anything useful?"

             
"Same shit we assumed," she answered. “and a number on that farm. You’re looking at about thirty.

             
Ross coughed from the backseat. "What? Thirty people? Are you fucking kidding me?"

             
"Yes, yes, yes," Tink chortled. "Thirty misguided, angry, antisocial gunslingers that follow Myles, David, Terry, and Zoe like Mary's little lamb. It's ridiculous the place seems to run like a little village or cult or...or..."

             
"Commune?" I suggested since she didn’t seem to be able to finish the thought. We needed all of this over before poor Tink had have a nervous breakdown. She barely slept, barely looked away from those computers of hers, and I knew it was because she adored Juan, adding  Chance into the mix may just send her over the edge.

             
"Exactly! A commune," she huffed exasperatedly. "I've had the satellite on them since you guys finished at the train station. They live in little shacks, though there is a main house. There's a barn, what looks like vegetable fields, a water well, and some livestock. In all reality, I'd be willing to bet that they don't need...town."

             
I took my baseball cap off, running my fingers through my hair, only to put the hat back on. "What's the access look like up there?"

             
"Bleak," she stated. "One scraggly little dirt road to get up there. Are you asking from an...invasion standpoint?" she asked, giving a little giggle.

             
I grinned, because Tink and I worked really well togethe
r

when she wasn’t keeping secrets; it had been that way since the first time I'd spoken to her. "Yeah, something like that, pixie."