“See what? What were you going to do with her? Christian, what in God's name are you doing?” Rhett jerked his head to remove wet strands of hair from his vision.
“There are a lot of things you don't understand. Things I can't tell you. We--”
“That's bullshit, Christian. You're my brother. You can tell me anything.”
“I can't tell you this. I won't.”
“That's your choice. I can't help you if you don't confide in me.”
“I didn't ask for your help.” A muscle twitched at the corner of Christian's eye.
Rhett spat a wad of blood into the sand. His discontent seemed to increase with Christian's latest answer.
“Who jumped me outside?” Rhett demanded.
“Is he dead?”
“He would have been if you hadn't taken the clip out of my gun. Why don't you put the sword down.” Rhett made a short gesture with his blade.
Christian ignored the request. His posture became more predatory, matching the slow stalk Rhett made over the sand. Preparing to take it to the next level.
Lurching to her feet, Evelyn watched the brothers with increasing horror. Suddenly, the confusion over how the Templars stayed so close on their tail clicked into place. Christian had been with she and Rhett almost the whole time. He'd turned them in. Kept track of every move, every detail. Had he even been the one to send her the text message? He'd delivered her belongings to her, had access to her phone.
Oh God.
She darted a look from one face to another. Christian, always hard to read, was not any easier to dissect now. She couldn't tell if he felt remorse, anger, frustration—nothing. Rhett appeared controlled, steely, hyper-focused.
They faced off in the middle of the sand pit, circling, circling, swords held out in front of them. She knew she should probably run. Get away while she could. But Rhett might need her and she couldn't seem to move anyway. Locked in place, all she could do was watch with her breath in her throat.
Outside, the storm picked up intensity, rain hammering the roof and the dome.
“I'm not letting you take her anywhere,” Rhett said, the words a clear warning.
“You don't have a choice.”
Christian lunged forward, moving in to attack.
Chapter Fifteen
Hidden in the shadows of an alley between a vacant laundromat and an empty bookstore, Dracht regarded the house across the street. It was an older, white clapboard home with a wrap around porch and freshly painted eaves. The interior had long been stripped of everything, even carpet, the windows shuttered from the inside. Its location in a rough part of town made it less than desirable to use in rescue situations, but it worked beautifully for this.
Crouched next to his father, he heard the other Knights check in over the headset while he squinted through the torrential downpour for movement.
Three of the nine remaining sect members had been apprehended in the woods behind the safe house. Lookouts that Raoul had subdued before the others could be alerted. Benecio had forced one of them to call the other six in, luring them toward the trap Dragar had set in motion.
One by one, dark silhouettes crept through the night, through the rain, toward the front stairs of the house. Two split off along the side for the back and the other four came straight on, removing the front door from the hinges with a vicious kick.
While they were distracted, Dracht sprang to his feet alongside Dragar and sprinted across the street. The rush would have been quieter if the rain hadn't dampened the asphalt; his boots clapped through a few shallow puddles, drawing the attention of the last Templar about to go through the doorway.
Even in the dark, through the silvery deluge, Dracht saw the gun in the Knight's hand.
It swung wide and took aim at his father.
Dragar, possessed of decent speed and agility for his age, nevertheless couldn't dodge bullets. Dracht dropped to a knee right there on the parkway, raised his firearm, and squeezed off two shots. Instead of going for a non-fatal wound, he went for the broader target of the Templar's chest, unwilling to risk his father's life if he missed a thigh or a shoulder.
The Knight pitched back, landing half in and half out of the doorway.
“Shit,” Dracht muttered. Their cover was already blown. He could hear shouting from inside the house. A moment later, something buzzed past his ear. He hit the ground and rolled, aligning himself behind the trunk of a tree.
Dragar never stopped, taking a zig-zagging path forward, shooting at the facade of the house to keep the other Templars pinned down.
