Transcending Darkness

by Airicka Phoenix

  Juliette swallowed. “What about you? You seem to know what you’re doing—”

  “Because there is nothing they can do to me that I haven’t already been through before.” Something about the deadpan way she said it made Juliette’s blood run cold. “But I won’t let you go through the same. I’m going to make sure you get out of here.”

  The bit of plastic bit into Juliette’s clammy palm. “Why?”

  Maraveet never wavered. “Because my brother loves you and losing you would kill him.”

  While the idea of being loved that deeply by Killian made her heart patter just a little faster, Juliette couldn’t shake the doubt his words had cut into her. But there was no point bringing that up now.

  “You don’t think he’d be hurt to lose you?”

  “He better be.” The woman drew back. “I’ll haunt him if he isn’t, but I’m not you and he needs you, so you need to make sure you get back to him.”

  Her gaze lowered to sharp point of hope resting in the palm of her hand. “How do I even use this thing?”

  Maraveet shifted closer. “Grip it firm and when you do use it, go for soft tissue.”

  “Soft … tissue?”

  Maraveet nodded like she was explaining a complex recipe. “The eyes, throat, and genitals are the best places and ensure they won’t get up any time soon.”

  The very idea of jamming that thing into another person’s eye made Juliette’s insides waver. Bile shot up into her throat before she swallowed it down.

  “I don’t know about this…”

  “It’s them or you,” Maraveet said with a bite. “And trust me, the games are only just beginning.

  Chapter 27

  The betrayal was a crippling lance sweeping through him with a cruelty that made his insides feel torn. There were no words for the hurt and shock that came with the knowledge that someone he knew, someone he trusted would hate him so much that they longed to destroy him.

  “I trusted you.”

  Brown eyes darkened by dilated irises, eyes Killian had looked into since he was a boy peered up at him from a face he had once trusted without question. He sat tense in the chair. His navy suit unusually rumpled, revealing his loosened tie and wrinkled dress shirt. He hadn’t made a run for it, which had surprised Killian. Instead, he sat hunched and defeated in the chair, staring down at his knees.

  “Why would you do this?” Killian asked, unable to bring himself to care that all his pain was radiating through his words, weakening them. Weakening him. “I don’t understand.”

  Marco said nothing.

  “Sir, perhaps I can have a few words with him?” Frank offered.

  Killian shook his head. “No, please leave us.”

  Aside from Frank, Vi was there, as well as Aaron, Dominic, and Jacob. His men left promptly without question. Vi hesitated, but she relented and followed the others out. Frank shut the doors behind them.

  Neither Killian nor Marco moved. The silent battle of wills only hurt all the more. A part of him wanted to lunge across the desk, wrap his hands around the man’s throat, and squeeze until he told Killian where Juliette was. Another part of him couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that someone he trusted would do something so horrible.

  Climbing out of his chair, Killian started around the desk separating them. He stopped once he was directly in front of the other man. The table edge settled along his ass cheeks.

  “Where’s Juliette?” he asked quietly. “Where did you take her?”

  Marco remained stubbornly silent. His pale face was tight with fear and guilt. Killian leaned back. His feet flattened on the floor as he rose. His hands curled into the ledge. It was all the restraint he would allow himself.

  “I could have you tortured until you talk,” he mused softly. “I could do many terrible things to you and I want to. I want you to suffer for what you did, for what you’re doing to her right now. It’s only the fact that you’ve been part of my family since I was a boy that is saving you. It’s the only reason I am willing to give you a chance to tell me where you took her and who has her. If you tell me, you won’t die a slow and horrible death. If you don’t…” he let his words trail off. “You know what I am capable of. You know the things I will not hesitate to do to people who hurt those I care about. Juliette is mine and I will take down anyone who stands in my way of getting her back. So, what will it be?”

  Marco shifted. His eyes lowered to his knees. He seemed no closer to speaking, but Killian would fix that.

  “Do you want to know something amusing?” Killian paced away from the desk and circled around the man in slow, even strides. Each clip, he noted, nudged a subtle flinch from his driver. “Had Juliette been here, she would have probably asked me to spare your life. She would insist on it. Not for your sake, but because she has this insane notion that she can save my soul.” He made a full round and stopped in the same spot. “She keeps insisting I have one, which I can’t honestly say I believe. But she does. Do you believe you have a soul, Marco?”

  The sharp point of Marco’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “I don’t think people like you and I are allowed to own a soul,” he continued. “We’re not good people. We live by laws that are not permitted through the gates of heaven so I can see why one might not care how they live the rest of their lives when their eternal fate is already sealed. There is blood on both our hands, but unlike yours, mine was never the blood of the innocent. I have not made the world a lesser place by taking a life worth living. But you … Juliette is innocent. She is good and pure and untainted by the things we have done to survive. Taking her, hurting her, will not bring you peace. It will, however, bring you me and, while I will not kill you, I will let you will live every day in hell where I will bring you to the doors of death in the most excruciating methods imaginable, but I will never let you pass through. So, I will ask you again, one final time, where is Juliette?”

