The Hart Brothers Series Box Set (Including the bonus book Sabin: A Seven Novel): Freeing Her, Freeing Him, Kestrel, The Fall and Rise of Kade Hart, Sabin: A Seven Novel

by A. M. Hargrove

  “Please, L’han. Just come.”

  “I don’t understand.” He doesn’t speak, so I have no choice but to follow him. When we arrive at our destination, my parents are there. My mother is on the floor, sobbing, and my father is as distraught as my mother.

  Looking at my escort, I ask, “What the hell is going on?” We are in the Hall of the Council. It is also where Paradox lies … where my sister is on duty. The question of why my parents are so upset lingers as I look up to the massive doors before me. “Answer me!” Those damn Council members. Such idiots.

  “L’han, please. Inside.” The tremor in his voice alarms me. I know in my heart what I will find. “We need a third party verification. Your brother could not be located.”

  Motherfucker. Opening the doors, I spy the vague outline of her body. It lies in a heap on the floor, in front of the place where Paradox is kept. The vault for Paradox is undisturbed. Tuara, on the other hand, is not. When I drop to my knees by her side, her eyes, which bear a remarkable resemblance to mine, are wide open and stare directly at me. But they are lifeless orbs, blank, and vacant. Blood soaks the bodice of her gown, part of her regimental uniform. When I open it, I can see why. Her sternum is gashed open, torn by what were no doubt her mortal wounds.

  “L’han?”

  Stupid Council member. “It is she. Tuara of the sovereign house of Lhu’hantran. My sister.” Then I stare him down and snarl, “And I want to know who did this. Do you hear me? How did the Shaurok get in here? This was a calculated taking of a royal life, the life of a guard of Paradox. You tell your Council this needs their utmost attention!”

  “Yes, L’han. But the Shaurok …”

  “Fuck the Shaurok. I want to know how they got in. And why didn’t they take Judgment Day?”

  I don’t know if he stays or leaves, because all my focus is on my sister. She was older than me by two years. And I feel like my heart has just stopped beating.

  * * *

  Though it’s been seven years, the memory slams me as I enter the silent room. The only perceptible sound is the soft tapping of fingers on glass as commands are given to the complink. Images flash across the dozens of screens that cover every square inch of wall space, and then some. I do a thorough scan of each screen, processing what I can.

  “How did it go?” Rafe, my second in command, asks.

  “How the hell do you think it went?”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “If you count having my ass handed to me with my balls propped up right next to it on a silver platter bad, then yeah.”

  “The hell? The Council wouldn’t listen, then?”

  “Oh, they listened. Right before they ripped me to shreds. And Ali’yah was gloating. You should’ve seen her. I swear the bitch’s teeth have become pointed since, well, you know.” My fury is explosive. All I want to do is destroy this room, but that would be childish and futile. Instead, my hands fist in frustration.

  “You look like you need a good fight.”

  “You willing?” I ask.

  “Only if you promise not to beat me to a pulp.”

  Giving my head a shake, I say, “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m fucking pissed. They sit in their lofty positions and have no idea what we put ourselves through for their safety. Worse yet, they aren’t willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. I take that back, Rafe. I’ve got a raging hard on, I’m so damn furious. Mother fucking pricks.”

  “Let’s get out of here. I need to kick your ass or we’ll all be paying the price for who knows how long.”

  “As if.”

  An hour and a half later, Rafe and I are dripping sweat, bloody and bruised. He was right about the ass kicking, only I was the one who did the kicking. Well, mostly. He got in his due. I look him up and down and then myself. We both look like hell.

  “You keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna think you’re hitting on me,” he says.

  “I should knock the shit out of you again for that.”

  “I do believe you imagined I was Ali’yah the whole time,” he states. Rafe’s half right. Maybe three quarters.

  “Yeah, either her or the Council.”

  “Sabin, don’t even bring them up. I don’t want your mood to go south again. My body couldn’t take it.” He flexes his arms, then stretches his back. Everything cracks into place.

