Queen of Quarantine

by Caroline Peckham

  "You know what you have to do?" Saint asked, looking between me, Kyan and Tatum.

  "Avoid the secret society assholes, free the sex slaves then get ready to run like hell?" I asked with a smile that no one could see behind my mask.

  "Be careful," Nash growled, his eyes on Tatum and I knew he hated us splitting up like this, but we'd all agreed it was the only way.

  Saint needed time to find whatever he could in this office but we also couldn't hang around, so we needed to get to work on our part of the plan while he did his.

  "I always am," Kyan replied with a chuckle that said he was excited about fucking things up.

  "So help me, you neanderthal-" Saint began, but I cut him off.

  "Me and Tate will make sure he doesn't go over the top, won't we?" I asked and she nodded.

  "We have a job to do," she agreed. "So let's hurry up and do it."

  She led the way back out of the office and me and Kyan fell into step behind her like a pair of attack dogs, our arms brushing against each other.

  "Into war we go," I murmured and Kyan chuckled.

  "To the death, brother."

  "To the death," I agreed. I just hoped it wouldn't come to that.

  K yan led the way through the club, the hallways so quiet it made my adrenaline spike every time I heard a faraway noise. There didn’t seem to be anyone in this part of the huge building, but we had to be cautious. We were in a snake pit and we couldn’t disturb the serpents until we’d laid our trap and were ready to cut their heads off.

  We stashed the gasoline in a cupboard then had to take a detour away from two huge doors that led into the wing of the house we wanted to enter. It had been guarded and too many staff had been around to do anything about it. But Kyan had said he knew another way, so we’d headed upstairs and prowled through the corridors like predators on a hunt.

  We moved along a landing with dark green carpet and glanced over the balcony railing to the floor below. Empty.

  Blake walked close behind me as we reached the top of the stairs and Kyan glanced back at us through his mask.

  “This is the only way on, but there might be guards down there and they’re not gonna be polite even if we do look like members. This area is restricted even during parties,” he whispered, taking the knife from his hip.

  I took out my own, gripping the hilt tightly and taking a steadying breath. We had to be covert. No guns unless it was absolutely necessary. Even a silencer wouldn’t cancel the noise of a gunshot completely. But I knew hand to hand combat. And Nash had improved on the base my father had laid for me, bolstering my confidence and preparing me for anything. I wasn’t going to hesitate, lose my head, or fail. If it came to a fight, I’d win. For me and my boys.

  Kyan moved down the stairs, placing his feet carefully, testing each step to make sure they didn’t creak. I followed steadily and Blake placed his boots wherever I placed mine.

  We were almost at the bottom when voices sounded from somewhere nearby.

  “Hey, they’re all in the hall so I’m gonna go and have a little fun,” a man said. “Cover for me, will ya?”

  “Alright, but fifteen minutes max. And when you’re back, you can cover for me,” another man replied.

  “Deal,” the first man chuckled then a beep sounded and a door opened and shut.

  Kyan made it off of the final step and a loud creak came from the floorboard beneath him. We all froze and my pulse thundered on the inside of my skull as I held my breath.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Footsteps started stomping this way, the crackle of a radio reaching my ears.

  Kyan moved flush against the wall and me and Blake pressed against it too.

  The guard moved closer and closer and my muscles coiled like a spring, a fierce energy within me waiting to be let loose.

  The guard stepped past us and Kyan lunged, slamming a hand over his mouth, but as he brought his knife up, the guard jabbed his hand back and Kyan was thrown off of him as a taser took him to the ground. I launched myself at the guard without a thought, my knife sinking into the flesh of his throat as he flung around, his fist crashing into my gut and sending me stumbling back into Blake. But my golden boy didn’t slow as the guard snatched his radio, clutching the bloody wound at his throat, his lips parting to call for help. Blake’s fist smashed into the radio, sending it to the floor in pieces and Blake’s knife sank deep between his ribs before he could get out a scream.

