the morning.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding.
We turn and go to walk through the gates when I hear the sound of a gun cocking. I spin around and see Alarick, Cohen, Samson, Mykel, and Kendric all standing, pointing their guns at Benedict. He turns around when he realizes I’m not stopping. When he sees the club, his eyes widen. Probably from shock, he honestly didn’t see them coming. That’s one on the club score board.
“Move, I blow your fuckin’ brains out,” Alarick growls.
“Get in the truck,” Cohen orders, nodding to the truck that is now rolling in to park up behind Benedict’s car. Zariah is driving.
“Who the hell are you?” Benedict demands, his face stony.
“You’ll find out, when you get into the car.”
“I won’t get into your car. I’m calling for help!”
He pulls out his phone, and Cohen aims his gun and shoots his foot. The sound that comes out of Benedict’s mouth is horrifying. It’s a pained bellow that makes my skin prickle. He drops down to the ground and his phone skitters out of his hand. The men move fast, cuffing him and dragging him, still roaring in pain, into the back of the truck. As they’re about to close the door, he looks to me and mouths, “You?”
I smile and shrug. “Me.”
Then his eyes flutter closed, probably from the pain, and he passes out. I turn and walk over, picking up his phone. This will have location tracking on it, so I don’t want to be leaving it anywhere that will lead to us. I check the screen—it’s still unlocked so I quickly scroll through his messages. One is from a man he seems to contact quite a lot, and I send a message saying, “Business as usual tomorrow, I’m turning in for the evening.”
It sounds very similar to the other messages. I simply want them to know he’s at home.
I glance around, there are no cameras pointing out to the street that I can see, probably lucky because as soon as we stepped inside those gates it’s a given that there would be cameras surrounding that house. I suppose Benedict doesn’t spend much time worrying about who is on the street. I bet he’ll come to regret that decision. I throw his phone into his yard and then get into Cohen’s truck when it pulls up.
He looks to me and a grin spreads across his face. “We did it.”
We fucking did it.
Finally.
19
NOW – COHEN
I take Aviana’s face in my hands, eyes scanning over it to look for one single fucking mark that might tell me if she’s hurt, but she’s relaxed and smiling, a victorious smile, one full of pride and glee. “I did it,” she whispers, looking up at me with those sweet fucking eyes. “I fucking did it, Cohen. I got him here. I can’t believe I got him here.”
I exhale the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding since the moment she walked into that bar. “You’re fuckin’ incredible. You know that?”
She beams. “We’re halfway there.”
I lean down, pressing my lips to hers. Neither of us has established any sort of relationship or what it is we’re doing here, but right now, I need to fucking kiss her more than she could imagine. She melts into me, soft hands going up and playing with my hair, lips parting, and a small whimper coming from her throat. Fuck yeah. She wants this as much as I want it.
Thank fuck for that.
“Get a room, you two. We’ve got business.”
We part to see Alarick, Kendric, and Zariah walking into the room. I release Aviana, but I’m not fucking happy about it. This better be good.
“Where’s Benedict?” I ask.
Alarick glances at Aviana. “He’s chained up. We’ve got to keep moving because a scene is goin’ to be caused if we stay here.”
“Are we talkin’ to him first?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“He wants to talk to her,” Kendric nods to Aviana. “I say we let him. Whatever we can do to get the information...”
“He wants to do it alone,” Alarick goes on.
“No fuckin’ way. As if we trust him,” I growl.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him,” Aviana shrugs. “I got him this far. If he’s going to talk to me, then we’d be stupid not to take that chance.”
I look to her. “He’s a clever, very dangerous man. Don’t want you anywhere near him alone.”
She smiles at me. “I appreciate that, but we have to get this moving, as Alarick said.”
“He’s secured,” Zariah tells us. “I’ve double-checked.