  There was a tremor in Marco’s hands as he slid them along the leather armrests. He had yet to raise his eyes, but his breathing had quickened. His entire body seemed to vibrate beneath the layers of his clothing. Sweat glistened along his brow, plastering dark strands to hollowed temples. Knuckles bulged white beneath the pulled skin of his knuckles. But no explanation passed his pale lips.

  Killian straightened. “If that is your answer…”

  He began towards the doors.

  “I don’t know!” Marco’s frantic voice stopped Killian after only three measured steps. “I wasn’t told where they were taking her.”

  Killian turned and went back to the desk. “By who? Who took her?”

  Marco hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  Anger welled beneath the calm he struggled to maintain. The edges of his limits must have shown in the clenched set of his jaw and the dark fury writhing behind his eyes, because Marco visibly recoiled. All the blood vanished from his face. It bleached his lips white and his eyes were enormous.

  “I never met the person in charge.” His chin lowered. “He sent me a text with a location and instructions.”

  Killian perched on the edge of the desk once more and studied the other man carefully. “Some person you’ve never met texted you with instructions to kidnap Juliette and you just hopped to it?”

  If possible, Marco seemed to shrink even more in his seat. “It was the same message I got the first time.”

  Killian’s fist left his side before he could pull it back. It flew into Marco’s jaw with a satisfying crack and nearly sent him flying backwards, chair and all. His knuckles blazed with pain that rocketed up the length of his entire arm, but it was worth it.

  “I am getting very tired of your half assed answers, Marco,” Killian bit out. “I’m not going to play fifty questions with you. Tell me everything or so help me God, I will skin you alive across this desk.”

  Looking dazed, Marco scrambled higher in his chair, one hand clutching the side of his face. His wide, stunned eyes shot up to Killian.

  �
��I … I’m sorry…” He moistened his lips quickly. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I never wanted to hurt anyone.” His deep inhale shuddered through the room. “The first time they sent the message, it was pinned beneath the windshield wipers of your father’s town car. I thought it was one of the security details playing a joke so I ignored it—”

  “What did the message say?” Killian cut in.

  Marco frowned. “Something about being chosen. It made no sense so I threw it away. A few weeks later, another one appeared. This one more detailed. It went on to explain I was hand selected to fulfill a great task and that by accepting, I would get everything I ever wanted. But if I didn’t, I would be sorry. I had a day to decide by signing the bottom of the page and putting it beneath my wipers. Once again, I chalked it up as bullshit and tossed it.” He broke off to stare at his hands. “A few days later, I came home to find Lisa missing. All her things were still in their places, her car in the driveway, but she was gone. I looked everywhere, called everyone we knew and nothing. No one had seen her.”

  Killian vaguely remembered hearing something about Marco’s wife leaving him years before. He hadn’t paid much attention to the gossip. At the time, his mother had gone missing and his mind had been preoccupied. Later on, it was just concluded that she’d left him and no one ever asked again.

  “What are you saying?”

  Brown eyes shone beneath the tears clinging to damp lashes. “They took her. The same people who have Juliette.” A tear squeezed free when he shut his eyes. “They left another note telling me that I had a week to do what they said or I would never see Lisa again. So, I agreed. I had no choice. They had my wife … and our son.” He rubbed a shaky hand over his face. “Lisa was pregnant when they took her. I had to get them back. I had to.”

  Killian’s frown deepened. “That was years ago. What does it have to do with Juliette?”

  Veins throbbed along Marco’s jaw. They pulsed at his temples. He licked his lips, but it made no difference.

  Sniffling, he cleared his throat. “Because it was the same people who asked me to take your mother.”

  The weak confession brought the world screeching to a halt. An electric silence descended, turning the air thick and sweltering. Currents crackled along his skin, burning and making the hairs rise.

  “What?”

  “Yegor Yolvoski had my family,” Marco explained hurriedly. “He said my wife for Callum’s, but he never gave her back and I was too afraid to tell your father so I said nothing. I had hoped that when your mother was found, my Lisa would be too.” He lowered his head. Dark strands tumbled over his downcast eyes. “Saoirse was given back. I never saw Lisa again.”

  “You gave them my mother? You took her?”

  It was the one thing Killian had never considered. When his mother had been taken, it had simply been assumed that one of Yolvoski’s men had ambushed her detail and taken her. No one ever considered the possibility that it was someone on the inside. But now that Marco was telling the story, Killian saw it. He remembered how his mother’s guards hadn’t even drawn their guns. There had been no struggle, because they had known their attacker, had trusted him. Killian’s mother had trusted him.

  “You took her?” The vicious growl tore through Killian’s esophagus.

  Marco blanched. “They had Lisa…” he croaked. “What would you have done?”

  Even while a part of him already knew the answer to that, knew he would give whatever they wanted to get Juliette back, the rage remained. It continued to blanket him even as his mind fought with the two scenarios. He wondered if he would have been more forgiving if it had been a stranger and not his mother. Would it have made a difference to him? Would it have made the situation any less horrible? Marco had been in the exact position Killian was in now, only he’d lost two people simultaneously. Did that justify the pain and suffering he’d caused Killian’s entire family? Killian didn’t think he was in the proper state of mind to consider those questions, not when there were more important ones to ask.