  Blake held onto the guard as he died, not letting him hit the floor as I dropped down beside Kyan, ripping the taser off of him and pulling his mask away to see he was okay.

  “You worried about me, baby?” he wheezed, his expression cocky but the tightness of his voice told me that had hurt like a bitch.

  “That’s not the first time you’ve been tasered, is it?” I teased in a whisper and he shook his head as I helped him up.

  “Saint tasered my ass once for being ‘an obnoxious caveman.’”

  “Sounds like you deserved it.” I smirked.

  “Come on, we need to move,” Blake hissed as he stuffed the guard into a small closet full of cleaning supplies, hiding him among them before shutting the door.

  A bang said the guy had just slipped forward and hit the door and it flew open again as the asshole rolled out onto the floor.

  “Goddammit,” Blake growled, hoisting him up by the shoulders. Blood was dripping onto the wooden floor and it was definitely not fucking covert.

  “Blake,” I hissed as we jogged over to help him and he and Kyan squeezed the guy into the tight space. I grabbed a mop and cleaned up the blood before tossing it in after him.

  Kyan closed the door but it hit something and I looked, finding the toe of the man’s boot was poking out.

  “For fuck’s sake.” I moved forward, shoving the foot further inside and shutting the door with a click.

  We shared an awkward glance then Kyan fixed his mask back into place and looked to the door under the stairs across the hall. “Oh.”

  “Oh what?” Blake breathed.

  “We need a security pass,” he said, turning to the closet again.

  I groaned, glancing around us and listening to make sure no one was heading this way. “Come on then, we need to hurry.”

  Kyan popped the door open once more and the guy spilled out on a tide of cleaning supplies.

  “Oh for the love of-” Blake started then a loud voice sounded further off in the building, heading this way.

  “Hey two-oh-two, you can take your break now.” He strode into the hallway, his eyes falling on us and the dead guy at our feet.

  My heart lurched as Kyan charged at him, taking him down in a football tackle that made the floor shudder as they hit the ground. He drove a knife into the guy’s chest before he had a chance to do anything but die and more blood pooled out across the floor.

  “Fuck,” Blake growled as more footsteps sounded this way.

  “What was that noise?” a woman called and we all moved faster than lightning. Kyan carried the guy he’d just killed to the closet and we furiously stuffed both of the assholes inside in a tangle of limbs. Kyan snatched a security card from one of them before wedging the door shut.

  I grabbed a rug from further down the hall, laying it over the small puddle of blood the last guard’s death had caused and Kyan grabbed my hand as he towed me to the door across the hall.

  He slapped a security card against a keypad and it beeped as it opened, the sound making my adrenaline spike. We rushed inside as the woman’s footsteps sounded seriously close by and pressed the door shut behind us, leaning against it. I was squashed between my two men in the dark as we listened and the guard strode through the hall without stopping.

  I released a slow breath and stepped away from Blake and Kyan, moving down another set of stairs.

  “Leave the light off,” I breathed. We couldn’t risk alerting anyone to our presence before we made it down to the basement.

  A scream carried up from the depths
of the darkness and we started moving faster into the gloom, my gut clenching at the noise.

  We tip-toed on until we reached the bottom where a slit of light spilled under a door. I took hold of the handle, cracking it open silently and peering into the room that awaited us beyond, holding my breath.

  Rows and rows of large cages were stacked up two high, full of people who wore varying amounts of clothes. Sickness made my upper lip peel back at the sight, especially when my gaze fell on the guard who was struggling to pin a half-naked man down over a bench at the centre of the room.

  “Dibs,” I breathed to the others, hatred licking the inside of my flesh.

  “Make it hurt, baby,” Kyan purred and I pushed the door open, stalking my prey like a tiger in the long grass.

  I felt the eyes of the captives on me, but they seemed to sense what I was here for as I held my blade ready and crept up toward the man trying to rape the guy on the bench.

