The Law of Motion (Law Series) (47 page)

I listened to Alyssa retell every minute of her stay here; about Zoe, Myles, and Terry planning to screw us over, about everything Kris did to help, but I was all ears when she told me about her last attempt to escape and the mystery man that was intent on ‘breaking’ her. Her theory was that after he knocked her out, he escaped though one of the tunnels, which explained her willingness to come underground.

             
After walking the tunnels for over an hour and finding no one we had no choice but to give up the search. Thinking it all over as we returned to the house I lowered my head into one of the bathroom sinks, wetting my hair and finally washing the face paint off. I scrubbed hard, making sure to get all of it, and dried my face on a spare shirt from my bag. I looked up to see my dad standing in the doorway.

"My turn," he grunted, starting to do the same. "Hunter put out an APB on Zoe and Terry. We're not sure if they're on foot, or if they've acquired a car by now."

I nodded, sighing with relief when I could finally rip open the Velcro of my Kevlar vest. "Hunt and Cam seem to think he's not done. That he'll come for us again," I said, keeping my voice low.

"He may be right. The boss is still out there not to mention this other guy." He shrugged, leaning a hip against the bathroom sink. "I was going to continue to help him. I wanted to ask if you were in."

I grimaced, looking down the hall, because this guy fucked with my family and somehow managed to escape—I didn’t want to let him go, but I also didn’t know how much Alyssa could handle. "I'll talk to Alyssa," I told him. "But the answer is probably yes, if only to capture the leader."

He nodded, like he'd suspected as much, pushing away from the sink. "Where's Hunter now?"

"Rounding up every prisoner."

"How many were there?"

"Dario and I had one down in the bomb shelter, Hunt's team caught three, and I think there was an injured man at the guard shack," I reported as we walked down the stairs to the living room.

"What's he doing about Kris?" he asked.

"He's treating him as a witness, for now, though Kristen spoke to his mother," I explained. "The kid wasn't lying. Terry had threatened the whole family, Myles and Kris use to lift cars together. They needed a wheel man, Kris played along. I'd have done the same thing...just to make sure the asshole didn't touch my family."

He nodded once, relaxing a bit at that news, and sighed. "Okay, well, we're stuck here for a few more hours, at least until that road dries up, so settle in for a bit." We stepped out onto the front porch, and he pulled out his phone, most likely to call Joanne.

"Tell her hello." I chuckled at his wry smile, making my way down the steps. I wanted to find Alyssa. "Oh," I said, turning back to him. "What's the story here?" I asked, waving my hand around.

"Waco gone terribly wrong," he replied. "With Terry's escape it won't take long to pair it up with the train station fiasco, so this will be a media frenzy. We won't be mentioned," he stated, "but Hunt is bringing in a cleanup team. They'll make false statements, but what really happened...the world will never know. It reminds me of me and Vic younger days."

I huffed a laugh and joked. "I can’t even count how many times we covered shit up.  You wouldn’t happen to know who shot JFK would you?"

My dad chuckled. "Yeah, probably not," he snorted.

I grinned, holding my hands up in surrender. "Right...got it."

I found Alyssa in the barn, leaning in the doorway, her gaze sweeping over the cache of weapons, but more importantly, the stack of TNT. I walked up behind her, swirling her ponytail around my hand and placing a kiss to the back of her neck.

"You okay?" I asked for the umpteenth time.

She nodded, humming, "Mmhm." She leaned back against me, and I wrapped my arms around her waist. "This was above me the entire time?"

I grimaced, because that same thought had gone through my mind the second I saw it. "Yes, love."

"Was the timer on?" she asked, pointing to the bomb that Macon had disengaged.

"No, Honeyface," I assured her. "It looked like it was waiting to be put to use."

She nodded, finally turning to face me, smile lighting up her face. "Ah, there's the face I love," she giggled, reaching up to cup my jaw. "The face paint was hot, in a rugged, dirty sort of way, but
this
," she said with a grin, biting her bottom lip and squishing my face.

I chuckled, leaning in to kiss her lips lightly—smooched face and all. "And I love you. God, I missed you," I sighed, pressing my forehead to hers and pulling her flush to me. "I was worried, baby."

"I know," she whispered, closing her eyes. "I had to go. I'm sorry, Adrian."

"Don't be," I told her, kissing her nose. "However much I hated it, it got us those kids back.

She swallowed thickly, nodding a bit. "It was 
so fucking hard
 letting them go alone," she breathed. "But I knew you guys were waiting."

"We were, baby. He was fine...they were
 
both
 fine. He did just what you told him to..." I was about to tell her that when we went to get her at the hotel, poor Juan fell apart, but loud voices from the other end of the barn cut me off.

We turned to see Hunt walking his four prisoners at gunpoint. Victor and Phil were walking with them. A skinny fucker tried to run, but made the mistake of picking Victor’s side to turn to. A large, unsympathetic fist caught him in the face, knocking his ass flat on the ground, where he writhed in pain.

"Not so fast, Myles," Victor rumbled with his deep voice.

My eyebrows shot up, and I walked away from Alyssa, picking the asshole up off of the ground by his neck and slamming him into the nearest pole.

"Myles," I sneered, pointing my Glock to his temple. "I'm sure David misses you. Ready to meet him in hell?" I asked.

Several pairs of hands pulled at me, but I held my ground, staring at the asshole in my grip.  We'd made sure that David had paid for taking the boys and my girl, and I needed to make sure he got the same.

Myles tried to laugh, but his airway was suddenly cut off. He couldn't even fight against my grip, because his hands were zip tied behind his back, but his feet kicked out, trying to make purchase against me. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

"What was that?" I asked, letting up just a bit.

"I said...whatever," he rasped, trying to swallow. "Everyone's gone, man."

