by Camryn Rhys
She’d done her best to step exactly where Viper had, but his stride was much larger than hers, and doing lunges for the last fifteen minutes meant her thighs were shaking now.
“What’s wrong with you?” Viper hissed.
“Nothing,” she whispered back. Hannah stretched her legs and fell into a quick pace at his side. No more crouching and lunging through bushes and vines. At least for now.
“You forget I can feel every fucking thing you can. What’s wrong with your legs?”
“You move every time I try to hold onto you. I can’t see in the dark, so I’ve been listening and following your footsteps as exactly as I could. I’m fine, though. Don’t worry. They’ll loosen back up now that we’re on a road.”
He grabbed her hand and placed it against the strap of his vest. “You need to be able to run at a moment’s notice.”
“I can run as fast as you need me to run.” She wrapped her fingers around one of the straps securing his vest. Even though she could see better now, out of the trees, she wasn’t about to admit it and let go of him.
He’d never volunteered to let her touch him before.
Viper grunted, probably not believing her. But that was okay. Getting through this mission safe and sound was priority number one, not convincing her angry mate she was a marathon runner.
The group turned a bend in the road, and Rossi’s enormous villa came into view, sprawled in front of them like a tropical resort. White stucco walls gleamed softly in the slight moonlight. Palm trees swayed in a gentle breeze and a light floral scent from the gardens filtered toward them in the air.
Hannah took a deep breath. It would’ve been a gorgeous place to stay for a vacation if it wasn’t the evil fortress of a psychopathic monster. The creepy factor was through the roof, and she held back a shiver.
Not a single soul could be seen…or heard. Not yet. They weren’t close enough to hear heartbeats from inside the house. The Rangers ahead didn’t appear tense, so they hadn’t seen or heard anything either. The only thing helping her personal tension was being as close as she was to Viper.
The small group crept through the dark, picking their way through the fancy gardens and edging closer and closer to the large front door of the villa.
The only sound she could hear was the crunch of their feet on the loose gravel of the garden area and the pounding heartbeats of their group. The Rangers’ pulses were slow and steady, as if they were doing nothing more than strolling down a grocery store aisle.
“It’s too quiet,” Dani said from a few yards ahead. “Feels like the moment in a horror flick right before the psycho stabs someone with a butcher knife.”
“I won’t let anyone stab you,” Niko replied, letting the slightest bit of a chuckle slip out.
It was totally something
“Keep quiet. We’re going in,” growled the Ranger at the head of the group.
Hannah released her grip on Viper’s vest, and he turned to face her. “Stay behind me, do you understand?”
“Yes.” She nodded, pressing her lips together.
The house was windowless, and they were once again navigating in almost pitch black. The Rangers moved forward confidently with their night-vision goggles, but Hannah and the other enforcers had to rely on their heightened senses to keep from running into the walls or artwork.
She froze as her hand touched the curved edge of what felt like an enormous vase. Hannah moved around the ceramic piece and focused harder on following exactly where Viper’s footsteps echoed up from the floor.
“I don’t hear anything, Duke,” Viper whispered.
“I know. It’s uncanny,” the leader replied.
“Maggie said they were in a basement last time,” Hannah murmured.
“Roger that, keep moving forward,” Duke answered. “We’ll do a thorough sweep to be sure. It’s very possible we just can’t sense them yet. This place is massive.” He gave a brief verbal command, and everyone started moving forward again.
They entered an open walkway and stepped cautiously out from under the ceiling, into an open-to-the-sky courtyard.
Moonlight floated down, giving Hannah a better view of her surroundings. Three levels of balconies stretched up as she tilted her head and looked up at the blue velvet sky. Stars twinkled merrily, completely unaware of the horrors below them.
“Stay behind me,” Viper hissed. He back-stepped and grabbed her wrist, yanking her out of the lighted courtyard and back under the lower level ceiling.
The radio on Duke’s belt crackled to life, sending a stab of tension through Viper’s body and directly into Hannah’s.