  As I got close behind him, the scent of body odour reached me, making me grimace. I aimed my blade just right then stuck him in the liver with one sharp stab. There was no way he’d be heard down here so I wasn’t gonna be gentle. He screamed in surprise and agony, wheeling around as I yanked the blade out and ducked down to slash at his legs. He screamed louder, hitting the concrete floor and the captives in their cages cried out excitedly, banging their fists against the bars.

  The man he’d been harassing stood straight, tugging up his boxers, his hands shaking. His gaze met mine and I took in his handsome face, his eyes hard and full of unspeakable tortures. I tore my mask from my face, wanting him to see I was on his side. That I was here to help. Then I held out the knife for him and he took it with a determined nod, leaning down to finish his enemy. The bastard’s strangled screams followed me as I turned, running to help Kyan and Blake as they used the key card to unlock the cages.

  The freed men and women soon gathered around us, seeming unsure what to do as they hugged their bodies and shared frightened looks with one another.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Where do we go?”

  “How do we get out?”

  “There’s a way out upstairs,” Kyan announced.

  “We’re going to get you out of the manor then the police will come and pick you up,” I promised. “We’re going to burn this place to the fucking ground and destroy the people who hurt you.”

  Sobs of relief came from the crowd mixed with cheers and murmurs of doubt.

  “Follow our queen!” Blake cried dramatically and I released a breath of amusement, only to find every pair of eyes in the room set on me. So I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them down.

  Kyan moved to my side and we headed back to the stairs as he murmured in my ear. “There’s an exit which is a straight shot across the hall upstairs. But we might need to force it open.”

  “Okay, let’s get them out of here. Then we can finish this,” I said.

  “I love burning the world down with you at my side,” Kyan said in a low voice.

  “It’s not burning yet,” I tossed back with a grin before placing my mask back on as we made it to the top of the stairs.

  I glanced back, finding Blake helping a woman walk who looked heartbreakingly weak. I frowned at my golden boy, his eyes full of hate and injustice over what had happened to these people. But we weren’t letting it lie. We were going to make the monsters of this place pay.

  “I’ll get the door open,” Kyan said, slipping out into the hall and heading across it as we waited in the dark. After a minute, I poked my head out, finding him pushing it wide and pocketing a pick, the spring night air blowing inside.

  My adrenaline spiked as I led the way across the hall and the captives raced towards freedom, tearing out into the dark. Relief rushed through me at the sight and I knew the risk of coming here had been worth it for this alone. It had haunted me knowing what was happening to people at this club and nothing could rival the feeling of being able to do something about it at last.

  I pulled the long cape from Blake’s shoulders, wrapping it around the woman he was helping and a tall man came to her side to take her from him. She caught Blake’s hand before they parted, her hooded eyes finding his. “Make them scream.”

  “We will,” Blake swore, the darkness in him swimming in his gaze, full of the retribution he was going to bestow on every twisted motherfucker in this place.

  Kyan offered his cape to another woman as the last of them ran outside, then he swung the door shut and looked to us with hunger in his eyes. “Let’s go kill some rats.”

  I rifled through drawers with Nash at my side, looking for anything at all that could give us some of the answers we needed. There were files on countless companies, evidence of insider trading and illicit deals which would be more than enough to send all of the people complicit in them to prison. Or at least it would be if their names were on the documents. Which of course they weren't.

  Every single deal only ever referred to the people who had taken part in them by the number they'd been given in relation to their membership here. So while I took countless photographs of every single piece of evidence I could lay my hands on, I knew that it would be damn hard for any convictions to be made unless I found the key to those numbers and linked the right names to them.

  It had to be here somewhere. There had to be a record of who the members were and which numbers they'd been assigned or there was no way this place could work. When Kyan had come here before, the car that had collected him had shown up with his robes waiting inside it and the number clearly marked on them.