  “You sound like you’re in need of a few new joints, the way you creak.”

  He grunts. “And you don’t? You must be deaf.”

  I growl in response. He’s right. I feel like I’ve been dragged behind a truck for twenty miles on a gravel road at ninety miles per hour. And that was before we sparred. I drop my head back and work out some of the kinks in my neck. When I look up, Rafe stares at me.

  “Sabin, you are my commanding officer first, and my friend second. You have to let this go. You did not fuck up, no matter what they say. You can’t carry this on your shoulders.”

  “You are wrong. We’re going to have this conversation one time, and then you and I are going to drop this and never refer to it again. I did fuck up. I should never have let Juliette out of my sight. I shouldn’t have taken Kade Hart so lightly. But I did. As leader of the mission, I call the shots and I royally fucked up. So now, it’s my responsibility to fix this.”

  Rafe stops me. “No, we have to fix this. We are a team, remember?”

  “Yes, but since I’m the one who gives the orders, it’s my responsibility and duty to make it right. I can’t put this on you or the others.”

  Rafe doesn’t say a word for a bit. Then he offers up some advice. “You don’t like it when I contradict you, but I’m going to anyway. Yes, we are your responsibility. But dammit, we did the best with what we had to work with. We couldn’t tell Juliette a damn thing, Sabin, so that limited our capabilities. Our hands were tied. And then her ability to see us when we were transparent made it nearly impossible for us to do our jobs. You have to stop blaming yourself.”

  “I can’t. If we had been better at monitoring their conversations, we would’ve known they were planning to leave. And we are better than that. I made a bad call, Rafe. I take the blame. Fully. Completely. Now we end this discussion. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “How are the Harts, since we’re on the topic?”

  “Assimilated back into their life in Denver. Never missed a beat. You can see for yourself. Verus monitors them.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Question. And I don’t want to ruin a good moment. Did you ask the Council for more men?”

  “Do you think I went in there only to get my ass chewed? Of course I asked. I’ve been asking ever since the League started this operation. It falls on deaf ears. Rafe, just between us, we have a troop of halfwits manning the Council. And it scares the piss out of me. Hell, you know Ali’yah. If she’s on it, then you can figure out the types that run the show. It’s disturbing.”

  “How the fuck were you two ever married?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. Now are we here to discuss my ex-wife, or did you have something else to tell me before I hit the shower? I have a lot on my plate that needs my attention before I get some sleep, and I’m half starved, too.”

  “Right. I’ll catch you back in the security center.”

  We part ways and I head to my quarters to shower and change. As the hot water soothes away my aches and pains, I can’t help but think the Council is right. I really did leave a gaping hole where Juliette and Kade Hart were concerned. Yes, Juliette had Judgment Day, the necklace, and they left Denver unexpectedly to go to the British Virgin Islands. Yes, Kade thought he was helping Juliette by getting rid of what they thought was only a troublesome piece of jewelry. But it’s not like we don’t have the power to ascertain these kinds of things. I could’ve executed a better plan, could have ordered the men to be more intrusive on their lives. But the truth of it was I didn’t want to. I wanted Juliette and Kade to carve out a piece of happines
s and I wanted them to have their privacy. That was my monumental error. When they flew out of Denver I knew I was screwed. My plan changed from protecting them to finding them alive and hoping that damned necklace was still in their possession.

  As luck—and not the good kind—would have it, we found them about forty-five minutes too late. Juliette had tossed Judgment Day into the Caribbean Sea. My men did a thorough search for it and found that it had already been moved. And then all hell broke loose.

  * * *

  Do you know how many times we’ve saved your ass from getting flayed open by the Shaurok?”

  “I can’t answer that because I don’t even know what a Shaurok is.”

