Page 36 of Fearless

Knowing Liam might be his best bet, as he and Sean had a special closeness, Ash looked at him first. The man was already shaking his head.

“I wish I did,” Liam said. “Last time I talked to him, he said he needed to get away and think. That was over four months ago.”

“And he gave you no idea where he would go?”

“No. I called his stepmother, hoping she’d know how to get in touch with him. Turns out, she died a couple months back. Spoke to her sister, who said she hadn’t heard from Sean since the funeral. I’ve called him several times and left messages. He’s not called back.”

Ash uttered a curse under his breath. This was not good. Brenda was the last of his immediate family. All he had left was Serena, his in-laws, and his OZ family, all of whom he had abandoned.

“All right. Liam, I want you and Hawke to find him. Turn the world upside down if you have to, but until we know where he is, there’s no way we can be sure he’s safe. Not only does he need to know about Serena, but whether he wants to admit it or not, he’s still our family. And we take care of our own.”

Chapter Sixteen

Kingsley’s compound

Serena suppressed a shiver as she took in her new surroundings. This was definitely a different kind of room than any she’d been in before. Instead of a soothing light blue wall, thick rugs, and Kingsley’s giant desk, she was sitting in a windowless, cold, dank concrete basement-like structure. Plastic tarps covered the floor, hopefully to only give the illusion that blood or other bodily fluids were often spilled here. Across the room were various instruments of torture that she was certain were used to intimidate. She knew all about these kinds of tactics. One of the most important parts of torture was making the victim feel as vulnerable and hopeless as possible. Scaring them with visuals of what might be done to them ramped up the fear and dread. She had seen many people give up before they were even touched.

During her last SERE training, she had watched some of the toughest-looking men and women crumble beneath the harsh conditions they were forced to endure. Serena knew she was no superhero. She knew she could handle pain, but she was as human as anyone else. At some point, she would break.

As stupid as it might seem, though, she trusted Kingsley would not harm her physically—at least not to the point where she couldn’t function. They had taken her for a reason. They wanted her mind. Just like with Jenson Mosley, the torture would likely continue to come in the form of threats. Kingsley could promise death and suffering for her loved ones all he wanted, but she had ensured they would be protected. What else could he do to her?

She could only imagine the scrambling that was taking place now that Ash had received her alarm. He would have notified her dad, who would take care of everyone in Francine. Her OZ family would be secure as well. And the five CIs she had exposed also had protection plans in place.

If Sean were not so well hidden, he would be a concern for her, too. For the first time, she was thankful he had gone so far off the grid. Finding him would be hard for her, much less for anyone who didn’t know him well.

Everyone was protected, so what else could Kingsley threaten? Seeing his anger up close had been eye-opening and chilling. She couldn’t deny that. The madness she had glimpsed behind that bright smile had been front and center. The evil he had merely teased her with yesterday was at full force now.

In case she was wrong about the physical torture, she had prepared herself. Her muscles were loose from yesterday’s workout, swim, and sauna. She was well hydrated and had consumed enough protein and carbohydrates to sustain her for a while.

So she was prepared as well as she could be for the coming storm.

And, like a powerful, wild storm, Kingsley burst through the door and stomped into the room. The fury she’d seen on his face earlier had not lessened. It had, in fact, only increased. Yeah, he’d discovered all of her machinations. Evil people didn’t like to be stymied or shown that there were people smarter than they were. The weak ones relied on fury and cruelty to make up for their powerlessness. It was never pretty.

“You think you’ve bested me,” Kingsley snarled. “You haven’t.”

“I gave you what you asked for. Did what you wanted.”

“You tricked me.”

Even though she’d set up the entire protocol, she needed to know if everything had occurred the way she had planned. Finding out without alerting Kingsley he was being questioned would be tricky.

“In what way? You asked for intel, and I gave it to you.”

“It was all fake!” he roared.

For him to have figured that out so fast, he must have had at least a half-dozen tech geniuses scouring the data she’d downloaded. Most of it had been fictional, but she’d blended it with enough facts to make everything look authentic and important. She had never intended that the fake info do more than buy her time. She had just hoped it would be slightly more time than she’d had.

Since there was nothing she could say or do to make what she had done look better, she stayed silent.

It was good she had, since his next words told her what she wanted to know most.

“You alerted your family! Your team!” he shouted. “Everybody’s gone! Your family, the CIs—everybody!” Spittle sprayed as he spat out the last words. The man was working himself into a frenzy, and she needed to talk him back from the precipice. He was even more unhinged than she had first suspected. Insanely evil people were hard to predict. In his fury, he might do something he would later regret.

“Protecting my family causes you no harm.” She used a calm but firm tone, with no hint of anger or threat.

He blinked rapidly for several seconds, almost as if his brain was recalibrating. Then he stared hard at her with wild, bloodshot eyes for several long moments. She could almost see the man’s brain reconfiguring, the synapses firing off evil, dark thoughts. Serena refused to flinch or look away. He needed to see her resolve, her unwillingness to compromise. She had done what she’d set out to do. Her loved ones—the people he wanted to use against her—were safe. What came next was up to him.

Their eyes remained locked for so long she began to wonder if he was having some kind of medical issue, but then he sprang from his chair and ran toward her like a demon from hell. Since she was trapped in the wheelchair without an inch of mobility, she had only a fierce, unrelenting expression and her words to use against him.