Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers
Chapter Seventeen
Devil tucked his phone back into his pocket, thankful he’d seen the text in time to get back to BlackStone. He hopped the steps two at a time to the top floor and shouldered open the door to their war room.
Hands grabbed him by his coat lapels and slammed him up against the wall beside the entrance. He grabbed above his attacker’s elbow with one hand and pushed the man’s wrist upward.
“Mother-!”
A harsh slap landed on Devil’s shoulder and he instantly released the pressure, realizing with his opponent’s tap out he had his teammate in his grasp. He glanced past his attacker and saw Hawk, Snake, and Phoenix looking on, their expressions various shades of surprise and shit-eating laughter. That left—
“Fuck, man. I wasn’t expecting that.” Jaybird rubbed his wrist and shook it out.
“You should’ve.” Devil shrugged, the attack and defense had been so quick he hadn’t even had time for his adrenaline to spike. “You came at me, fucker. What the hell else did you expect me to do? At least grab my collar, instead. I know Draco taught you better.” He and the rest of his teammates had been fighting each other for years and they’d all been taught their best moves by their teammate, Draco. “Rookie move.”
Jaybird shook his head before wiping his face with both hands. “You’re right. I’m just pissed.”
Devil raised his eyebrows, expecting more.
Jaybird threw up his other hand. “About Ellie, goddamnit! She was in trouble last night and she fucking called you, of all people! Why the fuck would she call your coldhearted ass, for Christ’s sake?”
The ‘coldhearted’ attack stung for some reason, but Devil would never reveal that wound. To be honest, he’d been surprised by that revelation as well, but he hadn’t wanted to dwell on why Ellie would reach out to him above anyone else. Best not to dream when reality could slam you into a wall.
“She called you!” Their war room was virtually nothing but concrete and electronics, so Jaybird’s yell reverberated around the room just as it did in Devil’s chest. “And she didn’t call me.” Jaybird tugged his hair, making it wild. “I thought I’d been a good brother lately. I don’t know, I guess I’ve been preoccupied with Jules. I never want Ellie to feel like I won’t be there for her, again. To count on me being unaccountable. Like last time.” Jaybird shook his head while mumbling the last, and Devil realized the problem.
When Ellie was kidnapped at the party she went to nearly a year ago, she’d used Jaybird as a ruse so no one would know she’d gotten a secret invite. She’d called her brother, banking on him to cancel a dinner they planned, and sure enough he did. Leaving Ellie free and clear to attend a party she had no business going to.
“It’s not like that, man. I’ve been her trainer for weeks now. It was late, and I’m sure she didn’t want to bother you with Jules. You’ve got a whole other family to think about. Ellie needs to grow up at some point and relying on someone outside her family would be good for her, you know?”
Jaybird nodded slowly, like Devil had said something wise instead of pulling it out of his ass. “Yeah, yeah. I guess you’re right. It’s probably because you’re my friend, too. Sorry, man. I should’ve known it was something like that when she resorted to calling you. I guess I let myself get carried away.”
The hidden barb in Jaybird’s words was unexpected and the pain was sharp in his chest. He clenched his fists until his blunt fingernails stabbed into the palms of his hands and he lost feeling in the tips of his fingers.
“Letting your emotions get in the way will get you killed.” Devil nodded to Jaybird’s hand for emphasis before pulling a chair for him to sit. “Or at least a broken wrist.”
Jaybird shook his head before huffing out a breath. “You’ll understand when you have someone you care about.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Devil’s voice grated up his chest and into his throat.
“He already has someone he cares about, dontcha beautiful? Lil’ golden angel, right?” Phoenix looked up from his texting and smirked before sliding his phone back into his pocket.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jaybird demanded, his glare oscillating between Devil and the smart-ass with the backward ball cap and shit-eating grin.
Phoenix barked out a laugh. “If you don’t know by now, dude, you’re in for one hell of a surprise.”
Jaybird’s brow furrowed as he stepped toward Phoenix, but Hawk pushed himself between them and indicated a chair at the round table.
“Enough.” Hawk’s deep voice echoed in the concrete-walled room. “Ellie’s safe now, right?”
Devil nodded. “Yeah she’s safe. Once I found her, everything was fine.”
“That’s another thing…” Jaybird began before turning to their communications sergeant by his wall of screens. “Snake, you can hack into phones and do that thing where you follow people’s location, right?”
