“I’d wondered,” Elias went on, ignoring her last quip. “What on earth so many see in you. There are plenty of pretty girls, and even more deadlier than you are, yet so many seem rather taken with you.”
He stepped toward her, so close that she could smell the clean scent of his clothes and see the fine wrinkles beside his eyes. There was a blankness to his features that spoke of his careless actions.
The fact that he was here now, questioning her, goading her, meant he was losing his edge.
“They really made you into something, didn’t they?”
Luna didn’t have to wonder who he meant—Kit and Uilleam—and though she wanted to give a retort, he wasn’t wrong.
They had changed her.
Before, she would have been crying, begging to be set free, but that wasn’t who she was anymore. She wasn’t weak.
Uilleam had presented the opportunity, and Kit had shown her what to do with it.
This life of hers had been shaped and molded by a pair of brothers she hadn’t met until almost eight years ago.
“Your time is running out,” Luna told him, though she hadn’t the slightest idea how close or how far Kit was.
She only knew he would come for her, and God help any poor bastard who thought to stand in his way.
Elias didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he chuckled. “Did you know she said you were off-limits?”
“Carmen?” Luna asked, the disbelief clear in her voice.
“Belladonna,” he answered.
Now, for the first time, he rendered her speechless.
“You’re amusing … as one might consider a pet, but I’ve never seen what interested her so much about you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She hadn’t meant to ask the question, but her curiosity got the best of her before she could swallow the words back down.
“Surprising that you know nothing,” he said with the slightest shake of his head. “But it no longer matters because today, I’ll rid you of this world.”
Elias stepped away, shadows closing in, revealing the men who had been waiting in the wings. One held a baton, another palmed a machete, and the last … he just looked eager to get started.
“I would hurry, if I were you,” Elias told the men as he straightened his hat and glanced at Luna one last time. “She wasn’t wrong about Nix coming for her, and I doubt you want to be here when he does.”
He disappeared, his quiet laughter trailing after him, and once he was gone, all eyes were on her.
“You should go while you still have the chance,” Luna warned them, a sliver of unease creeping through her.
Kit was coming, even Elias knew this, but he had to know something else if he knew with some certainty why he wasn’t there already.
In the time it took for him to get there, a lot of pain could be inflicted …
The one with the baton, raised his arm, swinging without warning, giving her only a moment to twist her body and take the hit on the back of her legs.
Pain exploded in that spot, making her clench her teeth against the need to cry out, but she wouldn’t.
When he swung again, she used every bit of strength she possessed to lift her body, dodging the hit by mere centimeters.
But she wasn’t quick enough to dodge the hit that came after, this one landing where she’d been shots mere days ago.
That was enough to make her scream, the pain making her feel like a rib had been broken.
And once she was unable to defend herself as best she could, more hits came, the others joining in until there was no central location for the pain—all of her hurt.
Black spots dotted her vision, and she was sure she would pass out from the agony at any moment, but as quickly as she was suffering, the pain just stopped.
“Who the fu—”
A projectile sounded a moment before the man nearest her dropped. She could barely get her eyes open to see Kit crossing the room, firing with expert precision until there was only one left—one who was quickly begging for his life.
Two shots to his kneecaps sent the man to the floor, his own cries of pain echoing in the warehouse, even louder than Luna’s had been.
Even as she ached and was desperately close to passing out, Luna managed a smile as she whispered his name, relief filling her now that she knew he was here.
“Take him,” Kit said to someone else, but she could hardly raise her head to see who.
There was one long moment as she felt Kit cutting at the ropes before she was suddenly free, and she dropped like dead weight into his arms, but even that hurt as he caught her.
This pain, however, she didn’t mind.
“You’re safe,” he said as he held her, carrying her from this place and out into the night.
For now, she thought bitterly.
Elias was still out there, and she knew that as long as he was, she would never truly be safe.
This wasn’t over.
Not yet.
Fang
“Slow down,” she would say with a laugh, her arms squeezing his middle, “or you’ll crash and kill us both.”
Aidra hated when he drove with little care to speed limits and other drivers on the road, and even now, she would probably be more concerned about him wiping out than the fact that he was going well over a hundred miles per hour to get to her.
But Fang didn’t care.
He just wanted to make sure he could get there in time so she could yell at him about being reckless with his disregard for his own life.
He needed to get to her.
The GPS was spouting directions in his ear, and he mindlessly followed them, his heart racing in his chest nearly as fast as he was riding.
There were a thousand words he wanted to say, but he just needed to get to her to make sure he could actually say them.
Finally—finally, he reached the warehouse and could just see the light flickering beneath the gated entry.
He squeezed the brake hard, sending his bike sliding sideways, but even as he laid it down with little care, he was taking off across the parking lot, running faster than he ever had before.
