Page 50 of Hidden Obsession

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cleo glared at Shane.“No way am I staying here.”

He may be her boss, but she was done letting other people look for her man while she sat back like a lame duck.

Shane sighed and brushed his hand down his jaw. “We don’t know how dangerous it is or what Travis might have in place.” His argument was solid, but Cleo didn’t care; she needed to be there to see him.

Ready to wear her heart on her sleeve, Cleo decided to open up to the team and lay it all on the line for them. Moving toward Shane she looked up at him. “Please, Shane. I love him, and my heart can’t take sitting back and waiting for you to tell me he’s okay.” She had to believe it would end with him being okay because anything else was unthinkable. The tenderness that crossed Shanes’ face made her continue. “If it were Emme in this predicament you wouldn’t sit back and wait.”

Shane glanced across at the woman he loved, and she saw the same fierce love and devotion she did when Mason looked at her. “No, of course not, but I’m trained and so is Emme.” He returned his gaze to her, but he was losing the battle.

“I’ll watch her and make sure she’s safe,” Nick said.

Shane’s eyes swung to his best friend. A million words were silently spoken between the two men. Eventually, Shane nodded and moved his eyes to her, his face stern. “You do exactly what Nick says, you hear me?”

Cleo nodded. “Absolutely.”

With that said she watched as the team grabbed their gear, including weapons, comms, and bulletproof vests before trailing out the door to the three vehicles parked in the back.

She and Nick would be driving Malco and Caitlin. Killian was now fully recovered from his encounter with the poison and sat beside her, leaning his big body into her as if sensing she needed comfort from the racing, terrified thoughts inside her head. Cleo rubbed her hand over the soft fur at his neck, and he turned and licked her cheek, making her smile and laugh, easing the tension coiling in her gut.

Nick turned from his place in the front seat, where he sat beside Malco. “When we get there, we’ll be going in soft. We have no idea what traps he may have set or where he’s keeping Mason.”

Cleo nodded and accepted that this team—her friends—knew what they were doing. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I’m not here to cause problems. I need to be here for Mason.” Her voice felt wobbly as tears burned the back of her throat. Nick nodded sharply accepting her word.

Before long, she saw the shapes of the industrial estate and the warehouses came into view. A shudder went through her to think Mason was here and incapacitated in some way. She just held on to the hope that because Travis believed he was in love with Mason he wouldn’t harm him.

Malco parked behind the back of a warehouse on the furthest edge of the estate, and they exited the vehicle. Shane moved toward them with Wolf and Emme. Mercy was leaning on the hood of the car with a laptop open in front of her.

Shane stood with his hands on his hips in full command of everything and everyone. “This is what is going to happen.” He eyeballed them all. “Malco and Emme, you’ll go in the back and check out the rear of the warehouse. Caitlin and Wolf, I want you to sweep the area for any sign of where he might be holding Mason. Use Killy to your advantage. We have no idea how long we have. Mercy, you and I are going in through the front door. Nick, I want you on the roof in case this fucker comes back or decides to run. Nobody takes one of ours and gets away with it.” The steely set of his jaw told everyone how personally Shane was taking this. Cleo had always known the people at Alliance were more friends than colleagues, but now she realized they were actually more like family. Shane pinned her eyes with his. “You will wait in this car and under no circumstance are you to leave it. Do you understand?”

Cleo nodded again noting the severity of the situation and wanting not to be in the way.

“Right, let’s rollout.”

Mercy handed comms to everyone except her, which she knew was so she couldn’t hear what was happening and run in to try and save the day. She didn’t like it, but she knew why they did it. The fact was, she wasn’t a badass operative. She was the office manager, and her skill set did not lie in rolling around the floor playing army or diving through windows. She could find a one-cent discrepancy in payroll and organize a mean spreadsheet, but the rescue would have to be left to the professionals. She loved Mason far too much to put him at risk with her ill-planned attempt to play the hero.

Locking the doors, she watched the team disappear in different directions as if they hadn’t been there just seconds ago. Her eyes strained to see them, but she couldn’t, they had vanished from sight. Now alone with her thoughts, Cleo tried her hardest to push the fear that was suffocating in its intensity to the side. She needed to stay positive, and she and Mason would get through this stronger than ever.

