Chapter 311 Chapter 311
Gia glanced at the phone sitting beside Deacon’s plate, he’d looked at it more than twenty times in the last half hour. When they’d sat down a message had come through, it was one number, nothing more. Illias had sent the key that Deacon would need to figure out the message they were going to send. Neither of them had expected the second message to take this long.
He hadn’t said more than five words during that time either. He had been trying all day to stay clear of her, and she had given him his space, not pushing for more. She’d known the risks the night before. It was hard not to push him though, the entire day he’d kept moving from one thing to the next without pause. Checking the traps, cleaning the kills, stretching the pelts, preparing the cabin for winter, and a dozen other things. The only thing that helped her to silently endure it was the look he kept giving her when he didn’t think she was watching. His actions were saying one thing, but his heart was telling him something different. Gia was content with that, eventually, emotions had a way of overcoming internal objections.
Pushing her plate away, she smirked at him. “If they wanted our undivided attention, they succeeded.”
He picked up the phone and looked at it once more. “It’s a lot of moving pieces to keep track of.”
“Do you think we’re going back to the same area?”
Placing his fork on the plate, he stood up and picked up their dishes. “I don’t know. Tomas has to know we found one of their houses by now,” he went over to the counter and set them in the basin, “not to mention one of their lackey’s entire group is missing.”
She watched him hesitate, trying to decide if he was sitting down again or washing the dishes. Getting up, she went over and picked up the kettle to check how much water was in it and put it back on the stove. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to need some coffee to get through waiting.”
He smirked, “hopefully the next message comes tonight.”
Gia spun around, “they wouldn’t keep us in suspense that long, would they?”
He shrugged, “it’s been known to happen.”
With her hands on her hips, she looked around the cabin, “well I’m out of things to do to kill that much time...”
The phone beeped and they both turned to stare at it.
“Showtime.” He whispered and went back over and picked it up. “A phone number.” He sat down and opened the small notebook.
Gia stood behind him and looked over his shoulder as he figured out the right order of it. He did it so fast that she wasn’t able to figure out how it worked.
When he dropped the pen, he glanced up at her for a moment, there was something in that look that made her heart ache. She felt it too. Calling the number meant their time here alone was over. “Call it,” she said softly.
He dialed the number and then hit the speaker button.
“Ding, ding, ding. You are the winner and the first call on our new hotline.” Illias sang into the other end. “I’m going to put you on hold, Deacon,” he cleared his throat, “and partner, until the others call in and then we’ll all be linked into one big happy group call.”
“We’ll be here.” Deacon told him, then got up and got the coffee down off the shelf.
Gia stood where she was, looking at the phone. “I don’t understand any of the technical stuff,” she admitted.
Deacon paused as he measured out the coffee, “I don’t even try to”, he shrugged, “the tech team,” he glanced at her, “or whatever they’re called is one more specialist team of the Alliance.”
“I didn’t know there was a whole team.”
Moving over to the stove, he set the percolator on it and picked up the kettle. “I think Calum told me there are fifteen specialist teams that work through the Alliance.”
Gia looked back down at the phone, “I guess I never thought of the logistics of everything.”
“It’s not for us to think about, we have our jobs and are just one piece of a very big machine.” He turned around and started to pour the water into the filter at the top of the percolator.
Gia took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to steady her nerves. Standing idle and waiting for anything was not one of her strengths.
“Hail, hail the gangs all here.” Illias sounded so amused.
“Do we have everyone?” That was Devin.
“All present and accounted for, even our new addition, Konner Flores.”
“All right, everyone, we have a lot to cover and are trying to keep the call as short as possible,” Devin said.
“Take all the time you need, not even god can hear what we’re saying,” Illias added quickly.
“This is the number you will use for contact. From here Illias can put you through to anyone else on this team—we’ll be using that for now until we test his team’s other idea.” Devin paused.
Gia glanced to see Deacon was still making the coffee, but his posture told her he was paying attention to every word.
“Beginning tomorrow, all of you will be heading back down to the border.”
“Location?” York asked.
“You’ll get the final location once you’re closer.” Calum’s level tone informed everyone. “We’ve had to rearrange the order of plans due to some movement.”
“They moved some of the captives to another state,” Jesse added.
That got Deacon’s attention, he turned from the stove and came over to the table crossed his arms, and stared at the phone.
“We’ve had to put more teams into play,” Calum continued, “but rest assured all we were watching are still under surveillance.” He said the last part with emphasis, making Gia wonder which of the group it was directed to.
“We’ve had to employ new protocol for almost every aspect of the Alliance, so on your trip back, all of you will have stops along the way to get in touch with the clans along your route.” Calum paused.
Gia exchanged a look with Deacon, it was just sinking in that whatever had compromised their team was affecting all clans under the Alliance’s protection.