“Fuck,” Dani jumped, bumping into one of the Rangers and eliciting an annoyed grunt.
Hannah shook her head. The uptight Hollywood wolf could be a total badass one second and a cowering pussycat the next.
Rain’s voice came over the speaker. “Bravo team, what’s your twenty?”
“At the house. Half the upstairs has been blown away by the bomb.”
“And Rossi?”
“We haven’t seen him yet, Commander.”
“Someone is close,” Viper warned.
Duke nodded and pointed toward the staircase ahead filled with rubble, likely from one of the charges Vadik and Andrea had set.
Everyone moved back beneath the cover of the lower walk.
Duke and the other Rangers led point.
A lone heartbeat filtered through the tension from an above level. It wasn’t one of theirs. This heartbeat pounded from exertion.
Movement from the level above caught her attention, and she paused as her gaze met that of a man.
His brown skin glistened under the soft glow bathing the open area of the villa. Brawny muscles were smeared with dirt and grime. A narrow metallic collar encircled his throat, and wild shaggy hair fell to below his shoulders. His long unkempt beard made him look even more like a wild man.
“Freeze,” Duke’s voice thundered from just ahead of her. “Put your hands up.”
“He’s not a hostile,” Hannah whispered, taking a step forward.
“Hannah,” Viper hissed, using her name like a command.
A growl rumbled in the stranger’s chest and his honey-brown eyes glowed gold with a fury that made her seriously hesitate to take another step forward. That and Viper’s order to stay behind him.
“Who’s there?” he yelled in Spanish.
“We’re here to help,” she spoke out in broken Spanish, stepping to Viper’s side. She’d learned more than enough to get by living in Choaca, but right now at this very moment her mind was drawing blanks in every direction.
“Who are you?” the nearly naked man bellowed.
Viper snarled, raising his weapon and moving his body to block the stranger’s view of Hannah.
She stared at her mate’s broad back for a second before ducking around him again. “He doesn’t have a weapon. He’s not a hostile. He looks like a prisoner.” Hannah evaded Viper’s grasping hand this time and took a few more steps toward the staircase. “We came to help. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” She moved quickly, ignoring the under-the-breath cursing from the other Rangers, including Viper.
She couldn’t just let them shoot an unarmed man. They were here to rescue people, and her doctor’s instinct said this man needed help. Not handcuffs.
He focused his heated gaze on her, and narrowed his eyes. His voice was cold and deadly. “No one is safe until my father is dead.”
Chapter Five
Viper’s heart thudded as Hannah kept walking up the stairs toward the dirty, wild-looking dude in a loincloth. “Who the hell is his father?” he said in a low voice to Duke, who stood beside him, gun similarly raised.
With four M4’s leveled at his head, Tarzan should’ve been scared, but he had a slight round to his back, and he leaned forward, like he might pounce at any moment.
Dammit, Hannah. Get the hell away from him.
“Who’s your father?” she said, her hands out.
Her body was fully in front of the hostile, and Viper couldn’t get a clean shot off. It’d only take a second to pull out his much more accurate, much more lethal M9 pistol hanging on the back of his belt.
Could he reach it and pull the trigger before Hannah was all the way in front of the guy?
Probably not.
“Adrian Rossi,” Tarzan said.
He was on the stairs behind Hannah before the man had finished the last syllable. He grabbed her arm and pulled, hard. “Stop, Hannah.”
“No. I’m not going to let you kill him.” She wrenched away from his grip. “Get off me.”
“It’s Rossi’s son, okay? We need to neutralize him.”
“Leave her alone, asswipe,” called out the blond civilian from the back of the group. Nick? Nack? Shit, who could remember. “She’s a doctor.”
Viper raised his brows and stared at Hannah. “Is that right? Are you a doctor?”
“Yes.” She turned to the room at large. “Will you all please lower your weapons? He’s not going to hurt anyone.”
A gust of air caught in Viper’s lungs when Hannah’s hand made contact with Tarzan’s naked skin.