  That meant that whoever he had contacted about coming to the club had been able to link him to the correct number. There had to be a system in place for that. It may have been the case that only the people in charge of running this place had access to it, but it had to be here.

  "For the love of all that's holy," I growled in frustration, slamming the drawer I'd finished looking through and moving over to the desk where the computer stood.

  It wasn't connected to the internet so it would be impossible to hack into it from the outside, but it was possible that I could do it in person now. I knew that it was where I was most likely to find the evidence I really needed to take this place down, but I also knew that with the very limited time scale we were working on here that it was unlikely.

  "Perhaps we should just take the entire computer with us and leave," I suggested. “Or better yet, I’ll just break it and take the hard drive out.”

  "I'd guess that makes the most sense," Nash agreed. "Hand it over to the authorities and let them handle it."

  My jaw clenched as I took a seat in the leather chair behind the desk, the idea of that rankling me. Yes, it would make sense. But it would also haunt me for the rest of time. This was my fight. Our fight. I wanted to see the evidence here for myself and wield it how I saw fit, not hand the fight over to some federal bureaucrat in a suit.

  "Ah shit," Monroe said, turning to look at me with a file held loosely in his hand. "This is the moment isn't it?"

  "What moment?" I asked dryly.

  "The moment when the great Saint Memphis realises that he isn't actually a superhero. When you have to admit that you can't actually do this alone. That you need help." He looked far too pleased at that guess and I huffed out a breath as I stacked my gloved hands together on the desk. We'd taken our masks off when we began our search so I could see his expression plainly enough and quite frankly, I was tempted to smack the look off of his face.

  "I have never claimed to be able to do everything alone," I said in a low voice. "The four of you have proved yourselves more than valuable to me in countless ways. I appreciate that I am not well suited to every task, nor capable of doing everything myself. But there are certain things which I excel at-"

  "Name one thing you don't excel at," he challenged, his tone teasing like he believed there wasn't anything, but if he truly thought that I was so deluded then he was very wrong indeed.

  "I
am not a person who is easily liked, let alone loved," I replied matter of factly. "I don't perform well in most social situations and I don't make friends easily. I don't even like very many people to wish for them to be my friend anyway - but that in itself is likely a flaw."

  "I didn’t realise you’d admit that was a flaw. I just assumed you enjoyed being an overbearing asshole who terrifies almost everyone you meet," he said, seeming intrigued by my candid response.

  "I don't hate it," I admitted. "But sometimes..." I sighed, knowing this wasn't the time for this conversation and yet needing the momentary reprieve from my task to allow my brain some space to think. "Sometimes, I watch the way the four of you are and I can see that I...don't fit. Not in the same way."

  Nash blew out a breath and shrugged. "You feel like the outsider? Try being the guy who joined up last. Who used to be your teacher. Who comes from a poor family and the foster system while all of you just shit dollar bills and flush them away like they're meaningless. If any of us doesn’t fit, it's me."

  A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. "And yet you do," I pointed out. "Besides, you had something growing up which I can never lay claim to."

  "You have love now," he objected, knowing exactly what I meant. "We all have love now. Tatum gave us that."

  "Yes. Our family is the one truest light in an otherwise very dark world. I'm proud to call you my brother, Nash,” I said honestly.

  "Well, I suppose brothers are meant to drive you mad half the time, so that label fits my feelings for you rather well," he admitted, looking a little surprised by the fact. "Though I'm glad there's no blood that binds us because I've witnessed way too much of you having sex for that."

  "Come now," I said with a knowing smirk. "You don’t just witness these things. I think we both know you and Kyan passed the point of merely sharing Tatum last week. I saw the marks on your neck. Clearly you've moved into the territory of touching each other during it rather than just watching."

  Nash barked a laugh and tossed the file he'd been holding down onto the desk as he turned back to continue looking through the cabinets. "I might have let him choke me a bit, but don't go getting caught up in any fantasies of me actually fucking him."