“Zan, meet us at our position…” Maddox instructed.
“On my way,” Zander whispered.
“Get her to safety and then come back. Make sure you’re not followed,” Ronin suggested to Nix.
Phoenix arched an eyebrow. “This isn’t my first time doing this, worrywart,” his friend snarked. “I'll be back."
As he turned to leave, Ronin heard the woman’s tiny voice. “Thank you!” she whispered. “I can never thank you enough...” Then her voice drifted away.
Ronin turned to Maddox and Zander. “I say we stick together moving forward. No need to take any unnecessary risks.”
Maddox and Zander both nodded.
Ronin, Maddox, and Zander faced the entrance to the warehouse again and went back to their initial plan of watching and waiting. Time seemed to be dragging by—the inactivity making it feel like a crawl. Ro wasn’t sure how long they’d been waiting when the door finally opened and out walked a man. Ronin grabbed his phone out of his pocket and pulled up the picture. He showed it to Zander and Maddox. They both nodded. It was definitely Anton.
He put his phone away and kept his eyes on the man. The alpha stood outside and looked around for several minutes. They all slowed their breathing down as they had been trained to do, staying completely still. Anton looked around one last time before he turned around and went back into the warehouse.
“What do you think that was about?” Zander whispered.
“Probably looking for the woman, maybe even the man I killed.” Ronin kept his eyes planted on the front of the warehouse as he spoke.
With those words, it finally occurred to him Phoenix hadn’t come back, and for a moment, he wondered if something had happened to him. “I don’t think anything else is going to happen tonight.”
Zander nodded in agreement.
“Let’s go check up on Phoenix and the woman, and then we’ll come back tomorrow,” Ronin suggested
Maddox and Zander agreed, and they began heading back to the van, making sure not to do anything to draw attention to themselves.
When they were at a safe distance, Ronin went back on comms. “Phoenix, you there?”
Nix answered right away. “On my way back. Had to reassure her we weren’t leaving her there.”
“Copy that,” Ronin replied, “On our way back. Just stay there. Wrapping up for the night. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
Nix replied immediately, “Heading back to rendezvous point. See you there.”
“Did you get anything from the woman?” Ronin couldn’t help asking. “She’s an omega, right?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Cybil, and Ro, she’s super freaked out.” His friend cursed. “She told me some shit that makes me want to bash some heads in.”
“You’ll get your chance.” Maddox's voice was hard as he replied.
Ro was barely holding on to his anger, and he could see Zan was feeling the same. It took everything he had not to turn around and barge in, recon be damned.
“Fill us in when we get there. Should be back in ten.” He muted the comms again. They were almost at the vehicles when a thought occurred to him. “We can’t leave yet,” Ro said.
“Why not?” Maddox asked.
“I have to take care of the dead body. Mad, why don’t you come with me so we can get rid of him before he’s found.” He nodded at Zan. “Go back Nix up, just in case anything comes up.”
He swerved in the direction that led him back to the window that he had seen earlier in the night. When he got there, he stopped and looked around.
“Fuck,” Ronan cursed.
“What?” Maddox asked.
“I left him here.” Ronin pointed to the place where he knew he’d left the body. He looked up at Maddox and saw his friend had a frown on his face.