Shit, she couldn’t just take chances like that. What if the hostile had a knife hidden… well… somewhere? Then, where would she be?
Dead. She’d be fucking dead. He wasn’t going to let her be dead.
Viper yanked her arm until she was fully standing behind him. Her protest was momentary, and once she was completely behind his body, he straightened to his full height and spread his elbows out while he held his weapon, to make the biggest target he could.
“Don’t. Viper.” Her exasperated tone was low enough, he hoped it had only been heard by him. And maybe Tarzan—that guy could take a leap for all he cared. But if his buddies heard her talk to him like that, they would…they would know. That was a tone you only used on…your husband.
Fucking. Shit.
Mate.
Still hadn’t sunk in.
He had to keep the guys from knowing. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ, she was wearing long sleeves against the cold, and not some tank top. And his jacket was long enough, and it was dark enough, they’d never see the tattoos.
“Just let me ask him a few questions,” he hissed back at her. He poked Tarzan’s shoulder with the muzzle of his gun. In a loud voice, he said in Spanish, “Who are you?”
“Since you’re in my home, how about you tell me who you are first?”
Mouthy sumbitch.
Hannah poked Viper in the back and he rolled his eyes. “Fine. We’re here on behalf of the United States Government, and the Alpha Council. We’re here to find Adrian Rossi.”
“I’m Gabriel.” The big hostile touched his chest and Viper flinched, his finger itching near the trigger.
“Who are you, Gabriel?” Duke asked from the foot of the stairs.
“I’m Adrian Rossi’s son.” Gabriel glanced around the room. “The oldest of his sons. If you’re going after him, I’m going with you.”
“You?” Viper chuckled. “You expect us to take you along so you can, what? Shoot us in the back?”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed and his head shook from side to side, the dirty strands of hair moving with the momentum. “You don’t understand a thing.” He went off in such rapid-fire Spanish, Viper lost track of what he was saying.
“Wait, wait,” he said, dropping the gun just an inch and putting up one hand. “You’re talking too fast, man.”
“He said there isn’t a kid on this island who isn’t Rossi’s child.” The words came from Gonzales, and they took a while to land on the whole room. Silence echoed across the big, black space, while everyone let those words sink in.
Hannah’s hand gripped his kit from behind and he felt like she was pulling him to stand straight. Like he wasn’t going to be able to stand on his own.
“We’ve killed four guards already,” he whispered. “They were… young.”
“My brothers.” Gabriel nodded. “All of them.”
Bile rose in Viper’s throat and he choked it back. Hannah came to stand beside him on the stair. Without her to hold him, he had to think hard about his balance. Like the world was a different place after that revelation.
“Who are their mothers?”
Gabriel’s eyes went to the ground and stayed there. His mouth moved without words for several seconds and Viper could see the gravity in his eyes. Like saying it out loud would make it real.
Been there, bro. It’s best to get that shit right out.
“Who are their mothers?” he asked again.
“The best I can tell, there were some other women he kidnapped, at first. A long time ago. But they’re gone, and so now…” Gabriel’s mouth hung open, still not saying the words.
“Was that back… in Guadalajara?” Hannah’s soothing voice seemed to have some impact on Gabriel. He looked up at her, parting his hair around his eyes.
“How did you know about Guadalajara?”
“We saw the place where Rossi kept them,” she said, almost without judgment. But no wolf alive would be able to talk about Adrian Rossi ever again without some disdain. “We have found at least one of the mothers.”
“Who are the mothers of all these guards?” Viper shouldered his weapon. The guy needed to say the words. They all knew what was coming. What had to be coming. Say the words.
“The girls he kept in the house.” Gabriel’s voice cracked. “His daughters.”
“Ssssssshhhhhiiiiiit,” Duke hissed. Viper heard the sound of all the guns being lowered. In the silence, the movements of the body armor seemed like shouts against what Rossi had done on this island.
For years.
