Page 82 of Running on Empty

I watched Stevie flush, stealing a strange kind of pleasure from hers, despite all the shit that was going down.

“I’m your knife, beautiful,” Ronan told her. “You just tell me who to stab.”

Her eyes flashed at that and each one of us let out a little groan as the floral scent of her arousal filled the room.

“So that’s what it takes to get you on side, does it?” Ash asked in a faux grumpy voice. “Offers of murder? Well, maybe you should spend some time with Ronan, fantasising over what you want to do to Jack Spencer, because I have to call Riley Taylor to keep her abreast of the situation.”

“No.”

I could hear the determination in Stevie’s voice.

“No?”

Right then you could see that Ronan and Ash were brothers, because Ash went completely still, his eyes green as he stared down the omega.

“No, we’ll stay here while you call them, because that’s the way it's going to be, going forward.” She turned in his lap, grabbing the mouse from him and then bringing up the video call software, wriggling around in Ash’s lap to distract him as she put through the call.

“Hello?”

Riley hadn’t answered the call, but her mate, Fen, had. He frowned at the screen, taking the lot of us in, and I guess I understood why. We looked like soldiers returned from battle, not security professionals.

“Is Riley around?” Stevie asked.

“I re-directed the calls to me,” Fen replied. “Riley’s pregnant and the stress of the Rush situation is getting to her.” He blinked then. “She doesn’t know I’ve done this but…” He shook his head. “What news do you have?”

“We blew up the main distribution hub last night,” Ronan said. Fen’s eyes widened. “We didn’t tell you that, of course.”

“Of course, but—” Fen started to say.

“We have a lot of video evidence of countless sexual assaults committed by the Spencer pack,” Ash added. “And I took a copy of as much data as I could from one of their computers. Seems like there’s a lot of info about how they’re manufacturing it and moving it around the city.”

“That’s good news. We’ll need that information surrendered to us immediately,” Fen said. “Our IT team and lawyers will need to look over it before proceeding.”

“And if you have a leak?” I asked. “You’ve already got an in-house problem, otherwise the formula for Rush would’ve never been released.”

“Gideon’s on top of that,” Fen replied. “He’s quarantined some offices that only his forensic team has access to so we’re hoping that plugs any future leaks.”

“Then we’ll be handing the information after our mission is over, because we have some bad news.” Fen stiffened at Ash’s voice. We all did, because no one wanted to hear this part again. “Jack Spencer gave up his brothers easily for what they did to our omega, but he’s not willing to fall on his sword himself. Fen, he has Scarlett.”

We watched the other alpha suck in a breath, his face going milk pale as silver eyes started into ours, willing us to reveal that this was all just a sick joke.

But we couldn’t.

“We’re getting her out.” Stevie said that with complete confidence, something that made each one of us sit up straighter, wanting it to be true for her sake. “We won’t leave her in that fuck’s clutches. We—”

“Hold that thought.” Fen held up a hand as if to ward off our mate’s more murderous impulses, but his focus shifted away from the webcam as he clicked and clicked. “I’m adding some more people to this call.”

“Hey, Fen, what’s up?” A dark haired man with bright blue eyes asked as he looked at the screen, but before anyone could answer, more people popped up on the screen, until it was filled with the faces of strangers. A lot of them were alphas, that was obvious by the sets of their shoulders and the intensity of their gaze, some of them military.

“Guys, this is the Kelly pack,” Fen said by way of introduction, “and they’ve got news on Scarlett.”

“Scarlett?” The first alpha who’d joined us frowned and then shouted out some names down the hallway before turning back to us. “What the hell has happened to Scarlett?”

“Sounds like you’ve got a job for us.”

This alpha was massive even by comparison to us, his eyes very pale blue in contrast to his short back and sides haircut. The khaki t-shirt didn’t clue me in that he was an ex-soldier so much as the way he leaned forward slowly, eyeing every face on the screen.

“Need us to get the band back together?” he asked. “Living out on the horse farm is lovely, but…” His grin was slow and full of menace. “We wouldn’t mind getting our hands dirty.”

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