And now, she watched the demon loom frightfully dark over her future. Over Tyler. A man she trusted, despite herself.
The camera panned right, away from the man she loved and away from the agony he silently dueled.
Markus’s six-foot-five, 320-pound form stepped into the shot. The smile on his split lips ripped the beating heart out of Cara’s chest and hoisted it into the air in victory.
“Yeah, real tough.” Markus’s ominous boom reverberated through the video and then through her bones.
“He’s ruining your reputation,” a man in the blurry, black background jeered. Several oohs and laughs followed, turning torment into entertainment. Toss in beer and they’d have a party fit of a pub.
How many of them were there? A lot, considering they’d taken Tyler as a hostage. Though not unscathed by the looks of Markus’s mangled face.
Cara’s molars nearly cracked under the pressure of her impotent rage.
“Fools. You don’t understand a thing.” Markus turned toward the crowd. He bent at the waist, folding his broad belly in two, and hefted the board she’d strained every muscle to heave off the barn’s door latch as if it was a nine iron.
“No.” Cara whispered the futile prayer.
“The more he resists, the sweeter his relent will be.” He waggled the end of the board, a batter readying for his line drive. The cameraman hustled backward, widening the shot and bringing Tyler back into view. “And when I break him, Cara will have no choice but to come.” Markus’s ice blue gaze found the camera. “I know how you love fixing the broken.”
Muscles and meat stretched the dingy white shirt binding Markus’s hammy biceps. He wound the large plank back around his head.
Cara’s heart stilled. Her lungs stuttered. The blood in her veins fermented.
Markus backloaded the board. His front biker boot lifted off the ground. The sneer on his gruff face compounded with his effort.
Every taut muscle in Tyler’s body formed a topographical map that screamed.
Clamped lips.
Bulged veins.
Angry ridges.
Canyons of furor where the eye used to be.
Markus released the raging force Cara had fueled. The small hunk of tree parted the air like a bolt of lightning. Its impact landed in the middle of Tyler’s thigh. The bone under a mountain of thigh muscles split, birthing thunder that rolled through the miles, knocking a roar from Cara’s chest.
Tyler’s clamped lips turned ashen white. He gulped air.
“What was that?” The cameraman moved in tight. “Do you want to scream? Cry?”
“Cara.” Tyler pushed her name through clenched teeth.
“Aww. He wants his girlfriend,” the cameraman announced to the group.
“Me too,” one of the men said with a lewd tilt to his voice.
“Don’t come for me.” Tyler had breathed the words before his body went slack.
Cara’s eardrums trembled. Her throat ached. She dropped the phone into her lap, unable to watch more. The steering wheel shook under her grip. She heaved a breath and forced it through her larynx again.
A litany of curses filled the car, for herself, for her regrets, but mostly, for Markus Royan. Dead man walking but not for much longer.
The phone rang, shooting another dart of adrenaline through her veins.
“What?” she answered.
“If you don’t make it there in one piece, Tyler’s chances of rescue decrease. Stop driving like a lunatic. Do you know how many favors I’ve had to offer to keep your ass out of jail? I’m leveraged up to my eyeballs with the D.C. Metro Police. It’d better be worth it because I won’t see straight for—”
“How do you know they have Tyler?” Cara’s voice cracked. She couldn’t handle another turn of treachery.
“We hacked your phone.”
That she could handle.
“How do you know the Royan brothers?” Tucker demanded.
“Marina Sorensen. They have her too.”
“Who is she? She’s not in our system.”
“She’s an innocent.” The moment the words exited her lips, she knew they were false. At one point, Marina had been innocent, but now, she was as unassumingly deadly as Cara was. So why had she stayed with the brothers, and why had they turned on her?
“That’s the barn at the Sanford’s house, right?”
“Correct.”
“Why there?”
“Nate Harlow.”
“I don’t understand, but you can explain later. There are at least five of them and two possible hostages. You can’t go in alone.”
“I’m not. Luck is meeting me.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that but hear this. I have two of my guys in a HELO hot on your heels. If you need to wait for them, wait. And don’t shoot them.”
“Tell them not to get in my way and I won’t.”
“Won’t wait or shoot them?” Tucker asked.
“Either.”
“How the hell did you get here so fast in this thing?” Cara waved Luck into the passenger seat of the white panel van he’d used for surveillance through the years while keeping an eye on Rin.
Luck wore green digital camo with a loaded vest and belt.
“It sprouted wings once or twice, but I just got here.” He crawled over a black vest with all the trimmings and into the other seat. “I was twenty miles closer than you were so that helped a lot. That and I had everything packed for the move. I tossed a few cases and boxes in the back.”
His hand wrapped around the vest’s shoulder strap and then lifted. “This is for you.”
“They’ll just make me take it off before they let me in.” Cara shifted the car into drive and gunned the engine.
“Now, you care to tell me what the hell’s going on?”
The driveway came up fast. It tended to happen that way when you drove in aggressive excess of the speed limit. She wheeled the van onto the gravel drive.
Luck braced both hands on the dash.
“Markus Royan is holding Tyler and Marina to get to me.”
