Page 92 of Peaceful Chaos

More than Meets the Eye

Sin

"Sorry I kept you waiting,"Holbrook says as he enters the small conference room I was left in after his agents drove us to a nondescript building outside of Chicago. Judging by the drive time, my guess is we're halfway to Devil's Crossing.

I keep waiting for the legal team Javier hired to show up, but I'm wondering if they even know where to find me right now. The building is too quiet for this to be an official FBI office, and it certainly isn't a jail.

"You sound like we're friends," I respond after an awkwardly long silence.

"I'm not your enemy, Sin."

"I heard you as they were leading me out of the room. I'm just a murdering psychopath, right? You're doing what needs to be done to save your career. I wonder though, what good will having your career be when you lose your sister all over again? You became an FBI agent to save her, and now you're going to throw away your relationship with her to salvage what was only meant as a means to rescue her?"

He pulls out a chair opposite me across the table. "My sister will forgive me, and so will you."

I laugh, even though there's nothing funny about my current situation. I trusted this man with every ugly secret I had to keep Raven out of the clutches of her father. Now he's literally tied my hands behind my back and left her vulnerable.

"I don't see that happening."

Holbrook pulls a set of keys from his jacket pocket. "They were supposed to take those off in the car," he mutters and moves around the table.

"May I?" he asks once he's behind where I'm sitting.

I lean forward, letting him access my bound wrists. He unlocks the cuffs, and I take a few moments to roll my shoulders and rub the feeling back into my wrists.

"You will forgive me, probably in the next few minutes," he says and drops the cuffs and keys in the center of the table.

Sitting back against the chair, I motion for him to get on with whatever speech he has prepared. "Spit it out then," I say when he doesn't start speaking. "Just know, I'm not prone to Stockholm Syndrome. If Damien didn't turn me in the seventeen years he held me captive, I doubt you'll be able to do it in a few minutes."

"What you overheard was tailored specifically for an audience of one. Damien needed to think he survived another close call. Despite Lucien's best efforts, no police or FBI, except for Brett, were coming to apprehend him. If you or Javier tried to detain Damien, it could have been spun that Governor Whitmore was manufacturing a crisis to take down his political rival."

I mutter a string of curses. I don't want his words to make sense, and I still don't understand why I'm here, but I'm getting a sense that everything I think I know is about to be flipped upside down.

He watches my face, and gives me a jerky nod when I'm calm again. "You said I put too much faith in the system, and I ignored you. I played everything by the book, and it ended up with me almost dead and my niece nearly blown up."

"We told you he'd see through you," I remind him.

Holbrook shakes his head. "Damien didn't see shit. He's not as astute as you and Lucien think he is. He's not stupid, but it's mostly luck that keeps him ahead of everyone else. That and the obscene amount of money he pays in bribes. I was betrayed because he paid off someone in the Justice Department."

"He won't be doing that for a while." I smile thinking of the look on his face when he realized his money is gone. Then the smile falls off my face when I remember Raven is out there without me to face the consequences of his wrath.

Holbrook smiles at me like he really does see us as allies. "That was a brilliant move, by the way."

He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I overheard a lot of things when I was being held at the manor. They would talk a bit too freely when they thought I was passed out. We knew that his plan was to sell Raven either into a marriage or into the sex trade. I figured out why just as Javier did. That's where I've been for the last couple of weeks. That, and I found a few more sources to narrow down where he'd go once he had no more money."

"Why am I here?" I ask him. I'm sure he thinks the lead up to whatever his big reveal is needs to be heard, but I would really like for him to cut through the bullshit.

"I didn't figure you'd be opposed to working in the gray side of the law."

"I live in the shadows, I'm surprised you'd be willing to stoop to that level though," I tell him.

Holbrook leans back in his seat. His expression turns somber as he opens his hands on the top of the table. "Look, this goes beyond keeping Raven safe. If he get's his hands on her the entire state is at risk."

"She is my only priority, I don't give a fuck about the rest of the state."

"I'm aware of that, but it means you'll be willing to do anything to make sure she stays that way. And for the rest of us that means Damien still doesn’t get his hands on that kind of power." He waits for me to comment, but we both know what my answer is going to be.

Holbrook sets my phone on the table. "Call your uncle." He sets a scrap of paper on the table between us. "Read him the directions on that paper, and tell him to come alone."

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