Page 10 of Duality

I bit my lip. I needed an excuse to get out of here and now. I looked around the room. Sebastian’s narrowed blue eyes met mine.

Are you okay?he mouthed, and I shook my head.

His forehead creased, but he dipped his head once in acknowledgement. Alexander was in the middle of asking a question when I eased my laptop closed. He narrowed his eyes, but I mouthedI’m sorry. It was probably better that they didn’t have time to ask questions. I wasn’t sure I could provide a sufficient answer for them, anyway.

I slipped out of the room as quietly as I could and walked to my desk as I answered the phone.

“Tell me what’s happening?” I demanded as soon as Danny picked up.

“Fuck!” Danny’s voice was harried and tense. “I can’t tell you. Not over the phone. Get to HQ now!”

He hung up, and I cursed as I grabbed my bag and keys. I ignored the eyes I could feel on me from the conference room as I hurried towards the elevator. Fuck, it was really bad if Danny wouldn’t tell me over the phone. What had happened? Was it a raid? Was it one of the other lieutenants? Had something happened? Had we been attacked?

“Evelyn!” a voice called as I hurried out of the elevator. Adrian was standing with the security guard manning the desk. When he saw my disheveled state, he quickly strode towards me. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

There was no answer I could give him that would satisfy his curiosity. “I have a personal emergency. I need to go.”

I tried to brush past him, but he grabbed my arm. “I can drive you.”

I shook my head. “No. You can’t.” I walked a few steps and turned around. “Don’t follow me, Adrian.”

Maybe it was my use of his first name, but he clenched his fists and nodded once. I was still going to have to be careful driving to HQ from here, but hopefully, he kept his word.

I slid into my older sedan and started her up. Easing out of the parking space, I forced myself to not gun it out of the parking lot. I couldn’t risk drawing more attention to myself than I already had.

Once the SDS building was out of sight, I hit the accelerator and started towards HQ. My phone had been silent since Danny’s call, and with every mile I covered, the dread built inside of me. What was happening? What couldn’t they tell me over the phone?

I parked three blocks away from HQ in a convenience store parking lot that the Archers owned. Keeping my head on a swivel, I made sure no one followed me into the alleyway.

Inside HQ, the bustle came to a stop when I entered the room. Grace, Maya, and Liam were in front of his computer screens, phones to their ears. Danny and Izzy were poring over something on the table. Everyone froze when I entered, their expressions grim.

“What happened?” My voice was sharp, sharper than I had ever used on any of them, but something was wrong.

“Evelyn.” Danny’s soft use of my full name pissed me off. I was his boss, damn it, not the little girl he grew up with.

“Tell me.”

Izzy let out a breath. “We lost Kingston. Eric and Brittany are dead.”

My knees went out, and I staggered to a chair. Eric was the Archer we assigned to watch Kingston, one of our safe houses. Brittany was the woman who had come to us after she had been raped by the three rich pricks we dealt with a few weeks ago. We had been keeping her safe until the press and attention aroundour op had died down. She should have been safe. They should have been safe.

“How? When?” My voice sounded hoarse even to my own ears.

“This afternoon,” Izzy said grimly. “Citadel hit the safe house. They…” She hesitated, but relented when I shot her a glare. I needed to know all the details. “They executed them. One shot to the back of their heads. But we know it was Citadel. Liam traced the SUV back to them from an ATM camera.”

Fucking hell. I closed my eyes as their faces flashed in my mind. Eric was newly married. His husband would be devastated. Brittany was young and brave. She had come to us, demanding we make the men who raped her pay. She’d had her entire life ahead of her.

“I’ve tracked a payment from the nightclub owner to Citadel,” Liam said somberly, no hint of sass in his tone. “They used a shell company, but I traced it.”

“Motherfucker!” I exploded, standing up and pacing behind the chair. “How did they know where our safe house was? Where she was?”

Grace stepped forward. “We don’t know. We’re on the phone with everyone who knew, trying to figure out who they talked to.”

“No phones,” I snapped. “Tell them to get their asses to Main; and so help them if I figure out one of them is a mole.”

Danny stepped forward, likely to calm me down, but I didn’t want calm.

“Liam, find every keystroke Brittany and Eric logged over the last few weeks. Figure out how Citadel found out!”