Big Ben (See No Evil Trilogy #1) - Nana Malone Page 0,10

I was out, I had to track her down. The woman in red.

Before I was through the final gate, I caught a glimpse of East and Bridge waiting for me.?East gave me a smirk as he spoke. “Did you have to hit him?”

I shrugged.? “We needed time. It seemed like a good idea at that moment.”

Bridge, however, looked well ticked off.? “That was a fucking risk with the device on you.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, that’s the thing.?I figured once I put my hands on him, I was definitely going to the nick,?so I ditched it.”

Both of them gaped at me.? “What?”

East’s eyes bugged out.? “Tell me you’re kidding.”? He turned to Bridge.? “Tell me he’s fucking kidding.”

Bridge stared at me.? He dropped his voice to smooth ice. “Where the fuck is it?”

“The woman at the event, the one in red, if she’s smart, she has it.”

Bridge sputtered. “If she’s smart??What the fuck, Ben??You realize you’re risking all of us, right?”

“What the fuck was I supposed to do, mate??We needed more time.?I got us some more time.?You needed to download the information from both his phone and the device.?I managed to do that.?What would you have had me do??They were patting me down.”

Bridge ran a hand over his face before scrubbing at his jaw.? “Who is she?”

I winced.? “I don’t know.”

East was generally an affable bloke.?Easy-going. He’d give you the shirt off his back, but when he was pushed, he could be vicious.?He stormed away, muttering curses that would make the most hardened prisoner blush.?Bridge lifted a brow.? “Mate, tell me you’re not serious.”

“I am.?I had no choice. There was no way I would have been able to leave the building with it.?So we just need to find her.”

East came back after his mini tirade.? “Do you think?”

I turned my gaze on him and pinned him with a hard glare.? “The way I figure it, you can stand here carrying on or we can go back and start looking for her.”

I could see East doing his deep breathing, trying to calm himself down and keep his temper at bay.?After everything we’d found out about Toby, he’d been a mess.?We’d all been in bad shape, but East had taken it the worst.

He’d internalized what had happened.?And I could see him trying to work through his calming exercises before he lost his mind.? “Think, mate.?Was it a clean handoff?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.? “It was as clean as I could make it.?Van Linsted hit me, and she came running over. We both went down with security, and I shoved it in her purse. She might not even know she has it.”

East blinked at me. “Bloody perfect.”

“That’s all I’ve got right now.?Are we going to yak on about it, or are we going to go do something?”

I watched him take several deep breaths.? “Fuck.”

“Do you have a guest list? She’s probably on the security footage.?We’re going to need to ascertain who she was there with.”

East muttered.? “It’s as good a place as any to start.?In the meantime, we’ll need to also comb the security footage to make sure that no one saw you make the handoff.”

“I don’t think they did.”

“Thinking isn’t certainty.?If anyone finds that drive and puts two and two together, we’re toast.?Our lives are over.”

“Like I was fucking around deliberately. I know why the drive is so important. I know what’s at stake.”

Bridge opened the driver’s side door.? “Then let’s hope your mysterious woman in red has what we need.?And you damn well better pray she’s not going to sell us out.”

I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I did. “She won’t.”

East glowered at me as he climbed into the Range Rover at the curb. “You better be right about that.”

I don’t know what it was about her, but something told me that she wasn’t the kind of woman who would dick us over.

But it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d been wrong.

4

Ben

3 Months Earlier

The pomp. The circumstance. Some would even say tradition.

I called it bullshit. My long-hidden tattoo itched and felt heavy under my ring. I often wondered what would have happened all those years ago if, when I’d been called to the Elite, I’d said no. What if I’d gotten the card that said only a select few are to be Elite and I’d burned the thing?

What if I’d encouraged Toby to burn his too? Would he still be alive?

The dim cavern of the initiation room made it difficult to see