Dracht blew his cover and ran straight across the short yard for the porch. His father, shooting from somewhere to his right, had to stop and reload just as he thumped to the side of the open door. Breathing hard, holding his gun with both hands, he listened for movement. The Templars, trained as well as the rest of them, had gone totally silent. But they were there, he knew, just waiting for the right time to strike.
“We have two in custody.” Raoul's voice, out of breath, came over the headset.
Two contained, one dead.
Three down. Three to go.
In periphery, he saw Dragar lope onto the porch, bent in half to pass under the front window across from him. One on each side of the blown out doorway, Dracht made eye contact with his father. He nodded and pulled a small, round disc from the belt at his waist. Tugging the tab, he tossed it into the darkness, over the prone body blocking the threshold, and waited for the gas to smoke the Templars out.
At least here, under the awning, he didn't have to fight the rain to see. Dracht crouched down again, balanced on the balls of his feet. He didn't want to be eye to eye with anyone who might come out shooting.
As it turned out, that was exactly what happened. The first Templar barreled through the open door, stumbling on the body, gun blasting in Dracht's direction. Three bullets whizzed above his head. He knew his father couldn't fire because he risked hitting him instead of the sect member. In those spare seconds when they were forced to wait, Dracht saw Dragar gather himself and knew what he meant to do.
Dragar lunged after the Knight. Colliding, they tumbled down the stairs into the blinding rain. But Dracht had to worry about the other two who couldn't be far behind the first one.
Swinging the gun back, still crouched, he shot out the knee of the next man coming through the doorway. With a scream, the Templar crashed to the porch where Dragar had just been. His gun skittered away, falling off onto the grass.
Before Dracht could move, two bodies hurled out through the busted door frame, landing in a tangle of fists and curses.
One of them had to be Raoul. He must have cut through the house to take this last Templar by surprise.
“Freeze! Don't move!” Dracht shouted. He couldn't get a clear shot.
Raoul chopped his hand across the man's windpipe, effectively stunning him, and knocked the gun from his fingers.
Dracht plucked the weapon off the porch and pressed to a stand, stepping over them to check on the one he'd shot the knee out of. The Templar rolled around on the porch, hissing and groaning in pain.
Tucking the extra gun, Dracht snagged a pair of cuffs from his belt and secured the Knight's wrists. Satisfied he wasn't a threat any longer, he vaulted the rail to the ground.
Dragar had the last man pinned, knee in his back. From the safe house more Templars came, another few running onto the scene across the street.
“Get them all loaded into the van. Benecio! You know where to take them. Have the medic on standby.” Dragar let go of the man he had pinned when other Knights came to take over.
Dracht surveyed the scene, mouth a grim line. He holstered his weapon and met his father a few steps from the stairs. The storm raged around them, soaking his clothes through to his skin.
“That's all of them.” He glanced at the door where the prone Templar lay. Dracht wasn't happy about having to shoot one of his own.
Dragar clapped a hand to his shoulder. “You did what
you had to. They made their choice, Dracht.”
“I know. I still don't like it.” He knew his father felt the same way, even if he hadn't been the one to pull the trigger. Dragar acted as a father figure to many of the Knights whose own parents had passed away.
“None of us do. I would have done the same thing if it had been you or any other in danger. It's part of the job. Come on, let's get going. I'm sure the women will be relieved to know that it's over.” Dragar clapped his shoulder once more before leading the way toward a car that had been left for them at the curb.
On the way to the stronghold, Dracht tried to call Rhett. Three times it went to voice mail. He left a message on the fourth try.
“Hey, pick up once in a while. We're on our way back. We have them all contained. See you in ten.” Dracht hung up and slouched in the passenger seat while Dragar traversed the slick looking streets of Athens. The storm pounded the landscape relentlessly, muting the colors into layers of black and gray.
At the gate, the guard let them in. Dracht, ready to be done for the evening, unfastened his seat belt while his father cruised slowly along the drive toward the building.
