Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(57)

“I overheard my fake parents say something about that,” Wynn said. “They feared for their lives if they were turned back over to Syadne. Jafaar offered them safety in exchange for the formulas they had.”

Owen shook his head.

“Let’s stop there,” Kit said. “We’ve got our next steps figured out.”

Lion leaned forward. “Kit…regarding the WKB, my cubs are trained to watch without being seen. Let me take them back into the woods.”

“No,” Hope said. “It’s winter already.”

Lion looked at his sister. “My cubs have survived many winters without the comforts they now have.”

Hope gave him a frosty glare. “Sure, but then they had the barracks at the WKB as a home base. They don’t have that luxury now. We have them—and you—safe here. Please, Lion, don’t do this.”

“One of my cubs is missing. Nothing else matters to me and my pride until he’s recovered.” He looked at Addy, then Owen. “And it isn’t because he’s your son. It’s because he’s my cub. It would be the same with any of them.”

“I can’t, in good conscience, send you and your boys into this,” Owen said.

“You don’t have a choice. We are like the wind. You neither own us nor can you hold us, but you can—and should—use us.”

Owen sighed. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Kit, I need a rendezvous point for them supplied with food, clothes, blankets, medical supplies, and comms. Work it out with Lion.”

“Copy that,” Kit said.

Owen looked at Lion. “I want regular check-ins. You—and all your cubs—will return here when this is done.”

Lion just nodded.

Addy was surprised that Owen would use the kids as irregulars in this fight, but if they could do what Lion said they could do, she’d be grateful as hell. Augie was lucky to have gotten in with such fierce, capable boys. She had no idea if the Omni World Order was about to go down in flames, or if it would persist like a coal fire, burning underground forever. Either way, the skills her son had learned and the friends he’d made were ones he could fall back on the rest of his life.

“There anything else we need to cover?” Owen asked. Everyone shook their heads. “Kit, organize what you have to. You need something, let me know. I have resources the company doesn’t know about.”



It was midnight. Owen had waited until the house was silent, debating all the while if he was doing the right thing. If Addy didn’t believe him by now, then it was unlikely his sappy love letters, written when he was out of his mind with grief—or later, when he’d come to terms with her ghost—were going to make any difference.

He could retrieve the letters and decide later what to do with them. He turned off the security in the hall, the elevator bedroom, the elevator, and the weapons room. Maybe the time for fear had passed. Maybe it was time to lay everything on the table and let her make of it what she would.

In the weapons room, he opened the cabinet with the false back where he’d stashed his locked boxes. Retrieving them, he stood and came face to face with Max—the stone-cold fighter version.

“What are you doing?” Max asked.

“Not something that concerns you.”

“I might have bought that before you went AWOL. Now, not so much. There’s too many odd pieces in flight, and I gotta tell you I’m not a fan of mysteries. What’s in the boxes?’

“None of your goddamned business.”

Kit walked in behind Max. Both of them stood shoulder to shoulder, arms folded. “Let’s just say we’re making it our business.” The smile he gave Owen was full of teeth and empty of humor.

Owen looked down at the steel boxes, feeling an unwelcome warmth flush his neck and face. He set them on the big counter in the middle of the room, then fished the keys out of his pocket and tossed them near the boxes.

Kit and Max opened the boxes, then, seeing the contents, looked in question at each other. Inside were bundles of letters, grouped by year.

“Open them,” Owen ordered. Some of the letters had been postmarked to and from him. Others simply had dates on the sealed envelopes.

Max used his pocket knife to unseal a random letter from a packet dated five years ago. Owen felt raw and exposed as he watched his men, like a schoolboy caught passing a love note to his girl being made to stand in front of the class and read it aloud.

Max pulled another letter out from a different bundle and scanned it. “Shit.” Kit did the same. “These are love letters.”

Owen said nothing.

“To Addy,” Kit said. “You wrote these when you thought she was dead.”

“Fuck. Me.” Max folded the letters he’d been reading and stuffed them back into their envelopes. “I’m sorry, man. Don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.”

“Yeah.” Owen forced that answer past his throat.

Kit handed the keys back to Owen. “What can we do?”

“Nothing. Unless you know how to un-brainwash someone?” Owen picked up the lockboxes. Both men flanked him as he got into the elevator.

“Remi might have some ideas,” Max said.

“I’ll talk to her,” Owen said, though he knew he probably wouldn’t. Just thinking about his lost Addy years felt like chewing razor blades. Discussing it with anyone would be even worse.