Page 98 of Cohesion

“Is Greer taking her somewhere?” Quinn asked quietly as he and Peyton flanked Jericho, Will still at his back.

“He’ll take her and go dark,” Hunter answered. “Her safety is my biggest concern. Whatever is going on is spilling across all of us, and I won’t have it touch her.”

“How will he know when to come back?” Will asked curiously.

“We’ll get a message through.” Hunter kicked a chair out and sat heavily, elbows resting on his knees. “We need to start thinking about protection.”

“For who?” Peyton asked, frowning. “Seb? It’s a little fucking late for that, don’t you think?” Whether the acid in his voice was deliberate or simply because of the tension in his shoulders, it still settled over them all.

Hunter’s face hardened. “Don’t forget that they severely injured one of my men, and they took another. One who doesn’t have the same priority as Sebastian, and who may already be dead.” He let out a long breath, hanging his head. “Once they realise that Sebastian won’t talk, they’ll try to find other ways. They think he has what they need, and they won’t believe him when he says he doesn’t. Torturing him won’t work, because he really doesn’t know anything. They’ll get frustrated, look for something else they can use to make him talk. That means—”

“Using his family, or people close to him,” Peyton finished.

“Yes,” Hunter agreed, nodding. “Basically, anyone useful they can get their hands on.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Peyton said. “They had a chance to grab Will, and they didn’t take it.”

Jericho gritted his teeth against the anger that threatened to rise in his throat at just how close Will had come to being badly hurt. He’d been completely defenceless, and all they’d done was handcuff him to a bar and leave him to die in a burning building.

“They might not know the connection,” Six said absently, still staring intently at his screens. “It’s not as though Sebastian wrote in the air, ‘I’m in love with four guys; here are their names,’ like a lovesick idiot with too much money.” He scanned all of them. “It’s not common knowledge that all of you are sleeping together and domesticated”—that jab was for him, and Jericho knew it—“so you aren’t the obvious choice.”

“Why did they go for Will in the first place, then?”

“Who knows? Your apartment was where Errol and Dane dropped the first body,” Six said, shrugging. He pressed a button on his keyboard. “And the home of the cop that arrested some of the dealers. Will was also at the shooting Sebastian was involved in. There are a lot of things that are tying him to all of this that aren’t necessarily about his romantic connection. Their goal was confusion, and they accomplished that. They burned Sebastian’s house down as a distraction while they grabbed him. Either to get him off-kilter, to lure him home, or to distract authorities. There’s no reason to say they didn’t do the same thing with the apartment. They weren’t expecting Will, so they tied him up and left him there.”

“I don’t know how I feel about being nothing but collateral,” Will said.

Peyton scowled, arms crossing over his chest. “If not us, then who?”

“His siblings,” Quinn said, eyes closing briefly. “Eli and Charlotte. If the kidnappers don’t know anything personally about Seb, they might go for his mother too; they won’t know about their tense relationship. Possibly Jayden, his best friend,and Jayden’s younger brother, Gabriel. I doubt they’ll go for Gabe, though, because he’s a public figure.”

“A public figure?” Will asked.

“Do you follow the UFC at all?” Quinn asked.

“Wait. Are you talking about GabrielPetriov?” Peyton asked incredulously.

Huh. Even Jericho hadn’t made that connection. Sebastian certainly liked to keep interesting secrets. Gabriel Petriov was an up-and-comer UFC champion and was taking the organisation by storm. One of the few Australians in the league, and making one hell of a name for himself, both for his skills in the Octagon and his outspoken personality.

Quinn nodded. “If they’re as smart as they seem, they won’t risk trying to grab anyone who might make the news.”

“You mean aside from taking a well-known criminal defence lawyer in broad daylight?” Hunter asked dryly.

“Fuck, who cares?” Peyton burst out. “So what? They need protection? Why can’t we just find these assholes and put them six feet under? Then Seb will be back where he belongs, and so will they. No protection necessary.”

“We don’t know where they are,” Six said. A different laptop beeped, and he switched it with the one in front of him. “Don’t you think we’d have done that if we could find them?”

“Thought you were supposed to be some super-talented black-ops team?” Peyton said sarcastically, the acid in his voice deliberate this time. “You can’t findoneguy in Sydney?”

“Do you think you could do a better job?” Six retorted angrily. “You think you’re the only one in here that has skills, hotshot?”

Darkness twisted in Peyton’s face, and Jericho was already moving, intercepting him before he could reach Six. He placed a hand on Peyton’s chest and stole his focus. “I know that you’re frustrated, and I know this is hard. I care too much about Sebastian, just like you do. I’ve also known Spencer a long time.We’re following up what we can, and we won’t rest until he’s safe. To do that we all need to focus and put our energy into the right things. Arguing is not one of them.”

Peyton’s bottom lip trembled, and he sucked it into his mouth. He fisted Jericho’s shirt. “Find where they are.”

“We will.”

Jericho tensed, reaching for his weapon, when the gate outside swung open.

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