A strange car sat parked before the broad, sweeping staircase and Dracht peered through the gloom to try and get a better look.
“Whose car is that?” he asked.
“Can't tell. Doesn't look like anyone we know, does it?” Dragar replied, slowing to a stop twenty feet behind the vehicle. He cut the lights.
“It's hard to see through the damn weather.” Dracht flung open his door and got out. He hadn't gone three steps when the sound of a brawl hit him over the roll of thunder through the sky.
“Dragar!” Dracht broke into a run after alerting his father something was wrong. Rounding the front of the other car, he saw bodies on the ground. Four of them, broke into two halves. The whip of long, wet black hair told him one of them was Alexandra. Minna must be the other, both in lethal combat with two men who didn't look immediately familiar.
“Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them! Now!” Dracht roared his command, the gun already out of the holster.
Alexandra and Minna both took advantage of the distraction. Alex cracked a fist into her attackers nose and Minna delivered a brutal blow to a temple. Minna rolled out from under the man who held her down, taking up a defensive stance. She was muddy and disheveled and breathing like she'd just run a marathon. Her sister, less graceful but no less effective, had a harder time getting to her feet. Dracht could see the beginnings of bruises on them both even through the rain.
Dragar stalked onto the scene with his weapon leveled at the men.
“Get up! Who are you and what are you doing here?” Dragar demanded.
The men, suits soaked through, scrambled to their feet with their hands raised in surrender. They stank of government. One of them had a bloody nose.
Dracht didn't recognize either of them.
“He asked you a question!” Dracht shouted over a peal of thunder. He saw the way the men's gaze darted back and forth, as if they were weighing their options of escape or retaliation. He would have bet his entire next paycheck that both were concealing weapons under their jackets.
Why they hadn't used them on the girls were questions to be asked later.
“Hands behind your back. Right now.” Dracht drew a pair of plastic wrist cuffs from his belt and subdued one man while Dragar did the other. Each was divested of a gun from hidden holsters.
“Alexandra, Minna, what the hell is going on?” Dracht went to a different source when he got nothing from the men. He glanced over to see both women looking angry and wary.
“They just came in. We were in the office lookin' at the books Dragar said we could read, and before you know it, they tackled us and drug us outside. We managed to hold 'em off long enough not to be put in their car and then you guys showed up.” Alex, a wreck of tangled hair and wet clothes, scowled.
Minna nodded her agreement with Alexandra's assessment of the situation. “They didn't say what they wanted, they just grabbed us. Took us by surprise.”
After all the care they'd taken to make the women feel reassured and safe, this happened. Dracht was less than pleased.
“Where are Rhett and Evelyn? Christian?”
“No idea. I don't think anyone could hear us over the rain,” Alexandra said, flailing in exasperation at the downpour. The guard at the gate couldn't have heard them through the storm and his view was blocked by several trees.
Something eerie and uncomfortable slipped along Dracht's skin. One glance at his father told him he had the same inclination.
“Benecio. Contain the group you have and gather every available Templar. Get back to the stronghold immediately,” Dragar said into the headset. He yanked at the arm of the man he held, forcing him up the steps toward the double doors.
Dracht didn't have to tell Alexandra and Minna to follow. He shoved the man he held in the same direction, bulling him through the double doors. The echoing effect of the stronghold brought him a sound that chilled his blood to the bone.
A sharp clash and hiss of swords reverberated through the chamber.
Rhett parried Christian's thrust, twisting the blade in a counter roll that forced his brother to back-step and withdraw. The grip on the hilt of his sword was slicker than he liked, but he'd fought in worse conditions than these. It would not be a hindrance.
The blood dripping down into his eyes might be, however.
Fighting off inner dismay and frustration, he prowled the same section of sand between Christian and Evelyn. He refused to give up any ground there, wouldn't let his brother have a clear shot at the girl. That he even had to consider Christian might do her harm threatened to upset his usual steel equilibrium.
