“Unfortunately, you’re going to have to.Either you come here and work for me, or I kill your mother and your friend.Is that something you’re willing to let happen?”
“You already know it’s not.”
A gentle hand on his arm made Cyril look up.Vale managed to look both angry and worried at the same time.Cyril was sure that if he could, Vale would reach through the phone and grab Helena.Unfortunately, no one had the power to do that.
“I’ll text you my position,” Helena said.“I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up, and for a moment, no one said anything.When Vale’s phone vibrated with a text, though, everyone around Cyril started moving.
He couldn’t.His mother and his best friend were in the hands of an organization that wouldn’t hesitate to kill them.How was he supposed to accept that?How was he supposed to deal with it?
“We’ll get them back,” Vale promised.
“What if she hurts them?”
“She won’t.She wants to use them as bait, and she can’t do that if they’re hurt or dead.She wants you to cooperate.She’ll lose you if she hurts them, and she’s too smart to do something that stupid.”
“I hope you’re right,” Cyril murmured.
“They’re in a cemetery,” Rachel declared.“She couldn’t even be original.”
Cyril snorted out a laugh, then slapped his hand over his mouth.He shouldn’t be laughing.He should be focused on getting his family back.
“We can win this fight,” Vale said, looking around the room.“But we’re going to have to be careful.We were planning on taking the fight to her, but she isn’t giving us the time to do that.She chose this cemetery for a reason, which means we need to know everything we can find about the place.We need to be ready for anything.”
“I can help,” Cyril offered.There was no one here who knew cemeteries better than he did.He didn’t feel like he was contributing enough, but it was better than nothing, and it would give him a distraction.“How much time do we have?”
“She didn’t say when she’s expecting us, but she’ll know that we won’t confront her if we’re not ready.This isn’t going to be an easy fight, but we do have a chance to win.”
Cyril prayed that Vale was right, but he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he wasn’t.
* * * *
VALE WASN’T GOING TOlet anyone hurt the people he cared about.He certainly wasn’t going to let Helena hurt the people Cyril cared about.He didn’t have a lot of them, and the fact that Helena had taken Cyril’s mother and his best friend made Vale feel enraged.He hated the woman even more than he had when they’d worked together, which he hadn’t thought possible.
He couldn’t focus on his anger, though.He shouldn’t focus on anything but getting these people back and kicking Helena out of town.He wasn’t sure he’d manage to do both of those things, but he was willing to die trying.
He just hoped he wouldn’t have to.
He glanced in the direction of the passenger seat, where Cyril was sitting.He kept bouncing his knee as he looked out the car window, and even though it was annoying, Vale hadn’t told him to stop.He understood having too much nervous energy, and he wanted Cyril to feel as comfortable as possible, considering the circumstances.
Telling Cyril to stay at the apartment or even in the car wouldn’t work.Helena had made this personal, which meant that whether Vale liked it or not, Cyril would be at the center of the fight, and Vale would have to protect both himself and the man he loved.
There was also the unknown of the team Helena had put together to deal with.Rachel hadn’t been able to find out much about these people, and while they knew that Helena’s team members had abilities, they didn’t know what those abilities were.They were aware of the woman who could manipulate darkness, but what about the other two?What could they do?How could Vale and his people prepare when they didn’t know?
“We should’ve known she’d grab them,” Cyril said suddenly.“She threatened to.”
“We thought your mother was out of town, and we were expecting Robbie to join us,” Vale pointed out.
“But you know what she’s capable of.We should’ve expected this.”
He wasn’t wrong, but it was too late to worry about that.The only thing they could do now was focus on getting the people they loved back and stopping Helena and her team.
Piece of cake.
The cemetery wasn’t far.It was late afternoon, so when they parked in the parking lot, it was mostly empty.Vale couldn’t afford to worry about the people who might still be hanging around.He hoped nothing would happen to them and that they would run as soon as they realized something was going on, but that would be on them, not on him.He really had enough people to worry about.
Russell parked next to Vale, and before he even turned off the car, Rachel was out of the backseat, raising her computer.Vale frowned and hurried out of his car, eager to know what was happening.
