by Abigail Roux
“I’m sure Juan Carlos is interested in hearing what you have to say.”
Zane followed her silently, wishing he had his knives, wishing he had one of those M4s, wishing he had more than six bullets in a shitty little nickel-plated semiautomatic from the ’60s.
His only hope of making it out of this alive was Ty and the others regrouping at Mach 4 and finding the remaining members of their team—without the benefit of the earpiece—then getting more weaponry, and finding Zane within the rabbit warren of the compound in time to save him.
Zane was starting to rethink the validity of his plan.
They progressed from the dingy corridor into a shining marble hallway that swiftly led to a curved staircase. Zane had spent plenty of time in this house, and though the décor had changed, its bones were the same. He’d given Preston some pretty effective pressure points in which to place the explosives. Zane wondered if Preston had been able to get them all planted.
He wondered who else was out there still alive at all.
“Did you destroy all their earpieces?”
Anna glanced at him. “No. They’ve gone silent, though. I assume the few who escaped us realized we were monitoring the frequency.”
“How many escaped?”
“How many did you have?” she countered.
“Eight,” Zane lied.
She nodded. “Well, then. No one,” she said with a pleased smile.
Zane nodded, trying to hide the stark fear flooding him. That math meant at least two people were dead. There’d been eleven of them; did that mean three were still out there kicking?
His mind whirred, trying to calculate anyone’s chances at survival if everyone was either dead or weaponless and lost in a maze.
Anna led him to a heavy, wooden, hand-carved door and pushed it open with a flourish.
Zane steeled himself to walk in confidently. Like Ty always told him: fake it ’til you make it, darlin’.
Juan Carlos de la Vega was sitting behind a large mahogany desk. He stood when Zane entered, buttoning his suit coat. “Hola, Xander,” he said, not sounding very surprised.
Zane nodded, desperately seeking the skin in which he’d lived for so long in the Miami heat. “I was sorry to hear of your brother’s death,” he told Juan Carlos, slipping into Spanish. “I mourned him.”
“Did you?” Juan Carlos jutted his chin at Anna, who closed the door behind Zane, leaving him alone with the head of the Vega cartel and just two of his bodyguards.
Zane didn’t move.
“I understand you wish to come back into the fold. Is this true?”
“No,” Zane answered. “I’m retired. And I have been since Antonio’s death. I’d like to stay that way.”
“Is that why you are here on my doorstep, wielding automatic weapons and explosives?”
Zane cocked an eyebrow. “Have you ever been married to someone with a bit of a temper?”
Juan Carlos chuckled. “I suppose I know what you mean.”
They stood facing each other, both of them silent and trying to pretend they weren’t tense. Finally Juan Carlos turned to one of his bodyguards and nodded, and the man brought a hand to his mouth and whispered something. A hidden door at the far end of the large office opened, and two men marched through, dragging a third between them.
Zane frowned at the shock of blond hair, the stoic expression on the captive’s face.
“You know this man?” Juan Carlos asked, waving his hand at Preston.
Zane stared at Preston, who raised his head regally and stared back.
“Yes,” Zane answered without looking away.
“You know what he was doing in my house?”
Zane fought the urge to swallow or lick his lips.
Juan Carlos pushed a button, and static filtered in from artfully concealed speakers in the ceiling.
“Go for Cross,” a voice said quietly. It was met with utter silence. Zane’s heart thudded in his throat. Was Julian the only one still out there?
“Please speak to this hanger-on,” Juan Carlos requested, pushing a button that cut into the feed from their mics and allowed them to speak without a headset.
Zane monitored the bodyguards for movement, keeping Preston and his two very new friends in his peripheral vision. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Go for Garrett.”
“I think you’re the only one still alive in there, mate,” Cross said quietly. “Do you have eyes on anyone?”
Zane met Preston’s clear blue eyes, feeling his heart drop and the world slow.
“I’m here, sir,” Preston said, his voice strong and unwavering.
