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Travis sighs. “Yeah, that group has already done two raids for us. They're solid. I still don't like it, but…"
“None of us do. But it’s the best choice. Think of it like this, if you'd picked the boy up, it’d be at least a week before we had everything settled and got him to his mom. All goes to plan, Pasternak will land tonight and this group will have Elliot to his mom by morning.”
“I like that, at least, yeah. Carter and Casey will like it too, I think.” A movement in the doorway of the bedroom catches his eye. He looks over to find Carter standing there, shifting anxiously, hands fidgeting at his sides. “What time is it happening?”
“4 local time, 7 yours. The task force obviously doesn’t know a thing about us, so we aren’t looped in, but Ace is going to hack their feeds so we can watch everything go down.”
Travis smirks. "We?"
"Fuck yeah. I'm invested now." Ronan chuckles. "I already rearranged my fucking schedule so I can watch."
"Guess I can't judge you for wanting to see it through."
Travis reaches a hand out to his boy, curling his fingers to beckon him while Ronan says goodbye and hangs up. He tosses his phone to the side just as the boy reaches him. Fingers tangling together, Travis uses his hold to pull Carter onto his lap.
Carter tucks his head beneath Travis's chin and sighs heavily. "Is it about Elliot?"
"Yes. A task force we trust is going to rescue him tomorrow."
"I should be happy." Carter touches his fingertips to the tattoo over Travis's chest. He doesn't have to look down to know where exactly on the tattoo the boy is touching. It's the bird. The one trapped in a broken cage, stuck forever while the other birds get to fly away. It's where Carter's hand always goes when his boy is upset. "I am happy. But..."
"It's okay to be sad too," Travis promises. "The plan was for him to come to the safehouse. You thought you'd get to see him first. You thought you'd get time with him. It makes perfect sense for you to be sad that it's changed."
"I should just be happy he's going to be saved."
Travis grabs the boy's chin and forces him to look into his eyes. "That would be settling. You've survived too much to settle. It's okay that you hoped for something, sweetheart, and it's okay to be upset when you don't get the thing you hoped for. I don't want to see you shutting down because of this, you hear me?"
"Yes, sir…"
"Then let yourself be bummed about it." He presses a careful kiss to Carter's forehead, smiling when it makes the boy melt back into his embrace. It's odd being able to fix things so easily. At the same time, it's a fucking overwhelming relief. "You know, there's group therapy tomorrow morning. We could go to the safehouse tonight. Enjoy some dinner. See everyone. You could do therapy in the morning. Then Ace is going to get us the feeds for the rescue if you want to watch."
Carter sighs heavily, probably because of the group therapy thing, but they had talked a bit last night about his time with Dr. Singh and both he and Carter - and then Travis, once told - agree that it'd be good for him to start attending. He's a survivor just like the rest of them. It's time he accepts that.
"Can we at least have some nice sex before we go?" Carter eventually asks.
Travis flashes him a wicked grin. "I can't promise it'll be nice, but sex can be arranged."
Chapter Nineteen
Nerves threaten to eat Carter alive as he studies the boards full of survivor pictures in Ace's office while Ace works on pulling up the security and body camera feeds he hacked into. It doesn't help that he just spent almost 2 hours in a group therapy session - the first group therapy session where he let himself actually open up and participate. He feels all raw and awful now, and the seconds ticking down to Elliot's rescue aren't making things easier.
Carter presses in close to Travis as 3 black vehicles appear on one of Ace's many screens - each set up to show a different perspective. The vehicles come to a stop beside a mid-sized private plane with a Russian name scrawled across the side in black and gold letters. Casey takes Carter's hand and squeezes it.
Someone with a heavy Russian accent asks, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Carter looks over to a new screen then, realizing while a few people handle the angry Russian, the rest are heading toward the plane. He finds the body camera feed from the person leading the group and watches as the person bounds up the stairs to the plane and points a gun in the face of an older man in a nice suit. "Step aside, Pasternak.”
"You have no right to do this!" the man growls, his face bright red. "This is a private-"
The person shoves the man aside before he can finish complaining and steps onto the airplane. Someone behind him yells for everyone to drop their weapons and put their hands up.
Some do.
One doesn't.
He's angry and massive and wearing all black. One of his huge hands has a gun in it. The other hand has Elliot by the hair, his naked and bruised body dangling from the grip like he's nothing more than a ragdoll.
Carter cries out, lurching forward only for Travis to pull him back and hold him tight. He's whispering something, probably making promises he can't possibly guarantee, but Carter can't hear them. All he can hear is Elliot back in the cage, arms outstretched to Carter and Casey as he begged them to save him.