“Son of a bitch.” Luck glared out the window at the horses in the fields. He didn’t stare long. As fast as Cara drove, they morphed into blurry specs.
“At least they don’t have Rin.”
Cara had thought it, but couldn’t, wouldn’t, say it aloud.
“No disrespect to Tyler.”
“Let it go,” Cara ordered. “We’re here.” She slowed at the divergent paths of the driveway in front of the house.
“So what’s the plan?”
“Get down.” She shoved his head between his shoulders. “Don’t get shot and shoot some people.”
“Detailed as ever.” He sliced a sharp gaze toward her but froze part way.
“What’s wrong?” Her foot slipped off the accelerator.
“Rin,” he squeaked.
“What? Was she pissed?”
“No.”
Which meant her daughter was probably really, really pissed at both of them.
“What are you doing here?”
Luck’s words circled Cara’s brain once without sticking to anything. They didn’t make sense until they did.
Cara slammed on the brakes halfway between the large pergola and the barn and whipped around in her seat. Her daughter grimaced from a knotted ball behind the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry. But I thought you were disappearing again, and I wanted to stop you.” Rin looked at Luck and then back to Cara. “He wouldn’t tell me what was going on, so—”
“Because I didn’t know, but I knew it wasn’t safe for you—”
“Oh?” Rin wrenched her torso from the floor. “So it’s not safe for me, but it’s safe for you?”
“We have training—”
Cara lifted her hand, cutting off Luck’s retort and Rin’s defense. She pulled her daughter close while making certain she stayed seated on the van floor. Her fingers framed Rin’s striking face—a younger, more tenacious version
of her own—and the smooth skin cooled Cara’s palms.
“Rin, I’m not leaving you ever again, if I can possibly help it. Do you hear me?” Cara coughed to keep the emotion out of her voice.
“Yes,” Rin whispered.
“And if I do leave you, know it wasn’t at all what I wanted, but it was what I’d give a thousand times over to keep you safe.”
Tears rolled down her daughter’s cheek in quiet, heavy waves. Rin’s fingers tightened around hers, unwilling to let her go.
Cara bent and pressed a kiss to each of her daughter’s cheeks.
Then she twisted her hands free from Rin’s and scrambled from the van.
“Get her away from here,” she told Luck. “If it all goes sideways, Tucker will protect you.”
Luck rushed into the driver’s seat and nodded. She read sorrow and disappointment, anger and determination on his features. He slammed the door and threw the van into reverse. Gravel kicked up from the tires. A cloud of dust shrouded Cara. The farther Rin moved away from her, the more her heart ached, but peace edged the pain. Her daughter was safe, which was all she’d ever wanted.
If she could save Tyler, it would be more than she deserved.
Cara faced the barn and spread her arms wide.
“Let them go! I’m the one you want.”
The shot came from the dark barn doorway. Cara didn’t see it coming, but she heard it. She also felt it rip through her chest.
18
The bullet weighed a thousand pounds. Her feet shuffled sideways, digging into the gravel to stay upright, but it didn’t help. Pressure crushed her chest cavity. Without awaiting orders, her knees buckled. On impact, the rocks ripped holes through her pants and the flesh covering her patellas.
Cara heaved a breath. A wheeze flirted with the air around her but didn’t fill the burning need for oxygen. Her crash continued in sluggish succession, pivoting the horizon. It sucked her to the dirt.
A week ago, Cara would have given herself over to fate. Content in the knowledge that she’d given her life for her daughter’s, she’d have let gravity drain the blood from her body and welcomed the darkness. But she had more to live for than just her daughter. Dammit, she had herself to live for and the promise of more adventures to come. She was tired of living alone, hiding in shadows.
Cara lifted her left hand and shoved her middle finger through the fabric of her shirt and the skin slicked with blood. She plugged the hole at the top right of her chest. Her face met the edge of the grass. The scent of pollen and blooms filled her lungs. Dewy blades clung to her cheeks and tickled her open mouth.
Several pairs of footsteps approached.
She’d landed facing away from the barn. Not that she was inclined to make a tactical move. With her gun in her waistband and a hole in her chest, she might kill herself trying to reach it.
Hard as it was, Cara calmed her breathing and held perfectly still.
The crusher had tried to end her without a show. Maybe it was the low oxygen level or shock setting in, but she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that he’d used a gun and aimed it close to the heart. After all, Markus used videos like the one he’d sent her of Tyler to propagate his reputation and strike fear into the hearts of those in his employ and business ventures. It was why she hadn’t bothered with stealth. She expected to have time before the death blows came.
“That was for my brother,” Markus called from across the lawn. “If you survive it, this next part will be for me. Dead or alive, you’re just the thing to break the tough guy inside. Harald and Eric, bring her in. But first, check her for weapons. Even if she’s passed on.”
One of the men heading her way gave a grunt. Another said, “Inga problem,” which meant no problem. Cara hadn’t yet decided how she was going to be a problem. Until her heart stopped beating, she would be one.
“Emil,” Markus barked, “take the car. Catch the van and kill whoever’s inside. Run them off the road, if you can. Make it look like an accident. Unless you can’t. If not, get it done and get back here.”