One of the men beside Preston brought his gun up, jabbing it under Preston’s chin.
“No!” Zane cried, reaching for his gun.
The man fired, and Preston’s head jerked back, then his body fell forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Zane was still shouting, but the roaring in his ears drowned out everything, even his own words. Preston’s body hit the ground hard enough to jar something lose from his grip. A grenade rolled away from his hand, the pin left behind, snug around his middle finger. Of course Preston would find a way to sneak that past the guards—one last parting shot from Preston to the world.
Zane fired at the bodyguards, then drove hard at de la Vega and tackled him, shoving him all the way toward the broad window behind him. They both crashed through the paned glass, de la Vega’s body taking the brunt of the punishment as Zane’s power sent them sailing out into the open air.
The blast of the grenade followed them down.
Ty and his bleeding, complaining, really pissed-off crew had just found Kelly and Digger skulking through the passages below the compound when the anguished scream came over Kelly’s earpiece.
Ty’s breath caught, and they all froze, listening to Julian’s almost animal shout of rage and pain, followed in seconds by an explosion that made plaster trail through cracks in the corridor’s ceiling.
“Preston,” Ty murmured, trying to catch his breath and shake the chills that ran through him.
“Anyone still alive in there?” Julian asked, and he sounded like the fucking horseman of Death calling them all home. “If you are, you won’t be for long. I’m hitting every one of those explosives in exactly ninety seconds.”
Ty met Owen’s eyes, and after a second to let it sink in that Julian was about to kill them all to avenge Preston’s death, they bolted into action, racing down the corridor after Kelly and Digger, who claimed they knew the way out.
When they reached the main house once more, Kelly turned right to lead them out. But Liam hesitated, and Ty slowed, shaking his head.
“Six, come on!” Digger shouted.
“I have to find Garrett. Go.” They waited the briefest of seconds, and Ty shouted again, “Go!”
They all turned and fled, leaving Ty and Liam there, counting down the seconds. They met each other’s eyes.
“If I don’t bring Anna out, I’ll be hunted all my life,” Liam said. He pursed his lips. “It’s not worth the fear of running.”
Ty nodded. “They’re probably in the same place.”
Liam raised his fist, and Ty knocked it with his own before they sprinted in the direction of the screams and destruction.
Smoke roiled from the top of the staircase. Ty and Liam stood at the bottom, trying to find any way humanly possible for them to climb.
Zane had been up there. Ty took a deep breath and started up the burning steps.
“Grady!” Liam called. “What the bloody hell . . . oh fuck it.” Ty heard him follow. Soon his face was burning and his eyes were watering. They both pulled their scarves up to protect their lungs, but it didn’t take long for that to fail. They couldn’t make it to the landing.
Ty squinted through the flames, then pointed at a bright-white spot amid the destruction. “Anna!”
Liam edged that way, wincing away from falling bits of the burning ceiling.
Ty turned away from him, trying to
make it to the doorway at the top of the grand staircase. He could see the inside well enough to know that was where the explosion had happened. That was where they’d had Preston. That was where they’d taken Zane.
“Grady!” Liam was waving at Ty from further down the stairs, pointing up frantically. When Ty craned his head, he saw a burning ceiling beam breaking apart.
His feet were rooted to the spot, though. He looked down at Liam through the smoke. “Go!” he shouted. “My guys . . . they’ll testify you died in here with me!”
“Tyler!”
“Tell them I love them. Tell them . . . oohrah.”
Liam took a few steps up, but the debris of the swiftly failing roof stopped him from coming closer. Ty turned away from him, ducking his head and forging his way up and into the heat.
In the distance, Ty heard the first detonation. Cross had finished his count and he was taking out anyone still in the vicinity. Ty had no way out. No way down, no way up. No way out.
He had to walk on nothing but beams as he made his way into what remained of the office. It was a complete ruin, barely recognizable as a room at all. He was getting light-headed, his lungs filling with smoke.
