Page 17 of Hyde

They have someone on speakerphone and all I can really make out is the word ‘cartel’ and that Trinity and Mungo have not been located. Just then, my phone pings and we both jump as Royce starts swearing.

“Dammit, Xander!” Dad growls, not having seen me. “Get over here.”

My brother pushes me back as he steps around the corner, protecting me from their ire. Just as I’m turning to escape back the way I had come, I catch a movement from the corner of my eye.

Flint is ten feet behind me, blocking the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest. At the look he gives me, I freeze until something changes in his eyes, then he motions me past him and goes to join the others, never mentioning my presence.

I scurry back to the kitchen, just grateful for the gift of his silence.

Chapter 3

Hyde

I feel my phone vibrate as I pull up to a roadside café and look down to see Flint’s name across the screen of my primary device.

“Hey, everything alright?” I ask, since Mom’s usually the one who calls me every week.

“I need you to do something. For the Club,” Flint answers, ignoring the niceties like he usually does.

“Of course.”

“Leslee Sorenson will be landing at a small airfield,” he starts before giving me specific directions to a remote airstrip. “She and Parks took off an hour ago and will be landing in about four hours. You pick her up and get her to Alex’s cabin for safekeeping.”

“You want me to sit on her?” I confirm in surprise after hearing her name. Running a hand through my hair, I know I won’t get details from him.What in the absolute hell is going on?

“Until I call you again,” he bites out the words. “Vector’s aware and will be sending back-up to the cabin.”

“Gunner’s good with this?”

“Leslee’s in trouble and you have our full confidence.”

With that, he hangs up and I’m left staring at my phone—knowing damn well that he didn’t answer my question.

Checking the time against the location he gave me, I’ll need every moment to get there in four hours, but I go inside, placing a takeout order before hitting the john. Crossing the road to hit the gas station a few minutes later, I shovel down the food while refilling my tank and charting the course.

How the hell did Le-Lee get herself into something that would get her sent across the country? I wonder as I pull onto the road. Granted, she’s phenomenal at getting into scrapes, but nothing quite on this level before.

That, and I’m pretty damn certain that Gunner has no idea that I’m the one Flint called to watch over his daughter. While I’ve avoided contact with Leslee in the years I’ve been gone, I’ve texted or spoken to many of her friends.

Even Xander, when he somehow got ahold of my number and had a question about a computer virus he was interested in. Turns out, he used it to hack the high school’s system and change some of his friend’s grades.

That stunt necessitated me picking up the phone and giving the kid an earful. I was more pissed off to be put in the position of lecturing him, than I was at him for pulling it off, but it led to a longer conversation where he encouraged me to send another postcard to his sister.

I told myself, time and time again that I’d stop sending them altogether, but then I’d see something that I knew would make Le-Lee smile and I couldn’t resist sending ‘one more’.

While I’d planned to be in Roanoke for an upcoming celebration at that Chapter, afterwards I was finally going to head home. Mom doesn’t give much away, but I gather she’s worried about Dad and I know that now is the moment in time that I had set for myself to return to Idaho.

Chapter 4

Leslee

“Kid, let’s get moving,” Parks says, nudging my shoulder. I haven’t even removed my seatbelt as I study the area around us. “We’re here.”

“Where’s here?” I ask him, reaching for my large backpack as he climbs out and circles around the front of the plane.

He opens my door to help me out, then takes the bag, holding it so I can easily get my arms through the straps.

“North Carolina,” he answers, after making sure the bag is snuggly fitted on my back. That single motion tells me that whoever is picking me up will be on a bike.

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