  “Yolvoski is dead,” Killian bit out, willing his rage to taper long enough to find out where Juliette was. After that… “He can’t possibly have Juliette.”

  Marco nodded. “I don’t know who this person is, but they knew about Lisa and what I’d done. They threatened to kill you if I didn’t bring them the girl.”

  That momentarily surprised him. He had expected a great number of reasons for the treasury, but not that.

  “And why would you care about what happens to me after what you’ve done?” Killian demanded.

  Marco’s head slipped even lower on his neck so the sharp bones along the back jutted out beneath the pale skin. He was practically doubled over in his chair with his face in his hands and his elbows digging into his knees.

  “I lost my son that day.” His muffled confession was barely above a whisper. Marco sniffled and raised his head a notch. “After they were gone, I thought of you as a—”

  “Don’t you dare!” the snarl lashed out of him before he could stop it. “You kidnapped my mother. You let her get tortured and murdered and you knew all along who had her and you did nothing! Now you’ve taken Juliette. You took the woman I love and gave her to men who are doing God knows what to her right now. Don’t you dare sit there and tell me you thought of me as your son.”

  Marco’s head lowered all over again, but he said nothing.

  “Where did you take her? Who contacted you? What else did they tell you?”

  While he waited for a response, he charged past the broken man and stalked to the doors. He yanked them open and motioned only Frank inside. But Vi sprinted in after him. Killian started to tell her to wait outside, but opted against it. He just left the door open behind her as he returned with Frank to his desk.

  “Where did you take her?” he asked Marco again.

  Marco straightened a notch. “They gave me a street address. A van was waiting there and two men jumped out and took her.”

  “And you let them?” Vi blurted. “You just … let them?”

  Marco said nothing.

  “How could you do that?” Vi went on.

  “Viola.” Killian put his hand up to stop the girl. “Now isn’t the time. I promise he will get exactly what he deserves once we get Juliette back.”

  Vi said nothing else, but stood glowering at Marco like she wanted nothing more than to jam a pen in his eye.

  “Where did you meet the van?” Killian turned his attention back to Marco.

  “On the corner of Easten and Broad. Right next to an old bakery. There are no cameras there. They were careful.”

  Killian ignored that. “Assemble a crew,” he told Frank. “We’re going to the location. I want every inch of it searched.”

  Frank started to incline his head when a movement in the doorway had them all turning. Jake, Melton, Laurence, Javier, Phil, John, and Tyson stood in a loose cluster on the threshold. They were already in their Kevlar and camo. Their guns were tucked into holsters strapped to their legs, across their chests and anchored at their ribs. They were dressed ready for war.

  “What’s this?” Killian demanded, although he had a feeling he already knew.

  John stepped forward. “With all due respect, sir, but we’d like to be that crew.”

  Something in the determined lines of their faces, the hard strength of their shoulders, and the fire burning in their eyes filled Killian with a burst of pride and a hint of amusement that he concealed behind a frown.

  “I’m fairly certain I fired two of you,” he said evenly. “Why would you want to help?”

  “You did, but Miss Romero was good to us, sir,” John answered. “We owe it to her to find her and bring her home.”

  The other six nodded in agreement. But Killian turned to Frank, waiting for his analysis. He was the head of security. He knew the men better than Killian did and Killian wanted the best out there to get Juliette back.

  “I vouch for them, sir,” Frank assured him. “
They’re the ones I would pick.”

  Killian nodded. “All right. Get my coat. We leave now.”

  The men nodded.

  Frank stepped forward. “With all due respect, sir, it would be best if you remained here.”

  Killian blinked. “Here?”

  “This could be a trap to get you out in the open,” Frank explained. “We should tread wisely until we have something more concrete.”

  The notion was sound, but Killian had been in that house since before Juliette was taken. He’d suffered inside every inch of those four walls. Remaining behind when Juliette needed him was a notion he did not want to even consider.

  “You would be a risk to the mission, sir,” Frank added.

  Killian conceded. “Fine, do whatever you deem necessary. Bring her home safely.”

  “With your permission, sir, I would like to run point from here.”

  “What?” Killian frowned. “No. I want you out there looking.”

  “I understand, sir, but my first and only priority is to protect you.”

  Killian nodded. “But I’m ordering you to find and protect Juliette. She is your charge now.”

  Frank’s thick eyebrows furrowed in clear disapproval, but he bobbed his head once more before turning on his heel and marching to the doors. The crew followed him.

  “What can I do?” Vi demanded. “I want to do something. I need to do something. I’m going crazy.”

  Killian started to open his mouth when Frank returned, his expression tight. “Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”

  That someone, much to Killian’s surprise, turned out to be Arlo and Juan. The two were followed closely by no less than eight fully armed men in black attire and cold features. Their impromptu visit had Killian’s suspicions rising. It had him moving to put himself between Vi and the newcomers. The girl’s big, brown eyes shot to his, filled with question, but she wisely kept her mouth shut.

  “If I tell you to leave, leave,” he told her quietly under his breath. “Understand?”