“I’ll have a go,” Sam said, settling into a seat that should not have been empty. It caused Brett to flounder for a second, but then he collected himself again.
“I need at least two people to canvas the street and see if anyone has any door cameras or CCTV that might give us better luck. Or even if they heard something. Someone needs to checkthe roads that lead from the end of that road and figure out the options for directions they could’ve gone in.” He exhaled. “He’s been gone nearly four hours. We need to find him. Fast.”
“Is this the warning we’ve been getting?” Maddox asked, and Brett nearly growled at him.
“Potentially,” he answered, not looking at the man who made him as mad as a dog that had been cooped up all day.
“What do you need me to do?”
Brett glanced at him. “Did you finish the weapons?” Maddox’s face reddened, and he shook his head. “Please finish it. We’re going to need every weapon we have available when we find Felix.”
Maddox blinked, nodded and turned on his heel and left Sec HQ. Brett took a few seconds and then started shouting orders again. Radio equipment needed to be checked, contacts needed to be called, and help requested. It was all hands on deck.
He was elbow-deep in information when several more people entered the already brimming room. When he saw Christian, Patrick, Kieren, Freddie and Damon, he nearly cracked. The big, sullen Head of Security was about to bawl like a bodyguard losing his day off. But he didn’t have time. He set them to work instead.
He had no idea how long they’d been working when someone called out, “His phone is back!”
Brett’s head whipped up. “What?”
“His phone is showing up again,” Nina said.
“Where?” He scrambled over to where Nina was.
“Five miles east of Windsor. Looks like an abandoned industrial estate.”
It didn’t sound promising if it was Felix, but regardless, they would try. “Colt, Nina, Jade, Nick and Eric, come with me. The rest of you, keep looking. If we find Felix, we still need to figure out who took him.”
They left the room and aimed for the weapons hold. Maddox stepped clear when they arrived.
“I’ve just finished. They’re all done.”
“Good job, Maddox.”
They grabbed enough firepower to level a building and headed for the car park and the largest SUV they had. Although Brett knew the chance of finding Felix at the destination was unlikely, he couldn’t help the hope that curled inside him. He needed him to be okay.
“I’ll drive,” Colt said, and Brett didn’t argue, just climbed into the passenger seat.
Brett’s phone vibrated repeatedly in his hand as they headed for the location, but all he could do was stare out of the window, images of what Felix could be going through running through his head. Despite knowing it wouldn’t help him, he couldn’t stop it. They had shared so much—especially lately—and it couldn’t end. It just couldn’t.
“It’s just up here on the left,” Nina said. “Third building.”
Brett blinked and inhaled as large metallic buildings rose around them, and it wouldn’t surprise him if they hid a multitude of sins, not only a potential answer to Felix’s whereabouts.
Colt brought the car to a stop, and they all paused for a second before Nina broke the silence once more.
“The signal is coming from the far right corner.” Brett squinted at the building as she spoke. “From the blueprints I could find, it looks to have two floors, ground and first.”
Brett climbed out of the car alongside everyone else, heading for the boot of the car. “Colt, Nina, come with me. Eric, Jade and Nick go around the back.”
They gathered weapons, put their earpieces in and, as a unit, headed for their designated locations. Brett’s heart pounded so much that it affected his breathing. At least, he thought it was.It could also be to do with the fact that he couldn’t cope with the thought of losing Felix. No. They wouldn’t lose him. They would find him. And though he didn’t have hope that they would find him here—it was too quiet—he had faith in something bigger that they would find him eventually.
And he would be fine.
Inhaling through his nose first, he exhaled slowly, pushing every thought aside other than the current mission: search the property. He used hand signals to direct Colt and Nina, and murmured words through the earpiece to the others. Taking one last glance at their surroundings, he gave the signal for them to enter. Attention solely on scanning the building and listening to any information given in his ear, he ignored everything else. The building was empty, it seemed. They scoped the ground floor and found nothing in the dark corners, then climbed the stairs at either end of the building to the first floor, which was open plan like the ground floor. Again, there was nothing in view except for dark corners, which they checked, and it was only when he reached the corner from which the signal was coming that he stopped.
It wasn’t as empty as it first seemed.
But it wasn’t Felix.