“Did she continue down the hall?”
This time her nod is more defined. Adamant.
“Okay. Good.” I shove to my feet, thankful for the adrenaline faintly masking the pounding in my skull. Those gunshots messed with my head. The attack on the guard did, too.
I reclaim my position close to the wall and continue into unchartered territory, my vision not entirely at the top of its game. I have to blink to make things crystal, and that’s a fucking worry all on its own.
“Penny?” I yell. “Where are you?”
A thunder of footsteps sound from the hall I just trekked. Not light. Not hers. As soon as the asshole comes around the corner, I shoot.
Pop. Pop.
He crumples. It’s too fucking easy. And it’s entirely fucking clear these guards aren’t guards at all. They’re puppets armed with the least tactical weapon on earth to be used indoors.
Their lack of skill doesn’t make sense. Unless Luther truly was untouchable out here and these guards are for show.
“I’ve taken down two.” I speak into the microphone hidden under my shirt. “But something doesn’t feel right.”
Someone grunts, the sound resembling a struggle.
More gunfire erupts, the noise carrying from outside.
“One more down.” Hunt pants through my earpiece. “But Penny must’ve got her count wrong. I can still hear someone else out here.”
Pop. Pop. Pop.
This time the shots ricochet from inside, the brain-piercing noise vibrating off the walls to tamper my ability to distinguish the location.
Women wail. A male shouts.
“Penny,” someone cries. “Penny.”
I run, taking the first archway on my left to dart and weave through a dining room.
“Tadd, you don’t want to do this.”
It’s her, the familiar voice carrying from nearby.
I don’t stop. Don’t even pause. I sprint toward the sound and skitter to a halt when I find her standing in an archway, her arms raised in surrender, light from inside the room bathing her in an ethereal glow.
“Penny, don’t go in there.” I keep running. Scrambling.
She ignores me to step out of view.
Pop. Pop.
I die at the sound of those shots. The accompanying screams are brutal. Gunfire takes over—from the other side of the house and outside. It’s everywhere, the thunder pounding into my skull.
I push harder, sprinting into the unknown a few feet behind her, yelling a war cry in the hopes of stealing the attention of any threat toward her. As soon as I breach the room, shots rain down on me from an asshole with a rifle. I dive, the whistle of a bullet brushing my ear as I sail through the air, my gun steady.
I return fire—pop, pop—then hit the ground hard, the smooth tile helping me to slide behind the safety of a sofa.
For a second, I lie there, waiting for a lethal wound to announce itself, listening for movement of an enemy as blackness spots over my vision.
There’s more screaming. More sobbing.
But no more fire.
The battle dies for a moment.
“Penny?” I struggle to raise to my elbows. “Penny?” I shove to my feet, cautious, and find the guard, barely in his twenties, dead on the floor.
Penny stands a few yards to his left, two more women close by her side, and another spread on the floor at her feet, her body and face shielded by the legs standing around her.
I edge my way toward them as I take in my surroundings—the floor-to-ceiling windows providing no protection from an outside threat, another archway at the far side of the room, and the extravagant furniture capable of hiding an enemy.
“It’s okay.” Penny collapses to her knees beside the prone figure, the other two women following suit from the opposite side of the motionless body. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Was she hit?” I back toward them, my gun and sight shifting between the open doorways. “Talk to me.”
My answer comes in the form of slowly building sobs. First one woman, then another.
“In the stomach,” Penny whispers. “She needs to get to a hospital.”
Fuck.
There are no hospitals. Not for this type of situation.
“Hunt, Deck, I’ve found them. But I need you guys to give me an update.” I reach Penny’s side and peer down at the woman on the floor who’s barely a woman at all, her face seeming more like an innocent child’s.
“I’ve got one asshole playing hide-n-seek over here,” Decker says. “But I think that’s the last of them on my side of the house.”
“One got away,” Hunt adds. “He scaled the fucking wall.”
“Did he see your fucking face?” I ask.