  “That night that I covered your body, little girl, with mine. The night I told you not to walk home in the dark by yourself. Yeah that night, the night I took the beating for you, those were Shaurok. And they want your blood in the worst way. And won’t stop until they have it. Oh, and don’t think just because you don’t have the necklace anymore they’ll forget. It doesn’t work that way.”

  * * *

  Juliette. I shake my head when I think of her. That girl has more moxie than any other person I’ve ever encountered doing this job. She never backed down from me. Ever.

  * * *

  Juliette slams her hand on the table. “I’m tired of your shit. You know? I’ve been running from these assholes for almost three years, and I have no idea who they are. I didn’t even know why they wanted me until now. Try putting yourself in my shoes. What would you have done, Mr. High and Mighty?”

  * * *

  Guilt rains down on me, like the water from the shower head. I did her and Kade a huge disservice. By giving them more freedom, I actually almost got them killed. Slamming my palms against the solid surface of the shower wall, I growl. How long before my raging anger will dissipate? I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself. What’s worse is that she burrowed into my heart, into a place where I allow no one, and that makes it all the more painful. My last words to her roar back at me with a vengeance.

  * * *

  Juliette smacked me on the shoulder and asked, “When we leave, will we ever see you again?”

  “You will. Kade, probably not since he could never pick up on us.”

  * * *

  Lies. I won’t ever allow her to see me again. Because I fucked up in too many ways. And to let her back in would be far too dangerous. She will be protected, but not by me. Not ever by me.

  I scrape my face with calloused hands. For all I learned from the shit I’ve been through, little good did it do when it came to this case. Right now I feel like an adolescent trying to find his way. Cursing for the hundredth time, I pound my fists against the wall, bruising them further in the process. And I honestly don’t give a fuck. I have too many evil spirits roaming around in my brain that need to be purged the hell out of there. The sparring with Rafe and this shower were meant to cleanse me of this, but that certainly isn’t the case. I want to rip some heads off right now. And that bitch, Ali’yah. What the hell did I ever see in her? She used to look good, I guess, but was never good in bed. Hated sex, I think. God knows I tried with the she-devil. Now she’s nothing but a damn shrew. She ruined my life for too many years and she’s still fucking with me.

  Pull your shit together. You don’t have room for this kind of thinking.

  I turn the water off and shake off the excess as I step out. I really need to regroup here. I can’t face my team with this much turmoil going on in my head. That won’t set a good example at all.

  Juliette and Kade. They must be kept safe. Always. And Judgment Day must be located. Whoever grabbed it from the sea must’ve been there the same time Juliette threw it overboard. Verus thought he had a lead, but it didn’t pan out. We’ve traced it all over the damn place … from the Caribbean back to the U.S. And then back to the Caribbean. It ended up in North Carolina for a while. Verus believes he has a new lead. He thinks whoever has it is a deep sea diver. He also believes the reason we’re having difficulties is because that individual keeps passing the damn thing around like a fucking toy.

  Time to go to work, to pull my act together, and take the reins again. I need to stuff my sappy-assed self away and face the fact that we have a potential disaster facing us if we don’t get our hands on whoever has Judgment Day, and fast.

  I plunge my aching arms into my shirt, and then tug on my pants. Pushing away all other thoughts, my mind focuses on what it needs to—finding Judgment Day. Once I’m dressed, I hurry back to the sec center where Rafe and Edge wait and Verus is on the complink.

  “Let’s roll. Show me what you’ve got, Verus.”

  Two

  Serena

  Home. Or that’s what it’s supposed to be. The old, two-story structure, more unwelcoming now than ever, causes a sense of dread to rush through me as I pull my duffle bag out of the trunk. More than anything, I’d like to get back in the car and get the hell out of here. It’s like this every time I visit them. My parents complaining about everything from how awful I look to telling me I need to get a better job. Some things never change.