The beam below his feet shook, groaning under his weight. And then he saw it: The same thing Zane had probably been able to see through what had once been a beautiful set of windows. The swimming pool right outside.
Ty pushed off the failing beam, sprinting along it recklessly as it swayed and gave under him. He ran full speed at the flaming edge and launched himself over it, turning in the air in case he didn’t have enough behind his leap to make the pool. If he missed and hit that concrete, he really didn’t want to see it coming.
Ty stared at the ceiling.
His arm was in a splint and bandaged from elbow to hand, he was hooked up to enough pain medication to kill an elephant, and he couldn’t reach his leg to scratch a mosquito bite that was driving him insane.
He couldn’t roll over, and he couldn’t sit up because the last time someone had come in to check his vitals the bed control remote had dropped down the side of the mattress and he couldn’t reach the damn thing with his arm in a sling. Worst of all, he had no idea what had happened to his boys. Alive, dead, trussed up in the next hospital room in a coma. He had no idea.
He cleared his throat and forced himself to look at the bed that shared his hospital room. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness for two days, but he had yet to see Zane awaken.
Zane still lay quietly, eyes closed, drugged into sleep. He was going to be pissed when he woke up, but he would have to deal. Ty wasn’t sure he could tolerate the pain without some chemical help.
He could see the right side of Zane’s face, and it was awful: a mass of dark bruises, a swollen eye, and a long line of stitches along his cheekbone that made him look like a patchwork doll. Ty had watched a PA change the bandages, and he’d managed to talk the woman into telling him what had happened to Zane as she’d worked on him. She either hadn’t known about the rest of them, or she hadn’t been willing to tell Ty their fates, which had damn near sent Ty into a panicked spiral after she’d left. They’d had to sedate him.
Ty watched Zane for a few more minutes, then cleared his throat. “Hey, Lone Star,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Wake the fuck up. You’re scaring me.”
Nothing happened. It wasn’t the first time Ty had tried to wake Zane and gotten nothing in response. He was ready to start panicking all over again—Nick had bled out in an intersection, Preston was dead, Zane was practically in a coma, and for all he knew, the rest of Sidewinder was gone too—but then Zane’s head turned in his direction, one eye barely open.
Ty smiled, sighing in relief. “Hey there, darlin’,” he said, sounding a little more desperate than he’d meant to.
“Hey,” Zane croaked.
“God it’s good to see you awake. How you feeling?”
Zane drew in a deep breath and blinked a couple times before he muttered, “Like I went through a blender.”
“You look it. You haven’t been awake. I was getting worried.”
“I could say the same to you,” Zane said with a ghost of a smile. He turned his head further, grimacing as his stitches pressed into the pillow. “Did we win?”
Ty’s stomach tumbled, and his tenuous façade faltered. How was he supposed to answer that question when winning might mean they had lost everything? “Yeah, baby. Yeah, I think we did.”
“How?”
“You used the head of the cartel as a parachute.”
Zane weakly waved his free hand at Ty; the other was trussed up in IVs. “He flew like a dodo.”
Ty’s laugh surprised him, and he tried hard to contain it. It would hurt too much to laugh.
Zane wasn’t laughing, though. “Who made it?”
Ty nearly gasped. “I don’t know,” he whispered, fighting a pain in his heart he wasn’t sure would ever ease. He smiled, though, taking a deep breath. “You did. I did. You and me, baby.”
Zane’s eyes opened a little wider and he focused on Ty, looking him up and down. “No one else?”
Ty’s heart was going so fast his monitors were beeping at him. “I don’t know. Everyone who comes in plays dumb.”
They were both silent for a long while. There was really nothing they could do to get more answers until someone came in to speak with them. It was almost worse not knowing, but for right now, Ty could imagine everyone had made it out alive, even Nick, that he and Zane were the worst of the injuries, that no one had come to see them because they were all out celebrating.
Zane finally wrinkled his nose and winced, reaching up to touch his cheek. “What did they do to me?”