Not a chance. If she knew anything about Luck—and after seven years on the run together, she knew him better than she knew her own daughter—he’d get Rin to safety and at the very least set up a defensive position. And if he trusted Rin to stay out of sight, he’d come back with a boom or two. Whether she could hang in there until he got ready was another matter altogether.
She hoped so. For her sake and Tyler’s.
The first set of footsteps hit gravel.
Nerve endings in Cara’s torso caught fire. Sweat broke out over her skin. A hiss threatened to bleed out between her teeth.
Surprise was the only thing Cara had going for her if shot and breathless on the ground could ever be considered an advantage. Her eyes opened. She stared blankly at the cloudless blue sky.
Several yards away, a car engine rumbled to life.
A shadow cast over Cara’s face. It eased the sting of not blinking.
“I’ll get her feet,” a grumpy grumbling voice harrumphed.
“What’s wrong with you?” the second guy asked.
“Roland and Peter are dead, for starters.”
“We didn’t know who that guy was, only that he was banging Cara.”
“Yeah, well, we learned too late for them.”
Tyler had given them a run for their money. Good. It gave her strength to wait, and when it was time, she’d make her move.
“That it?”
“Our brothers are dead.”
“And,” the other man coaxed.
“Emil always gets the good job, and we get stuck with this.”
“I knew it was about Emil. It’s always about Emil. He has rank. Be sore if you want, but he won’t get his hands on this.” The other one crouched next to her and slipped the gun from the small of her back. “This thing’ll go for a pretty penny. And what will Emil have to show for his adventure? Maybe a broken neck. So shut up about it and get your head in the game.”
“Me? You’re getting hot over a gun. Check her pulse and let’s go,” Grumpy pouted.
“I’m supposed to check her for weapons. Thoroughly.” The man leaned across Cara. A large hand cupped her behind. It slid up over her waistband, and then turned decisively, groping its way down her crack. Nausea sloshed into her throat. Rage renewed her strength.
She gritted against a scream and flipped fast. Her thumb found a shaved man’s light blue eye and sank to the first knuckle.
His arms shot wide. The gun clattered to the ground. A high-pitched shriek split the pristine morning.
The ends of her finger became claws, digging and holding tight.
The man wrapped both his hands around her wrist. A biting grip sank into one of her ankles and tugged. She couldn’t pop the man’s eyeball from the socket and maintain the seal on her wound.
As soon as her finger departed the crying man’s eyeball, he released her wrist and cupped his eye.
The grump at her ankle vented a string of Swedish curses she knew too well. His upper lip crinkled into a vicious sneer. The wide sole of his boot lifted into the air, its strike aimed at her knee.
Cara’s breath stalled as though she’d lost the grip on the hole in her chest.
A faraway shot displaced the air with a crack.
It yanked both her and her knee demolisher’s attention to the right. The windshield of the car careening down the driveway shattered. Red sprayed the rear windshield. The car pulled sharply to the left, dipped into a ditch, and slammed to a stop. A whine from the vehicle’s horn announced the loss of Emil.
The man gripping her ankle released it and hit the ground.
His bullet found the center of his forehead anyway. Cara averted her gaze from the decimation. The third bullet sliced through the air silencing the man whose eye she’d jabbed out of the socket.
Her gaze screened the sky for the Base Branch HELO but saw none. If it hadn’t been them, it must have been Luck. And if it hadn’t been Base Branch, they
needed to get here fast.
“Din djävla hora!” Markus bellowed from inside the barn. “I kill your lover.”
A toxic mix of adrenaline and fear forced Cara to her knees. The world swiveled at odd angles. Lying down had been so much easier. She blinked at the dizziness. Still, her silver pistol jogged in her vision, and her finger found it after a few attempts. It snuggled into the cradle of her hand, bolstering her flagging strength.
Good thing. Shoving to her feet used every bit of it.
Cara walked on rubber legs away from the dark barn door. She tried to ease each step onto the grass quietly around the far side of the barn. The back corner the other end where the saddles and pitchforks littered the interior wall seemed miles away.
“Where are you, Hora?” Markus screamed. “Your lover is dying.”
One step at a time, Cara pressed forward.
When the first in the series of hollows in the old wood appeared, Cara nearly wept with relief. The last two steps were like the final release at the crest of a roller coaster. She nestled her eye to the hollow and peered inside.
In the far corner, two bodies lay on horse blankets. Forgotten IV lines protruded from their arms. One had a crooked line of thick stitches across his neck. The other’s belly hung loose, stitches never given. Bloody rags covered their faces.
In the center of the room, Tyler’s battered body thrashed against the bonds, carving deeper into the gouges on his wrists. He bit at the rope coiled around his mouth and worked it down with his teeth and sweaty bicep.
Marina wasn’t among the bodies, nor was she hanging near Tyler. She wasn’t anywhere, not that Cara could see. Neither was Tor.
Markus hid behind a large wooden column at the aisle. He aimed a pistol at the open barn door.
The corners of Cara’s mouth twitched.
She centered the barrel of her gun in a lower hollow and fired five shots.
Virtues (Base Branch Series Book 8) Page 11