Code Name: Aries by Janie Crouch

19

Ian

Seven hours after I’d left the building Erick Huen had lured Wavy to, we were sitting around a conference room table at the Zodiac Tactical’s Denver office. I had all my key team members on a conference call with us. I wanted every single person I trusted working to get Wavy back.

Zac and Finn had come with us by my invitation, and because Finn was not going to be left behind when it came to anything having to do with his sister. Kendrick and Neo were also on the video call, prepared to help out in whatever way they could.

Callum was on the line too. We hadn’t spoken since the debriefing concerning Varela’s death. I knew he was on thin ice with his superiors over all of this.

Sarge was the only person missing that I desperately wanted here. He was still looking for Bronwyn.

It had now been nine hours since anyone had seen Wavy.

Everyone around this table and on the conference call knew that every minute that passed without clues or word from a kidnapper meant less and less chance of survival for the victim. I refused to acknowledge that data.

A picture of Wavy and her beautiful smile took up half of everyone’s screen. It was almost painful to look at. She looked so friendly and kind.

“This is Waverly Bollinger,” I said. “Goes by Wavy. She was kidnapped nine hours ago by Erick Huen, one of the heads of the new Mosaic. It was a personal attack against me. She’s my . . .” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “. . . girlfriend.”

That seemed too trite and simplistic for what Wavy was to me. But in terms of explaining it to everyone else, it was the easiest term.

“Have you received any ransom notification, boss?” The question came from Tristan Zimmerman. He and his twin brother, Andrew, both knew Wavy.

“No,” I responded. “If there had, believe me, I would have already paid it. If money could get Wavy back, there’s not a single dollar I wouldn’t spend.”

Zodiac dealt with corporate kidnap and ransom situations all the time, mostly in foreign countries. Generally speaking, the most successful K and R cases were the ones where kidnappers wanted money for the return of their victims, and it was paid. A simple, albeit scary, business transaction.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with Wavy.

“Do you think this is a play to get you to back down from taking on Mosaic?” Tristan continued. “They know you had Varela working undercover, and they know you were responsible for taking down the group the first time, so maybe they want to keep you in check.”

“That’s a possibility,” I said. “And if we get any word like that, I’ll be sure to let you know. I won’t be hiding anything.” Not anymore.

I brought up Erick’s picture on everyone’s screen. “We know Erick Huen is who took her, and we know he’s one of the four new heads of Mosaic. What you all may not know is that he blames me for killing his best friend two years ago when I was undercover with Mosaic. Erick’s best friend was the head of Mosaic, Grant Saber.”

I brought up a picture of Grant Saber. Given long enough, someone would eventually put two and two together, but I didn’t have time to waste.

“Grant Saber’s name was actually a combination of his real middle name and a nickname he’d had when he was younger, ‘the Saber.’ His legal name was Timothy Grant DeRose.”

The room fell silent. Nobody said anything. Nobody breathed. Anybody who had been typing stopped.

“I killed my brother, who was Erick’s best friend, right in front of him.”

Grant had killed me multiple times first, but I left that part out.

Finn was the first to recover. “Your brother was the head of the original Mosaic?”

I nodded. “That’s why I was originally sent undercover. It’s public knowledge that I inherited my money from my father when he died. What you don’t know was that a lot of that money was gained through illegal means. I walked away from the family business when I was eighteen and joined the military—I’d had no interest in being part of that. I didn’t leave on good terms.”

Everybody was listening and nodding, so I continued. “Almost three years ago, my father died. At some point in the ten years I hadn’t been talking to him, he’d had a change of heart and cleaned up his act. My brother, Grant, had not. They went their separate ways, but when dad died, he left me all his money instead of Grant. You can understand how Grant was a little pissed at that, given how many years he’d served faithfully at my father’s side. But by that point, Grant had built his own criminal network, the original Mosaic.”

“That’s why Omega Sector approached Ian to go undercover—not because of his new wealth, but because of his ties to Grant,” Callum explained.

I rubbed the spot at the back of my neck where tension had been growing all day. This wasn’t my favorite thing to talk about even under much better circumstances.

“Yes. I convinced my brother that I wanted out of the good-boy life and back into the family business. Since Dad had left the money to me, we could share it and control the world together, etc. Meanwhile, my plan was always to take him and Mosaic down. The plan worked.”

Landon crossed his arms over his chest. Saying it had worked was truly too simple a phrase.

“It worked, but before I was able to take Grant down, he realized that I was undercover. I was . . . interrogated extensively.”

Only Callum and Landon knew the specifics, but everyone else knew it meant I’d been tortured. They didn’t need to know the details.

“Ultimately, I killed Grant in order to escape. The rest of Mosaic was dismantled. Erick Huen was injured when we moved in to make all the arrests and was presumed dead. But obviously, he isn’t dead.”

That was my mistake, one Wavy was currently paying for. I hadn’t hunted Erick down the way that I should have because he’d actually tried to talk some sense into Grant every time Grant had put me back in that coffin until I died. But evidently, any goodwill Erick had had for me had ended when I’d killed my brother.

My team was attempting to digest all of this—a history more complicated than they’d thought.