His brothers were close behind, dashing after him, but he could only think about what he would find on the other side of the garage door.
Pulling the gun from its holster at his side, he fired at the lock, rearing back to slam his booted foot into the door to send it splintering open.
There was a crash then a curse as a man ran out a back door, just a blur at the edge of Fang’s vision. Without being prompted, Thanatos and Invictus took off after him.
But it wasn’t to the runner that Fang directed his attention, rather to the tank that was set up in the middle of the floor.
Aidra …
Her hands and ankles were bound, but her eyes were wide with panic because the water that was feeding into the tank was nearly above her head.
“I’m going to get you out!” he said—he promised.
If it was the last fucking thing he did.
Fang scrambled forward, trying to find the opening, but the latch was impossible to open, no matter how he twisted and pulled, and even as he fucking shot the thing. The bullets only embedded themselves in the metal, but nothing more.
Tăcut shot at the glass, but besides a vague imprint where the bullet struck, the glass held.
If possible, the panic only grew in Aidra’s eyes, mirroring what Fang felt.
They’d made a tank of bulletproof glass.
He needed to think.
He needed to think.
He needed to think.
Nothing was ever truly bulletproof. If you shot it enough, its integrity would start to fail and eventually, it would break.
That was easy—there was enough ammunition between the two of them that there would be nothing left but dust.
He could get her out.
He would get her out, but time wasn’t on his side, and he could already see that the water was already above her he
ad.
Three minutes …
He had three minutes to get her out.
Fang fired until his gun clicked, until the center of the glass was opaque and he could no longer see her face, but he could see the rest of her—the way her legs had stopped flailing and her body had stopped moving.
The panic and pain that filled his chest were too acute, too real for him to focus on anything else.
She wouldn’t die.
Not like this.
Not when he could save her.
One minute, Tăcut was beside him, and the next, he was gone, only to return seconds later with a sledgehammer from a nearby workbench, and with every bit of strength the man possessed, he sent it flying into the glass.
One hit, then another, and another, until finally, finally, the glass front shattered and water gushed out, nearly taking them off their feet, but Fang stood fast.
“Aidra,” he shouted, even as he pulled her from the tank, ignoring the feel of her clammy skin as he laid her flat, pushing the strands of her hair back from her face.
Stacking his hands on top of her chest, he pressed, trying to force the water from her lungs, then reared up to force her mouth open and blew.
Alternating between the two, he didn’t stop—he wouldn’t stop—refusing to give up, even as his arms cramped, and he knew …
He knew.
She didn’t deserve this—not Aidra. She was too kind, too giving, too sweet—too much of what was good about him to be taken from the world as violently as she had.
Screams echoed all around him, the noise nearly splitting his head open and the only thing he wanted in that moment was for it to fucking stop. But as he cradled her in his arms, holding her tight against him, he realized that the screams were coming from him.
He whispered words she couldn’t hear.
Apologies.
Promises.
He would make this right. He would avenge her until nothing was left of him—at least what was left now that she was gone.
Even as his mind seized on the bloodlust that was quickly churning inside him, Fang remained where he sat, holding her tight as he should have before.
He knew his brothers stood around him, silent and respectful, their gazes on anything besides them to offer him privacy.
Of all of them, he knew best how to channel his pain—how to bury it deep until there was nothing left to feel—but he didn’t this time.
He let his grief consume him.
He needed to feel everything.
Fang leaned forward, pressing his lips to her cold temple as he whispered a prayer, whispering words that he had never offered to another.
Don’t go, he wanted to say.
What would he do without her smile and laughter and joy?
How could he look Nix in the face knowing that he had failed the one task the man had asked of him—keeping her safe.
“She’s fragile,” Nix had said long ago. “Whether she wants to admit it or not. Protect her—even if you have to protect her from herself.”
He should have gone after her instead of waiting.
He should have driven faster, tried harder.
Fang should have done a lot of things.
Chapter Seventeen
Luna woke to a blistering headache and enough pain that she immediately wished she hadn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was move from the bed she was in—how the hell did she get there?—but she could hear voices just outside the bedroom door.
Forcing herself up, she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth as she struggled to her feet, each step she took a painful reminder that the beating she had taken was far worse than she’d originally thought.
Curling an arm around her ribs, that at least helped with the pain a bit, she wrapped her fingers around the door handle and jerked it down, pulling the door open and surprising Celt and Skorpion who were standing on the other side.
Celt’s green eyes widened as he looked her over then winced at what he saw. “You look like shite.”
Glaring at him—though it even hurt to do that—she stepped around him. “You think?”
“Better to look like shite than to not have a look at all, eh?”
Fair enough. “What are you still doing here? I thought you’d be back in New York by now.”
He shrugged, though his expression wasn’t as casual as he probably thought it was. “Another job.”