Snake gave a slow nod. “Yeah… whatcha getting at?”
“I want every one of us to have her location. That way if she calls any of us we can find her. Or her roommate… they’re friends, right? Do her too.”
“Dude, that’s a serious invasion of privacy.” Snake argued.
“I don’t give a flying fuck. We’ll only use it when we need to. Can you do it or not?”
Snake shook his head with a frown. “I’m not doing it. Come back to me when you get her permission—or if there’s an emergency.”
Steam was practically coming out of Jaybird’s ears. Devil didn’t mind the plan but he understood where Snake was coming from. Granted, Devil didn’t give a shit if the rest of the room had Ellie’s location. He’d made sure to keep following it after Ellie sent it to him the night before. There was no way he was telling her brother, though. Devil had it for an emergency and that was enough for him.
“Moving on.” Hawk sat in his usual place at whatever the hell the head of a round table could be called and crossed his arms. “I called a meeting for a reason and it sure as fuck wasn’t to stalk a coed. Sit your asses down.”
Jaybird grumbled to his seat between Phoenix and Devil at the table. Everyone faced Snake as he swirled around in his rolling chair, his back to the computer screens lining in stacks above his desk.
“We’ve got a lead on the Ashland elite scholarship party.”
Devil’s back straightened. If they were finally making plans to find the bastards who stole Ellie, maybe he could put his obsession with her aside. Everything surrounding her felt like unfinished business, so putting her to bed would be a relief.
He sucked in a breath and ground his teeth to the point of pain.
Not the relief I should be thinking about.
“We always thought the assholes would be stupid enough to try the same stunt again, but we haven’t had much to go off of,” Hawk explained. “Which means they probably have help from people above our pay grade—”
“Or we’re losin’ our touch,” Phoenix piped in with a shrug as he leaned his chair back on two legs.
Hawk narrowed his eyes at Phoenix, but their cocky teammate seemed unfazed by Hawk’s death glare. Their team lead huffed out a breath before continuing. “In any case… I got to thinking after our last meeting with Burgess… he really put emphasis on the party. We’ve always suspected he was a player on the other side, but with that comment, it made me wonder if he’s too dumb to realize he’s tipped his hand.”
Jaybird scoffed. “Abso-fucking-lutely he’s that dumb. The guy tried to pin my own sister’s kidnapping and her best friend’s murder on me.” His finger jabbed into his chest and Devil winced at the power behind it.
“Well, now we have proof he’s onto something, at least.” Snake cut in. He swiveled his chair around and after a few swipes of the keyboard, what looked like a professional database took over the nine screens in front of him. “This is the room check-in log at the McIntosh Hotel.” He cleared his throat and swallowed. “The one where…”
Snake faced Devil and completed his sentence as Devil trailed off. “Yes, that’s the one. Where the party was held just shy of a year ago. Where the girls were taken. Where we raided without any luck. All in the same, my friend.” He turned back to the screen. “I’d hacked into the system last year, and I’ve been keeping track of the hotel database and this new entry caught my attention and, specifically, when it is booked.”
Despite the large collection of screens, Devil still had to squint at the tiny writing. Give him a target through a scope eleven hundred meters away, and he’d hit it every time. But tiny words ten feet away he’d miss every other letter. Finally he got the right amount of squint to eye-opening ratio, but Phoenix ended up narrating it for him anyway.
“Vaz-yay Pup-kin? Room 307,” Phoenix sounded out.
“No, it’s pronounced like voz—as in the fancy way to say vase—yah, poop-kin,” Snake clarified.
“Poor guy.” Phoenix snorted back. “Sure it’s not my way? Your way sounds—”
“Moving on.” Hawk’s dark eyes may not faze Phoenix, but they shut Snake’s mouth mid-retort. “Snake says they’re using another dummy name.”
“Like Ivan Ivanovich last year?” Devil asked, recalling how, before they realized the name was a fake, Devil had wanted to beat the fuck out of the guy last year in retaliation for finding an empty hotel room when they were supposed to be saving Ellie.
Snake nodded. “Yes, exactly.” He pulled up the floor plan of the hotel. “According to the booking itinerary, this Mr. Pupkin is booking room 307 for only two nights around the same time the fundraiser was held last year.”