"Not for long," I chuckled with a shrug.

"Hey, Adrian," Hunt said, coming to stand by my side. "I get it, but I need to ask him some questions. Feel free to join in on the...
interrogation
." He gave me a raised eyebrow, and I knew that he would be using whatever means necessary to get this guy to talk.

Victor joined in, "He keeps singing about how we won't find his boss, but he hasn't met your dad yet."

I smiled, dragging my tongue along my bottom lip. My dad was deadly when it came to interrogations. He would slowly, and methodically torture information out of men— men more dangerous than the little thief I had in my hands. I nodded and let go, snickering in amusement when Myles grunted with his hard fall. He landed awkwardly due to his bound hands and rolled to a sitting position.

"Hey,
 Alyssa" he called mockingly. "How did it feel to get put on your ass? I’d never seen a girl get choked out so…
gracefull
y
.
"

Alyssa started for him, but my fist flew before I could think. I caught him directly in the temple, and he sagged to the dusty floor of the barn.

"Shut it, asshole," I told him, though he was out cold.

Vic sighed, tilting his head over at me with a sarcastic look plastered on his face. "Thanks, Harris. Now I have to carry his sorry ass."

"Sorry," I muttered, still glaring at the man at my feet.

"No biggie," he chuckled, hefting Myles onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes with ease. "I was just saying..."

I huffed a laugh at him as he walked away with Hunter and the rest of their prisoners.

"I'll let you know when we're ready to begin," Hunt called over his shoulder.

The radio crackled in my ear as Alyssa and I sat down on a bale of hay. It had been quiet since we'd secured the farm, so I'd assumed the girls had been getting some much needed rest. They'd been up all night with us—well before we had exited the truck about halfway down the mountain.

"Tink," I sighed, pulling Alyssa to my side during a rare quiet moment. "You're gonna go blind if you stay on those computers any longer, pixie."

Tink chuckled. "I know, I know, I know. I think I may need glasses," she laughed softly. "I've worn out my eyeballs the last few weeks. But I'm merely on here to relay a message."

"Okay," I groaned wearily, smiling into the top of Alyssa's head when she snickered into my chest.

"Morning, Unca Adwien!" Juan chirped over the radio, sounding like sunshine and all things perfect and happy.

Alyssa gasped sitting up, her hands covering her mouth, and I realized that she hadn't talked to him since she'd to let the boys go at the hotel. Something that was probably torture for her to do, without going with him. The pure blind faith it must have taken to just set the boys free was still something I couldn't wrap my head around.

"Hey, little buddy," I said, unable to keep the smile off of my face. "Did you take care of Joanne and Makenna?" I asked, wanting to surprise Juan with his aunt.

"I did!" he squeaked. "We watched movies, made pock-corn, she let me play with her paints, and we kept only happy thoughts...just like Unca Dario told me. Did it work?"

I grinned, reaching up and tucking a stray hair behind her ear that had escaped her ponytail. "You tell me, buddy. Someone wants to say hi."

"Hey,
Juanito
," Alyssa breathed finally, and it sounded like she was sniffling.

"Tia!" Juan practically screamed into the radio, causing us both to flinch, but chuckle at the same time. "Unca Adwien found you?"

"He did, baby," she laughed and sniffled at the same time, leaning into me as I wrapped an arm around her. "He always does."

"Good. You can come home now," he stated, much like an order, and I laughed.

"Soon ," I told him. "Not long. Keep taking care of Makenna and Joanne, okay?"

"Okay, but I want to see you," he said, his voice dropping to a sad tone. "Hurry?"

"We're doing the best we can, okay, Juan?" Alyssa soothed softly. "How 'bout I call you every now and then to check in, huh?"

"Promise?"

"Promise," she vowed.

"Okay, love you...be safe," he sang, and his voice was replaced with Tink's again.

"Okay that was officially the last message I had to deliver," she giggled. “Did it help?”

"Yeah," she sighed, a smile playing on her face. Her green eyes calm, though tired.

I pulled her into my lap, because she looked completely drained. "Yeah, thanks, Tink."

I sat on the water well, bringing my knees up to my chin. It was late afternoon, and the road up to the compound had dried enough that vehicles could now get in. The place was chaos. Ambulances, coroners, and more of Hunter’s men had arrived and were now in the process of cleaning up the place, checking the people that we'd found in the tunnels, and removing the bodies of Terry's men.

The slightest mention of linking this shit with the train station had brought the media to the bottom of the mountain, and they were now being held back by Hunter and Cameron—not to mention a few local police.  Anyone that wasn't FBI or DIA was being kept hidden, because Hunter needed to keep some parts of this operation secret, and that included Adrian's and Liam's participation, not to mention the rest of our crew.

My eyes fell on the bomb shelter they were sweeping, and then back to the house, my eyes welling up for some unexplainable reason.

"Hey, what's this?" Adrian whispered, suddenly at my side. Kneeling beside me, he cupped my face to wipe away my tears.

"I can’t help but think that one of those could have been me," I breathed, gesturing to the gurney that two men were struggling with over the rough terrain and the weight of some guy's body. "If I were just some rich girls daughter like they thought. That would have been me. They were never going to turn me over." I sniffled, shaking my head. Glad that only he was around, I didn’t feel weak when it was just us.

Adrian turned me, pulled my legs down so that they were on either side of him, and looked up at me as he rubbed my thigh gently with one hand and continued to caress my face with the other. His touch was soothing, just as it always had been from the beginning, even when my tolerance for it was limited, and I unleashed emotionally on him.

"Things could have been
so
different, over something that isn’t even true. I’m no
heiress
." I hiccupped not looking up at him, playing with his fingers on my leg until he just linked our fingers together. "I need to know who is behind this baby. I could have died… over someone else’s..."