Page 7 of Captive Beta

It’s not the same as before. The danger doesn’t come from one asshole sending a few people after them. There are dozens, if not more, organisations who know who she is, who know what kind of pressure they can put on Mathew, on our whole pack, if they get their hands on her.

“Is he coming?” Miles comes back over from checking the area.

“Yeah. He said she does this sometimes. That we should just wait.” I keep looking around, really hoping that Caleb is right and she’ll simply appear again.

“What do you want me to tell Timothy? I can’t not tell him anything, that’s going to cost me my head and I prefer to keep it.”

“Wait until Caleb is here. He’s the one who said she’ll return on her own. So he’ll hopefully have a plan. They’re busy enough with the mission as it is. We don’t have to give them more problems until we’ve got a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“Okay.” Miles doesn’t look very happy, but I have no idea what else we should be doing.

This isn’t what I normally do. I don’t go out on missions.

Apart from what Derrick told me, I don’t actually know that much about what we’re supposed to do in these cases.

I know what we have to do if any of us get attacked, or kidnapped.

But there’s no protocol for ‘stealthy Omega sneaks off on her own without telling any of us’.

After tonight, I’m going to make sure that there is one. Because I don’t want to have to worry like this again.

Vera…

What are you getting up to now?

Where did you go?

Why did you suddenly disappear without telling me?

4

Riley

Timothy’s van is pretty fucking cool. It’s full of computer stuff and ways to keep in touch with everyone. He’s got multiple monitors, all with different things on them, and his mouse pointer swoops over them at high speed as he taps out information, updating what we know by the second.

I can definitely see how this makes missions so much easier and allows them to adapt the plans for whole teams in real time. It also means that everyone can focus on the here and now and doesn’t have to remember everything the whole time. The teams only have to focus on what they have to do and Timothy can provide them with the rest.

“I’m in their system. I’ve got control of all their cameras.” He looks at Mathew and me, his gaze full of concentration. “I count twenty guards in total, as we expected. They seem to be where we expected them to be too. The information we got seems to be valid.”

“So far, so good.” Mathew’s voice is quiet, strong. “Anything unusual from the teams?”

The leaders of each team check in, their voices clear through the earpiece, but everything seems to be good to go for them too. Which is a promising start.

Though, the tension that something isn’t right won’t leave me.

I don’t want to be surprised by something bad, especially because we know that the Hearts have been messing with our information sources for months, if not longer. But, at the same time, for a company of this type, of this size, low-tech and basic security isn’t unusual.

The tension between those two parts is keeping me on edge, has kept me on edge for days now. And I’m so done with it.

“If everyone is in place, we can progress to the next phase.” Mathew moves at my side, his hand on my back. “We should get going too.” He gives me a daring smile.

Fuck, that’s so sexy!

Watching him in charge of it all, his easy confidence as he puts together the plans for the mission, it’s been really fun to watch, but also a constant reminder that this guy has done this plenty of times before. He knows what he’s doing, this has been his world for years and the reason he’s at the top of the game is because he’s fucking good at it.

And I not only get to work with him, but he’s my mate too.

If I had dreams of the future, this would probably have been a dream come true.

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