Page 38 of Oath
Bones was the hard ass. He was the one who knew when to break jaws and when to pull the punches. He kept us centered. And heneverblinked even when the mission went to hell. No matter what happened, Bones would come for us and we damn well knew it.
“To let you know there was a threat,” O’Rourke said flatly. “I knew you wouldn’t come alone. The backup was supposed to make sure none of you got dead.” His expression tightened. “To be clear, as far as I knew, they wantedyouspecifically, Voodoo. Not Bones.”
I shrugged. It didn’t really matter who they wanted. It mattered why. It mattered where. It mattered who the fuck they were… Those were the things that mattered.
Whatever we were chasing before—shadows, echoes, cover-ups—none of it mattered anymore. The thought scraped through me like a wipeout on asphalt. Grace mattered. That meant her sister mattered.
But they had Bones.
“How is Vega a person?” It was an operational protocol. Not an individual.
“Shifting priorities up the chain. Assignment of resources. Retasking wetwork and specialist teams. Black ops.” O’Rourke shrugged. “You know how it goes.”
A headache pulsed behind my eye.
“I told Grace,” Alphabet said as he came back on comms. “She’s holding steady, but we need to check back in with her in thirty. Where are we doing this?”
“You have eyes on him at all?” Lunchbox asked.
“Not yet.” Alphabet’s response was clipped. “I sent the activation code for his tracker. We’ll have something in an hour.”
Unless they planned for that contingency and managed to block the signal. I could practically see the same thought streaming through Lunchbox’s eyes. We could only deal with it when it came. At the moment, I was in charge.
Bones was down. That left me in command.
“Pick us up,” I told Alphabet. “Tell her to get ready. We’ll divert if necessary.”
No cutting her out. But if we got actionable intel beforehand, we were going to take it and run.
“Is he picking all of us up?” O’Rourke asked, pulling my attention back to him. His hands were still secured behind him, and his expression resolute. Still a soldier.
“You know what comes next,” I told Lunchbox and he nodded once.
“Wha—” O’Rourke didn’t get to finish asking the question. Lunchbox knocked him out with one hard punch. The man went down like a ton of bricks.
Shaking his hand once, Lunchbox grunted. “That felt good.”
“Secure him.” Because he was going. “And scan him.” We weren’t taking any other trouble back with us. We had one job right now.
We would get our brother back.
Chapter
Eleven
GRACE
Sitting in the back of the van, I kept an eye on O’Rourke where he was bound with his hands behind his back, blindfolded, and sporting a pair of noise canceling headphones. He hadn’t made a sound since the guys picked me up. Course, he also had duct tape over his mouth so talking wasn’t really an option even if he was conscious.
The last time I’d seen him had involved fancy outfits, people shooting at us, and him biting me. I was pretty sure explosions had also been involved. It had been a few months, but I couldn’t really decide what his presence here meant.
Particularly because the guys were ignoring him, even if they’d brought him with us. In the meanwhile, AB sat in the back with me, working on his laptop and Goblin lay between us while Legend drove and Voodoo was on the phone with a contact in the front. I had a dozen questions, none of which I asked.
Tension wound around the guys like electrified barbed wire. Every shift, every move, every glance drew blood and threatened to send a shock through the system. It was like playing the board game Operation with metal tweezers and we’re bouncing around.
A hand stroked down my arm and pulled my attention from O’Rourke to AB. He frowned as he studied me. “We’ll find him.”
“I know,” I said, not a doubt existed within me. These guys would burn the world down. I had seen them do it. “It’s just…”