Carefully making her way down the stairs, she shook her head. “Sucks for Amber.”
He shrugged. “She understands.”
But by the tone of his voice, Luna wasn’t so sure even he believed that.
Luna was almost to the last step when a wave of pain hit her so hard that she stumbled. Skorpion caught her as gently as he could before setting her to rights.
“You shouldn’t be up,” he said, his expression reflecting the pain she was in.
“I’m fine. I’ve suffered worse. Where’s Kit?”
But even as the question left her lips, there was no need for her to ask. He was standing outside the back door, his phone to his ear, his expression unreadable.
Something was wrong—she could tell from the way he was standing and the tension in his shoulders.
The pain she was in no longer registered as she went to him.
He didn’t turn as she slid the door open and stepped out, while Celt and Skorpion disappear around a corner to give them privacy. Whatever was wrong with Kit, they knew what it was.
“Kit …”
He turned just his head, glancing back at her, and the expression on his face was enough to make her suck in a breath.
He looked … wounded.
“What’s happened?”
Kit didn’t speak, not yet. He merely listened to whoever was on the other line until he ended the call a minute later.
Luna could only think of one other time when he’d looked this lost, this pained. But she was standing right in front of him, battered maybe, but she was there.
She touched his chest, her heart breaking at the way he shuddered. Whatever the pain was, she offered comfort despite not knowing.
For a long moment, they stood like this, his hands at his sides, hers resting on his chest, then he was releasing a breath.
“Elias …” Kit seemed at a loss for words. “He didn’t stop at taking you.”
“Who else?”
It wasn’t one of the mercenaries, she knew, Celt or Skorpion would have told her—and if it were Uilleam, they would have told her that as well.
That only left those closest to Kit.
She ran through a process of elimination in her own head, but it only took a second of careful thought to realize who was missing—the one person who never left Kit’s side.
“Aidra,” Luna whispered.
He tried to hide it, concealing his pain in the blink of an eye, but she saw it before it was gone. She saw it before he could hide it and the sight of it made her heart skip a beat.
“Where is she?” she asked, even as she was afraid to know the answer.
“Elias took you both,” Kit explained, his voice flat and void of any emotion, “and put you in separate locations. I came for you while Fang and The Wild Bunch went to find Aidra.”
She knew how it ended for them—she was standing there in front of him with a few bruises and pains but alive all the same.
“Is she hurt bad?” Luna asked, treacherous hope flaring to life.
But she knew better.
She knew from the look on his face that despite what she wished, his answer wouldn’t be the one she wanted.
“Fang isn’t … processing well. I need to go.”
He needed to go—the distinction wasn’t lost on her.
She knew it wasn’t her fault, that none of them could have predicted this, but she understood why he was pretty much telling her she would have to remain there at the house.
Fang wouldn’t want to see her.
Whereas she was alive … Aidra wasn’t.
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“Wait for me,” Kit said, touching his lips to her forehead. “Skorpion won’t let anyone near you again.”
Of that, she had no doubt, but she wasn’t thinking about her own safety at the moment. “I’m so sorry, Kit.”
She knew how much Aidra had meant to him—she’d been at his side far longer than even Luna had. She had been more than an assistant or even a friend.
Aidra was family.
He held her against him for one long, breathless moment before he was leaving.
“She’s a new recruit,” Zachariah said as they walked toward the bunkers where the sleeping quarters were located on the other side of the compound.
Having been a part of the Lotus Society for the better part of three years now, Kit was in a position where he wasn’t just an asset—he was a valuable one they believed could shape future recruits into what he’d become.
“What’s his name?” Kit asked, gazing down at the file in his hands.
There wasn’t much to find, merely a brief history and the recruit’s country of origin.
“Not his,” Zachariah said with a hint of a smile in his voice. “Hers.”
Kit blinked in surprise as the metal door before them slid open, and he got his first look at the woman inside the room, though girl was better suited for her.
She might have been his age or a few years younger, but she looked drastically younger, with her bones standing out in stark contrast against pale skin, and a smattering of bruises all along her arms.
He suspected she was closer to death than becoming an operative, but Kit had never been one to question orders.
With a nod, Zachariah went on his way, leaving Kit to confront the girl on his own.
The moment he got his first look at her, the only word he could think to describe her was: spirited. He could see it in the way she held her head up just a fraction higher than what was appropriate, as though trying to look down her nose at him.
He liked her immediately.
“Your name,” he ordered, looking her square in the eye.
Nodding at the file in his hands, she asked, “You already know the answer to that, no? Why are you asking pointless questions?”
And it was at that moment Kit knew he was definitely going to enjoy training her. Not because she had been forced on him and he couldn’t say no, but because Aidra hadn’t shown a drop of fear.
Calavera. (Den of Mercenaries #4) Page 21