Page 47 of Chain Me Knot

“SUV. Garage. We’ve gotta get out of here.” Asher hands Emma back to me. She's more alert now, trembling against my chest, her fingers clinging to my shirt. She clenches her jaw as her teeth chatter. Her wild eyes are trained on the men on the floor and the sprays of blood over the counter.

Asher takes point, moving through the house. Soren covers our six, his breathing controlled but heavy. The garage door seems miles away but thankfully we don’t encounter any more intruders. Asher opens the door, and we silently enter the garage. Asher takes the fob off the rack we keep in the garbage and unlocks the SUV. Soren holds the door open as I scramble into the back seat cradling Emma. I clip the belt round both of us as Soren takes shotgun position and Asher dives behind the wheel. I grip my Glock in my free hand, both of us ready to provide covering fire if needed.

The garage door opens and Asher guns the engine. The SUV's tires spin on polished concrete before finding grip, launching us forward with enough force to thrust me forward. The belt snaps against us. A small sound of distress escapes Emma as we rocket out of the garage.

The SUV fishtails as Asher cranks the wheel, tires screaming in protest as we careen onto the central driveway. The maneuver throws us sideways, my body curling around Emma to absorb the impact.

The engine roars as Asher floors it, acceleration pinning us back again. Trees and buildings blur past, the SUV's headlights catching glimpses of more black-clad figures diving out of our path. So many of them. Through the windshield, I see the guardhouse approaching fast, dark and empty. The security barrier stands raised like an invitation, when it should be locked down tight.

“We’re being shadowed,” Soren snaps, twisting in his seat. Headlights flare in the side mirrors. One set, then another.

The SUV hits the main road with a squeal of tortured rubber, Asher wrestling the wheel to keep us stable as we accelerate even more. Emma whimpers againstmy chest, and I hold her tighter, my free hand keeping the Glock trained on the rear window where pursuit lights grow larger.

They planned this. They had inside help. And now they're hunting us.

“Hold on,” Asher growls, and presses the accelerator to the floor.

Chapter Nineteen

Soren

The SUV's engine roars as Asher pushes the vehicle to its limits, the speedometer climbing past numbers I don't want to think about. My fingers grip the dashboard, knuckles white as we take a corner fast enough to mark the bitumen. In the back seat, Phoenix cradles Emma against his chest, his expression fierce and protective in the passing streetlights.

This shouldn't be happening. The safe house was secure. I personally oversaw every detail of its security system. Every guard was vetted, every protocol triple-checked. Yet here we are, running from an attack that came from inside ourown perimeter.

Jones. The thought makes bile rise in my throat. We all trusted him to protect vulnerable witnesses, but this explains his sketchy behavior when we brought Emma here.

How many of our own are working against us?

“Two vehicles still on our six,” I report, checking the side mirror. The pursuing SUVs are keeping pace, professional drivers at the wheel. If they wanted to run us off the road, they’d be more aggressive. Makes me think they want at least one of us alive, and I’m sure the alphas in this SUV are the expendable ones.

“Carmichael money, you think?” Phoenix speaks through gritted teeth as we take another hard turn.

“Whoever it is knows the compound and is rich enough to bribe. Pack Carmichael are rich enough, but this would implicate someone with police knowledge,” Asher finishes, his voice dark with fury.

There’s only one person with the highest level of command able to infiltrate with this number of officers. “The commissioner,” I say.

It’s a brash, desperate move especially risky for whoever’s pulling the strings. We’ve run our own investigations, searching for any link between the Commissioner and the omega auctions, but he’s been meticulous. There’s never been anything solid tying him to the crimes, but if he orchestrated this raid, he’s gambling everything. It’s loud, reckless, and leaves him wide open to exposure. “We’re not safe anywhere. If they can compromise the safe house, nowhere in the system is secure. Every police facility, every protective custody location, are all potentially compromised,” Asher says.

“We need to go dark. Ditch the phones, avoid cameras. We can't trust anyone in the department. Not now,” I say.

We swerve around a slower vehicle. My heart clenches at the fear in Emma’s scent. Her eyes are wide, jumping everywhere. We finally got her to trust us, to feel safe, and now this.

Asher slams his fist on the wheel. “I double checked everything.Everyone—”

“Don’t beat yourself up, brother.” I can talk. I’m beating myself up on the inside pretty well. “This extends much wider and bigger than we can hope to protect against.”

I don’t want to voice it out loud to add to Emma’s distress, but I’m sure if they’d secured her, we wouldn’t be breathing now.

“We need to lose these tails. Then find somewhere off-grid to regroup,” Phoenix says.

“I have an idea of where we can go, but I need to send an encrypted message. Hand me your phones first. We need to get rid of everything traceable,” I say.

I dismantle our phones and smash the sim cards before dropping them out of the window. As I move, I feel Carl Jones’s phone in my pocket. That’s going to have to go too because it definitely can be traced.

I turn the phone on, noting the coded lock screen. My eyes catch the fingerprints smudged across the surface, and I follow the pattern. The phone unlocks, granting me access to a message stream that could prove crucial. Scrolling through, I find a thread that lights fireworks in my brain. It’s a conversation with an Alpha1465, detailing the exact time and location for the “extraction.”

I have key evidence in my hand, and I know it could be pivotal in piecing together the case, however I can’t keep this phone. Keeping it would put my omega in unnecessary danger, and I won’t risk being traced for anything. Besides, knowing there’s an Alpha1465 without linking a true identity still gives us nothing.

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