“Okay. Now you have the whole story. We know who has Wavy, and we know it’s personal, and we all know that’s the worst-case scenario. So let’s work with actual data and get her back. This is top priority for everyone.”

The forensic team reported first. They hadn’t found any usable fingerprints besides Wavy’s and Erick’s. It turned out that he’d rented that particular building because it had attached garages. A nondescript, white van had been caught on a security camera leaving not long after Wavy had arrived, but it had crisscrossed around town, and the tech team had lost it. They were still searching for it.

I clicked on a few buttons to bring Kendrick up on full screen. “Kendrick, can you give us an update on the drive?”

He nodded, wrapping his arm around Neo. She still looked a little worse for wear from what she’d been through at Varela’s hand.

“It was full of some pretty scary medical stuff. Means of human trafficking that relies on a cocktail of gene-editing, drugs, and neuro-inhibitors to brainwash their victims. Basically, Mosaic can make a perfect slave willing to do whatever they’ve been programmed for. Including thinking they’re doing the right thing.”

The room got quiet once again. Finn’s hands curled into fists. It was all I could do to stop mine from doing the same. The thought of Wavy turned into a mindless sex slave burned like acid in my gut.

Jenna Franklin, speaking for the nerds, outlined what their team was doing. Jenna had lived through a traumatic kidnapping herself before coming to work for me, so she took this very seriously. The tech team was deepening the search into Erick Huen as well as the other three potential Mosaic leaders Varela had reported. It was taking priority over everything else.

Callum assured us that his law enforcement task group would also be working all angles to find Wavy.

It was almost midnight by the time we were done. I had the best people in the world looking for Wavy. If she could be found, they would find her.

If.

* * *

A week later, we were no closer to finding Wavy than we had been at that meeting.

I stared down at the Denver skyline from my penthouse. I hadn’t slept for more than a couple hours since the moment Wavy had been taken. I had exhausted every option I had, used every contact any one of us had ever known to try to discover a scrap of information on her whereabouts. I’d offered money, threatened lives, resorted to physical violence . . . but nothing.

I kept waiting to hear from Erick Huen. Some sort of ransom note or demand or a smug call about how he was smarter than me—stealing Wavy right out from under my fingers. Or worse, a video of her being tortured.

As much as that would crush what was left of my soul, at least I would know she was alive.

Now, left alone with silence, I had no idea.

I had no idea if she would ever stand beside me again and look down on this view. No idea if I’d ever hear her laugh again, see those green eyes twinkle at something the rest of us missed because we looked at the world differently than her.

Landon had banned me from the office a few hours ago. I’d told him he could go fuck himself, but then he’d pointed out the simple truth. I was hindering the process of helping Wavy by sitting there barking over everyone’s shoulders and demanding information they didn’t have.

He’d been right. At least I’d been able to see it once he’d pointed it out. So I’d left and come up here.

For once, the trip up the elevator didn’t give me pause. I’d trap myself in a thousand elevators if it meant we got Wavy back.

My phone beeped, letting me know someone was coming up in said elevator. I didn’t look to see who it was. I could only hope that it would be some bad guy who was stupid enough to try to rob me right now. At least that would give me an excuse to beat the shit out of someone.

Or hell, at this point, it would be a relief for someone to beat the shit out of me.

The balcony door slid open, but I still didn’t turn.

“How are you holding up, boss?”

Sarge.

Now I turned around. “I thought you were gone.”

Sarge shrugged. “I heard about what happened with Wavy. Spent the past few days chasing some possible leads.”

Something inside me eased a little bit. I’d known Sarge would’ve heard about Wavy by now. It had hurt more than I’d admitted that he hadn’t come back to help.

Of course, that tiny pain was like a pinprick on a ten-inch gash, but it had still been there. It was good to know he’d been helping from a distance. I reached out my hand, and he shook it. “I hope you’ve had more luck than we’ve had.”

“Maybe. I found out about a lab through a back channel.”

I shook my head. “Given the medical background of what Mosaic is doing—gene-editing, neuro-inhibitors—we’ve already checked every lab and medical facility linked to any person with ties to Mosaic.”

“Not this one. It does have ties to Erick Huen, but not in any way that’s noticeable. It’s a hidden lab. I have to warn you, it’s not a good place to try to breach.”

I pushed away from the railing. “I don’t care. If it’s a lead, we’ll try it.”

Sarge grabbed my arm when I tried to walk by him. “It’s a shitty setup, Ian. We won’t have tactical advantage. They will have all the advantages.”

“I don’t care.” And then it occurred to me. “That’s why you’re here. You think Bronwyn is there, and you wanted to breach it, but you couldn’t do it on your own.”

“I won’t lie. I got this lead while looking for Bronwyn, and she might be in the same location. But you made it clear that Bronwyn wasn’t your top priority.”

I rubbed my fingers over my eyes. I owed this man, my friend, an apology. Only now, when it was Wavy who’d been taken, could I see that so clearly.

“Sarge, about Bronwyn. I should never have—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “No. Right now we breach this lab, work the problem. We’ll have time for hugging it out and kumbaya later.”

I nodded. Apologies and fixing the broken relationship between Sarge and me would have to wait. “Let’s get the team together.”