Jaybird shook his head. “It’s fucking incredible these bigwigs are able to keep parties like this secret. In the past, we knew the players ASAP and picked these assholes off easier than finding… uh… that guy.” He snapped his fingers. “The one with the red and white hat?”
Everyone cocked their head at Jaybird.
“You mean… Where’s Waldo?” Snake sounded out slowly.
Jaybird threw his hands up. “Obviously! Who the fuck else would I be talking about?”
“I’m not really sure why you’re talking about him.” Snake pushed up his glasses. “Usually Phoenix says the stupid shit.”
“Hey!” There was a thump as two of Phoenix’s chair legs returned to the ground. He opened his mouth but Hawk cut in before Phoenix could retaliate.
“That was MF7. We were backed by the United States and the subjects we were dealing with were third-world ops entering or exiting our country, with the occasional US-international trafficking ring. This is our home. We have to play by different rules now. Unfortunately, since the government seems to be MIA on this, that means figuring out who is involved all by ourselves. “
“I get it, but it fucking sucks ass,” Jaybird grumbled and Devil grunted in agreement as he shook his head slightly.
“We have to make do with what we’ve got. Speaking of which…” Hawk leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his hand against his fade before nodding at Snake to continue.
“From the hotel log, we know when, or at least we can infer, the organization behind the kidnappings will be at the McIntosh. Now we can plan accordingly to surveil and extract, if necessary.”
“We can have an actual plan instead of like last time where we were fucked from the beginning. They’ve kept real damn quiet for nearly a year. I’m glad we’re finally gonna go somewhere with it,” Jason said.
Snake clicked on his keyboard and mouse and another screen pulled up. “There’s something else we didn’t have last year. Now we have the list.”
“The list?” Phoenix asked.
Snake nodded. “Yep. We have the list of donors, invited guests, eligible ‘scholarship recipients.’” He used finger quotes because young women, like Ellie, who’d just turned eighteen at the time, were fooled into thinking they were planning their future while the assholes in charge of the party were planning on stealing and doing God knows what with them.
Devil popped a piece of Big Red into his mouth, attempting to keep his mouth busy and avoid being a smart-ass. But he couldn’t help himself. “Does anyone even actually get scholarships from this shitshow or are the elite Ashland assholes fucking everyone over.”
“Surprisingly enough, there is some legitimacy to the scholarships. They’ve raised and donated over a million dollars to local Ashland high schoolers.” Snake pushed his glasses up on his nose and shrugged.
“For real?” Jaybird asked, his eyebrows up to his hairline. “How are they keeping this all under wraps?”
“Big money in high places?” Snake answered. “It’s how these things get by cops and the general public. They probably use the scholarships as a guise for when people find out about the party, and they don’t spread the word about their charitable donations to make sure no one looks into it too hard. Choose the right people to be involved and boom, you’ve got yourself a covert operation to do whatever the fuck you want.”
Hawk exhaled a deep breath before shaking his head. “Anyone can be bought.”
“Exactly. But we have last year’s list and this year’s.” Snake continued. “Now I need to cross reference them and figure out who our players are. Jaybird, maybe Ellie can help—”
“No.” The anger Devil had felt rumbling the entire conversation finally escaped in a growl and he felt the heat of everyone’s stare as all eyes drew to him.
Jaybird’s brow raised. “No?”
Devil crossed his arms and stopped chewing his gum to stare right back. “I said ‘no.’ Ellie’s not getting anywhere near any of this ever again. I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it?” Jaybird scoffed. “Who the fuck are you to say anything about her? What, you teach her some self-defense and all of a sudden you call the shots when it comes to her?”
“Guys.” Snake raised his voice, as if he was trying to drown out the anger flooding the room. “I hate to break it to ya, but Ellie’s an adult. Don’t you think she should be the one calling the shots? She at least deserves to be informed and have the choice of whether or not she wants to be involved.”
“She’s too fragile. She can’t handle being brought into something like this. She was fucking gunned down in a tree just last night—”
“Fuck, Devil, don’t put it that way, goddamn.” Jaybird’s groan ended as a harsh rebuke.
“—Involving her is out of the question.”
“Effing men. Ellie wants to be involved, you idiots.”
Devil stiffened at the new voice, but his alert posture relaxed when he recognized the newest arrivals. Snake, however, was funny as fuck as his pale face reddened all the way up to his blue-black hair.
“How the fuck did you get in?”
