Page 20 of Breaking the Code

Shutting the door with my hip, I look up at the ramshackle building before me. I have studied all the plans for it I could find. The problem was the only plans I could find were decades old, from when the factory was still in use.

There’s nothing I can do about it. I will have to play it by ear. There’s no way I’m leaving here without extracting as much information as I can from Lionel McGivern. I’m also nae leaving here while that bastard draws breath.

It’s time to go to work.

I slip inside the building, making sure the metal door makes as little noise as I can. I reach behind me, pulling out my bearded axes I’ve hidden under my hoodie.

Sounds carry from the factory’s recesses. Shoving away the memories o’ my devastation and loss, I take in my surroundings. From where I’m standing, all I see is what the building pretends to be. An abandoned factory.

I know better.

Keeping to the perimeter, I make my way toward the sound. It is coming from the back where the loading docks are. I can hear several people, men, talking. The voices all twist and turn together, coiling around one another until they are indecipherable.

As I get closer, there is one I recognize. I know it almost as much as well as my own. I’ve listened to every video and audio clip I can find on the man.

Lionel McGivern is back here. I’d worried he slipped out the back without me knowing, but he’s still here.

I listen closer, chancing a peek around into the loading dock. There are several men in the area working. Wood crates with holes cut in the side are there. Lionel is talking with someone. Taking a peek, I catch a glance o’ the man he’s with. He sounds familiar, and looks it too, but I cannae place him.

I pull out my cellphone and turn on the video camera, hoping to catch as many as possible on film so I can figure out who some o’ them are. The guy with Lionel is a wee bit fantoosh. He’s in a custom-tailored suit, and he’s got a kid with him—at least a kid to me and to him. The boy cannae be more than twenty-one or twenty-two. He looks barely legal with his dark hair and his slender build and stature.

There’s something about him that leads me to believe he’s not here o’ his own free will. He turns toward me just enough that I get a good look at his profile. He’s a handsome little devil. His black glasses and messy blackish-brown hair add to his boyishness.

That boyishness calls to me like a siren song, making my blood thrum in my veins. It moves throughout me, warming me from the inside out until it settles in my groin. My breath grows heavy along with my cock.

I continue watching and the longer I look at him, the longer my dick gets. I cannae wrap my head around what’s happening in my pants. I’ve nae had a reaction from that part o’ my body since they killed Simon.

I don’t know which o’ the Order killed the man I love, but I’m determined to find them and kill him with my bare hands. I killed the person who killed my parents. Graeme Buchanan died at my hand eight years ago.

The boy and the foppish man with him walk off in the direction opposite me. I dinnae get a good look at either the boy or the man with him, only that one wee glimpse o’ the side o’ the boy’s face.

Lionel McGivern watches the man and boy leave. He speaks with the men loading the truck, and then they leave as well. He secures the doors and turns toward the office off to the side.

I creep behind him, slowly, following him into the office. My hand catches the door when he slams it behind him. He spins, and the look on his face is priceless.

“Hello, Lionel,” I say.

His eyes widen comically for a moment before the mask o’ evil indifference falls over his face.

“My people will kill you.”

I stare at him, pulling my axes from under the back o’ my damp sweatshirt. My arms drop to my sides, axes at the ready.

“Where is Maeve Helvig?”

His brow furrows. Those two little lines between his brows infuriate me. I can feel it bubbling under my skin. Percolating in my brain. It fuels my rage.

“My sister is Maeve Helvig. Graeme Buchanan stole her when he murdered my parents.”

I don’t know this for certain, but it’s the only thing that’s ever made sense. Maeve’s school reported my parents picked her up. Then they died in a fiery car crash, supposedly with Maeve with them. Buchanan had to have seen the opportunity to take Maeve and make it appear that she died along with our parents.

“You’re going to kill me for something Graeme Buchanan did over fifteen years ago?”

Well, there you go.

“Nae.”

“Are you cracked?”

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