“Things you would not have liked.”
“Didn’t break my nose again,” Zane muttered as he patted his face. Then he raised his arms and stared at the bandages for a long moment. He picked at one to look underneath, and then to Ty’s surprise he let it be, resting his arms back at his sides. He checked Ty over again. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Zane drew a breath like he was going to say something else, but then stopped for several heartbeats before actually speaking. “How long have you been awake? You’ve just been over there stewing, haven’t you?”
“No,” Ty said with a straight face. “I’ve been flirting with the cute nurse every time she comes in to change your cath bag.”
Zane snorted. “Won’t take much to be cuter than me right now.”
Ty shook his head, adjusting his shoulders to a more comfortable position. “I don’t know. You’re kind of cute when you’re all stitched up like Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein’s monster,” Zane grumbled.
Ty smiled fondly. He was used to Zane correcting his literary references by now. He’d even started making incorrect ones just so Zane could do it. They both knew it, too.
Zane’s chuckling continued for a few more seconds before he fell quiet. Then he asked, “How long have we been here?”
“Nurses told me a day before I woke up. Feels like a week since then,” Ty told him as he tried to adjust and get comfortable. He couldn’t manage it, though. “Maybe two days?”
Zane huffed. “You’re too far away.”
“I was here first. Means you’re too far away.”
“Well.” Zane looked down at himself. He pushed the thin blanket and sheet down and sat, bracing himself on both hands.
“What are you doing! Lay back down, you dumbass, you’re going to tear your stitches.”
“I don’t even know where all the damn stitches are.” Zane surveyed his bandaged chest and then moved the sheet to reveal the gauze wrapped around his thighs. “Okay, I’m not Frankenstein’s monster. I’m the Mummy.”
“Zane, lay back down,” Ty said again, the beeps of his monitoring machines picking up speed.
“Nothing’s beeping on my side,” Zane argued as he lifted the edges of some of the bandages again, trying to see under them.
&n
bsp; “Don’t you make me fall out of this bed trying to stop you, Garrett,” Ty growled.
Zane glanced at him, and then carefully lay back down without pulling at any more of the bandages. “I feel pretty okay. Tired, but not too bad.”
“Good for you, Rocky,” Ty griped.
“How long are we going to be stuck in here?”
“Give me a break, would you, Zane? I deserve to stay here with my IV for a while.”
“If I give you more breaks, you’ll be nothing but cast.”
Ty rolled his eyes. “I broke it when I hit the bottom of the pool.”
“You’re lucky only bones broke,” Zane said, pointing at him. “I’d say what the hell were you thinking, but . . . hell, I would have gone after you, too. And if it hadn’t been for you teaching me how to fall fourteen thousand stories to save myself, I probably wouldn’t be in one piece right now at all.”
“You’d be in a lot of pieces,” Ty assured him. He held Zane’s gaze, eyebrow arched. Zane stared right back at him stubbornly.
“I’m digging the tough guy routine,” Ty finally told him with a smirk.
Zane leered. “Getting the blood pumping?”
“No, that’s what the squeezy blanket on my foot is for.”
Zane’s quirked lips pulled into a full grin. “I’m much more fun than a blanket.”
“My blanket isn’t attached to a catheter,” Ty shot back.
“I was going to fix that, but you told me not to.”
Ty rolled his eyes and turned his head away. “You realize we’re looking at our future, right? Two of us in a retirement home, bitching about our catheters and heated blankets.”
Zane chuckled, the sound somehow both warm and tired. “I’m okay with that.”
They both lay silent for a long time. Ty was exhausted and hurting, trying to parse through what he remembered, trying to feel relief over the fact that he had Zane right here beside him and didn’t have to worry or wonder about his fate. Zane was probably doing the same thing, trying to adjust to the knowledge that it was all over, that they’d lived through it. They had each other.
Ty glanced over to find Zane still awake, watching him. Ty smiled tiredly. “Hey, do me a favor and press your call button.”