He had been holding his own children captive on this island and…breeding with them. Fucking bastard.
A dry heave came from somewhere in the group, and then another. Quieter. It was impossible not to want to puke at the thought.
“These guards, then,” Hannah said in slow syllables, like she couldn’t quite process the horror. “They’re all… they can’t be very old.”
“Most of them are probably kids.” Gabriel pushed up the heavy collar on his neck. “I used to be one of them, until my father threw me into the hunt.”
Hannah gasped and reached for the collar, but Viper grabbed at her hand before she could touch him. She pushed at him. “Don’t you see. Under his collar.”
“It’s fine,” Gabriel said, putting a hand up. “I don’t care.”
“But it’s raw there. You could get an infection.”
“I don’t care,” Tarzan snarled.
Viper put an arm in front of Hannah. “Hey now, asshole. She’s trying to help you.”
“I don’t need help from a doctor.” Gabriel grabbed for Viper’s gun and, suddenly, all the weapons were aimed at him again. He screamed out, “No. I don’t want to hurt you. Just give me a gun. I need to kill my father.”
A fist tightened around his heart. He knew that feeling. Viper grabbed the guy’s wrist and held it at arm’s length. Dude smelled like a sewer, on top of it all. “Just hold on, there.” He slid up one stair, putting himself between Gabriel and Hannah. “You’re welcome to come with us. But we’re not giving you a gun.”
“But I need to kill him,” the wild man said, spittle shooting from his mouth and landing on Viper’s jacket. “It needs to be me.”
“I get it, dude, trust me. You want to kill your dad. I want to kill your dad. Hell, we all want to kill your dad.” He held the man’s wrist hard, willing him to submit. To go down. To sit and wait and let the trained soldiers handle the situation. But Tarzan just pushed back, just as hard, and stared into Viper’s eyes.
“It has to be me,” Gabriel hissed. “He locked me in a cage for nine years.”
Viper grunted. He wanted to sympathize with the guy. He’d been this angry the night his father had gone one step too far. And there had been just as many years behind his anger as there were behind Gabriel’s. But there wasn’t a day t
hat went by that a part of him didn’t regret his actions.
As much as his father deserved to be dead, Viper wished it hadn’t been him that did it. And he wanted to save this poor dude from the same fate.
“I get that you’re pissed, and you think he won’t really be dead unless you do it yourself. But let us handle it.” He gripped harder. “I promise, man. He’ll really be dead.”
Water fell from the sides of Gabriel’s eyes and his teeth ground together, so hard, his breath came out in ragged little bursts. “I need to go with you. I’m not staying here.”
“Fine. You come along.” Viper released him. Can’t make a man’s decisions for him. Unless you’re a 90-pound Asian woman. Then, apparently, you’re allowed to make decisions all over the place without consulting anyone. He settled his breath and looked over his shoulder at Duke and the rest of the guys. “There’s no one in the house, besides him?”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” Duke said. “We should clear it, just to make sure.”
“They’re not here,” Gabriel said, breezing between Hannah and Viper, down the stairs.
All of the Rangers shifted uneasily as the crazy, smelly stranger walked among them.
“I went through every room downstairs.”
“Then where are they?”
Gabriel kept walking, out the door they’d entered, like they should all obviously follow him.
Duke and Viper exchanged a look, and Duke gave the move-out command. Everyone turned to jog after the madman.
Viper grabbed Hannah’s arm as she made to follow. “Don’t do that anymore,” he whispered.
“Do what?” Her eyes were wide, innocent. Fucking beautiful, in the near-dark. Dammit, she was gorgeous. How had he not seen this before?
“Put yourself in danger.” He pushed at her, as though he could force some sense into her by sheer momentum. “Don’t.”
“I’m inherently in danger by being around you, Viper.” She reached for his cheek. “But don’t worry, I’ll stay close. I can see your fear, even if you won’t say it.”
Her smile put him on edge, but he released her arm and she descended the stairs after the rest of the group.