She had no illusions it would be easy for a man like Mason to not take it personally and as an insult to his ability that he hadn’t known one of his best friends was becoming someone he didn’t know. That he hadn’t seen the threat he posed to them both. She also knew his sweet, compassionate side would wish he’d stopped Travis’s slide into a sick and twisted mindset where his love for Mason had become a need to claim him and see his love returned whatever the cost.

Her heart ached for the pain she knew Mason would feel, but it also hurt for Travis. What must he have gone through to have made him flip this way?

The silence in the car was eating away at her as she continued to scan the horizon looking for any sign of the team returning with Mason, but all she saw was deserted concrete and metal.

A tap on the window made her jump. Turning she stared into the barrel of a gun pointed at her head. Travis inclined his head and pointed at the door. He wanted her to get out of the vehicle. Her heart hammered in her throat and sweat instantly beaded her brow as the calm, calculated man motioned for her to do as he asked, emphasizing it with a wave of the gun in his hand. Her mind flew over her options—she could stay in the vehicle and risk being shot in the head or she could go with him and hope the team managed to get Mason out before Travis could hurt him and kill her. She had no other option but to slowly open the door.

“Hands where I can see them,” Travis growled, pulling her roughly from the vehicle. She stumbled and would have lost her footing except for the cruel hold he had on her arm. “Start walking, and if you even think about trying to alert your team, I’ll shoot Mason and make you watch.”

Cleo had no idea if he was bluffing, but she had no intention of finding out. Walking slowly by his side, she cast glances at the man who’d seemed so sweet. Was there any chance to redeem him? Could he be saved? A good man had resided in him at some stage, but he had gotten lost somehow.

“How long have you been in love with Mason?” She kept her voice soft, not wanting him to think she was trying to let the team know where she was. She didn’t think he would answer but was surprised when he did.

“Almost since the day we met. I knew he was straight, but Mason never saw me as broken or dirty. He just saw the person, saw me for who I was inside instead of the homosexual embarrassment my family saw. I fell in love with him despite knowing it couldn’t be.”

“That’s awful your family felt that way. I’m sorry. Did Mason know you were gay?”

Travis shook his head. “No. After my first real boyfriend died of a heart attack when he was in his late twenties, I kept my sexuality hidden. And I’m bi-sexual, not gay. Merrick was everything Mason is. Sweet, kind, funny, loyal.” Cleo heard the love in his voice and then the heartbreak. “Then he was gone, and my entire world fell apart. If it weren’t for my job, it would have killed me. Then I met Mason, and he healed something inside me.”

“He cares about you,” Cleo admitted and wondered if pointing out it was purely platonic would be a good idea.

“He loves me, he just can’t see it because of you,” he growled. Cleo flinched at the hate in his words and tone. Travis was unstable, and she needed to find a way out of there.

As they rounded a corner, a small Winnebago came into view that had partially been hidden by a tarp. Looking back she saw there was a second entrance to the alleyway beside the warehouse he’d held Mason in.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked as she noticed a black fur snout with Caitlin holding the leash on the far-left corner of the warehouse. Travis hadn’t spotted her, so she drew his attention away.

“Mason needs to grieve your death and see for himself you’re gone so he can move on. Once we get somewhere safe, I’ll kill you, and Mason can begin to let you go and see how much he needs me.”

Cleo swallowed the bile sloshing in her belly at the way he spoke of her death as if it was as easy as putting the bins out for collection.

Travis opened the door of the motorhome and shoved her through. She fell to her knees, the course carpet biting into the skin on her hands and a choked sob of fear fell from her lips. Looking up, she saw the prone figure of the man she loved on the bed, his hands bound and bleeding, his eyes closed, chest almost still.

Her eyes froze on him. More than anything she wanted to crawl to him but didn’t want to anger Travis any more than he was, lest they both end up dead.

As Travis turned away the most beautiful set of eyes gazed at her with such surprise, followed by intense love, she thought she would faint from relief. He was alive. He was okay. But then he shook his head sadly, and the light went out of them as he turned away from her, pain like none she had seen before on etched on his face.