  When I was young, life with them sucked, for lack of a better word. I didn’t recognize it then because I assumed all parents were like that. Wrong. They were ancient compared to all the other moms and dads. And I was bullied, not specifically because of that, but because of the way they dressed me and forced me to wear my hair. I was their little accident, their mistake. My arrival threw a monkey wrench in their carefully planned out retirement. Suddenly, they were two fifty-year-olds with an infant. My sisters are twenty-five and twenty-three years older than I am. They clearly did not want me. So they pulled all their old baby items out of the attic, things they should have thrown away years before, and dressed me in them. As I grew older, I was given clothes that had been stored up there for decades. They were disgusting, and no matter how many times they were washed, that musty mothball odor clung to them like glue. But Mom refused to buy new ones, saying they couldn’t afford it. The kids in school didn’t whisper about me; they made fun of me to my face. I don’t think I had a day in school where I didn’t suffer some sort of nasty humiliation.

  Serena, you stink.

  Serena, where did you get that outfit?

  What hole did you crawl out of, Serena?

  Has anyone ever told you how ugly you are? Who’s your date to the prom, Frankenstein?

  “Remind me not to shop where you do—Clothes Aren’t Us!

  When’s the last time you took a bath, Serena? Do you live in a barn?

  No one wanted to sit next to me, claiming I made them sick to their stomachs. Sometimes, they would write ugly things on the back of my blouses during class with a Sharpie. I would be forced to walk around all day like that, and though the teachers would send the boys to the principal’s office, that didn’t stop them. It only made it worse. And it went on and on. In middle school, they started cutting off chunks of my hair. One day I was sitting on the bus and they were all laughing, which was nothing unusual. One of the girls poked me in the back and asked how I liked my new hairstyle. When I touched my hair, I realized what they had done. The tears flowed unchecked and it only made them laugh harder. Normally I didn’t dare let them see how hurt and upset I was, but I couldn’t prevent it that day. It was like everything came crumbling down. When the bus got to my stop, I didn’t get up. The driver finally had to get out of her seat, grab my arm, and drag me to the door. When I got home, it was only to face one more nightmare.

  * * *

  “Please don’t cut my hair, Mom.”

  “Shut up, Serena. You’re nothing but trouble. Every day of my life. Now get over here.”

  “But if you cut my hair, it will only be worse. They’ll make even more fun of me.”

  “Stop complaining. All you do is complain. I’m tired of all the notes I get from your school. Every day it’s something else. Why can’t you act right? I never had these kinds of problems with your sisters. What’s wrong wi
th you?”

  * * *

  Thinking back, I can’t understand why my mom didn’t care enough about me to buy me new clothes. And how could kids be so cruel? What did it accomplish? I never did anything to them. I was just some poorly dressed student who happened to be in their class, but I never bothered anyone. In fact I did everything possible not to be noticed and to stay clear of them.

  Going home brings it all back to me, these terrible memories. It took me a while to get comfortable with making friends. It’s a trust thing. I was treated so horribly for those formative years that it was difficult to tear down the walls and let anyone in. It took about a year after I went to college, but eventually I got there. When I listen to my friends talk about the good old days—middle school and high school, where they participated in fun pranks and spend the night parties consisting of sneaking out at night and doing crazy things, I have a blank slate. My memories are nothing but tears, loneliness, shame, and humiliation. And of wanting to get the hell out of here and away from those awful people. And then there are my parents. They almost made me feel too guilty to go away to college. They tried to persuade me to stay home to take care of them, do their housework and chores, even though I had been offered a full scholarship to Duke University. Thank God for my guidance counselor! She understood my situation and explained I would be passing up a chance of a lifetime. As I sit in my parent’s home, I still remember hearing them complain about what a financial burden I was. I didn’t have any idea what “financial burden” meant, so I would dream it was a fancy term for beautiful princess. Beautiful princess, my ass. No toys or stuffed animals to keep me company. No new dresses with pretty lace and bows. Even my shoes were hand me downs. Had I not listened to my counselor, I would still be here, probably wearing those damn mothball scented clothes.