With a puff of sand kicking off the back of his boot heels, he thrust straightforward. Christian blocked, arching the blade in a half circle, taking his own sword around with it. Rhett retreated only two steps and came in at another angle, driving Christian back. They were, and always had been, well matched in the ring.
He realized that it had to be his brother who'd informed their pursuers where they would be going, and where they were staying. It made sense now, the boat finding them after Crete, the frozen bank accounts, the men in Port Said. Christian had been tipping them off all along.
Rhett couldn't fathom who 'they' were yet. It was only a matter of time though. He would have his answers come hell or high water.
With a hard clang, their blades clashed overhead. Rhett slid his down along the edge, trying to circle close to the wrist and disarm his brother. Christian saw it coming and whipped a strike at his shoulder, risking a jab in the chest for his effort.
Rhett danced back just time time; steel glinted low and to the right, barely missing his arm.
“Getting slow in your old age, brother,” Rhett taunted, never taking his eyes off him. Christian didn't take the bait, parrying forward with a flurry of fast footsteps and ringing blows of metal on metal. Rhett blocked every one, anticipating the moves. He knew he had a slight advantage of age and experience, but he didn't for a second let the knowledge distract him from the fact that Christian had become a desperate man. It leveled the playing field, because while he might anticipate his brother's moves, he couldn't predict them. Christian was likely to take risks he might not normally take.
As if Fate wanted to prove him right, Christian did something he wouldn't usually do. Between one thrust and the next, he crouched, spinning, and picked up a handful of sand. Rhett, busy avoiding the blade, only realized too late what the grabbing hand he saw in periphery meant.
A cloud of sand hit him straight in the face, blinding him, blotting out his adversary.
Evelyn's scream warned him that Christian was moving to strike.
Everything seemed to slow down; time, her breathing, the beat of her heart. She watched the sand hit Rhett head on and an involuntary scream ripped from her throat. It didn't take a genius to understand that he'd be blind for a f
ew precious seconds. Time enough for someone skilled in the craft of swords to deal a killing blow.
Would Christian really kill his own brother? Evelyn, for the first time in her life, wanted to confront the violence instead of run from it. She wanted to rush out there and distract Christian, give Rhett back a fair advantage.
Christian didn't cut Rhett with the blade; he swooped in with the hilt and his fist, intent on delivering a blow to the temple. That was Evelyn's first hint that Christian didn't want to end Rhett's life. Whether that blow would have ever landed, or whether she would have helped or hindered by intruding was left up to anyone's guess. Rhett, in a surprisingly agile, intuitive counter, clanked his sword against the base of Christian's. It contacted just above the hilt, making Christian grit his teeth and grunt in pain.
She saw his blade falter and realized Rhett had struck that close to Christian's hand for a reason. It bought him a second to sweep his foot out and catch his brothers at the ankle. Christian stumbled back, off balance, while Rhett, fighting to see, charged forward. The very tip of his sword glided down Christian's and in a swift arc, Rhett twisted the weapon right out of his brother's fingers. It flew off to the side and Christian landed on his back, staring down the shining steel of Rhett's blade.
Evelyn, so tunnel visioned on the altercation, didn't realize someone else was there until Dragar's voice boomed through the room. It rivaled the thunder blazing across the sky.
“Rhett Sagan, what the devil is going on here?”
Sagan? Evelyn, even in her distress, was caught off guard by the last name. It had been Nichols on his credentials. She recalled Dragar telling her his last name was Sagan in Egypt however, and she'd never made the connection until now. Nichols was as fake as Rhett's CIA status.
Dragar and Dracht, having come in on the end of the fight, seemed uncertain who had instigated it.
Rhett never looked away from Christian's eyes. “I don't know. Christian's decided to be stubborn. He isn't talking. Get up.”
Sin and Sacrifice (The Daughters of Eve Series #1) Page 23