“Doubt it. The little bitch was running scared. I’m tempted to run after him.”
“No. We’ve gotta get out of here, and I’m going to need help moving these women.” Three of them at least. And the fourth who I left in the nearby bedroom. The fifth won’t be going anywhere.
There’s no saving her.
Blood seeps across the material of her silken nightwear, the building gurgle in her throat announcing the stream of liquid death about to spill from her lips.
Penny presses her hands to the woman’s abdomen, placing pressure on the wound. “We’re going to get you out of here, Chloe. We’re free.”
There’s confidence in her voice.
Unwarranted, unwavering confidence.
“She’s going to start choking.” I indicate for the blonde to move to the left with a jut of my gun. “Get behind her and lift her shoulders.”
Her trepidatious gaze darts between me and Penny before she finally scrambles to her knees to raise Chloe’s head onto her lap. Not that her compliance matters. The injured woman coughs, the first burst of blood spluttering from her mouth.
“Hold on,” Penny demands. “Keep fighting.”
More blood bubbles across porcelain skin, the gagging and choking increasing.
The two other women sob. Cry. Hyperventilate.
But Penny doesn’t lose her determination. She keeps pressing on Chloe’s wound, her fingers drowning in blood as the spluttering loses its ferocity, the wide eyes of the dying girl growing dull.
“Chloe,” Penny warns. “Stay with me.”
There’s nothing I can do, not one fucking thing, as Chloe’s soul quickly slips from her body. She gurgles with the blood suffocating her, her shoulders twitching, once, twice. Then she’s gone, her head slumping limp, the red stream of death still dripping from her innocent lips.
The other women wail, grasping at the deceased’s hands and face.
They beg. They plead. They sob.
All Penny does is stiffen.
There are no tears or weakness. She doesn’t show one ounce of vulnerability as she stares unblinking at her fallen sister.
The gunshot echoing from the other side of the house doesn’t even make her jolt. It’s the other women who scream and scramble to their feet to run for cover as heavy footfalls approach from the hall.
I step in front of Penny, shielding her, and aim my gun. A figure invades the doorway, tempting my trigger finger.
“It’s me,” Decker calls, withdrawing from view. “Don’t shoot.” He waits a heartbeat then re-enters as more thunderous steps carry toward us. “Hunter’s behind me.”
He takes in the sight before him with apprehension, his gaze sliding over the newest additions to our crew before settling on the corpse on the floor. “Is she dead?”
I nod. “Bullet to the gut.”
Hunter storms into the room, his attention following the same path as Decker’s. “We’ve gotta get out of here. The asshole who escaped could be calling backup.”
“Did we get any intel?” Decker asks. “Have the safes been checked?”
“There’s no time. I’m not willing to risk it.” I start for Penny and jut my chin toward the two other women cowering on the floor. “Hunt, you help them. Deck, you get back ou
tside and grab the duffels. We can’t leave anything behind.”
Decker eyes me, then Penny. He’s about to make another comment about me getting between him and his sister, and I don’t have the fucking patience.
“If I knew where you put the duffels I’d get them myself,” I growl, “but I don’t. So get your ass moving.”
He glares, making me well aware I’ll be paying for my actions later.
I don’t fucking care. We need to move.
“Ladies, it’s time to leave.” Hunter starts toward them as Decker jogs from the room. “It’s not safe here.”
I don’t wait to watch their reactions. I keep my focus on Penny, who remains at Chloe’s side, her hands still pressed into the pool of blood on the woman’s abdomen.
“Shorty…” I walk up behind her to crouch at her back. “We need to get moving.”
She doesn’t acknowledge me. Doesn’t budge an inch as her attention remains riveted on the woman staring unblinking at the roof.
“Pen?” I brush her arm. “We need to go.”
There’s no sound. Nothing. She’s emotionless. Catatonic.
“Come on.” Hunter raises his voice. “You want to go home, don’t you?”
“Home?” one of the women ask.
“Yes, home.” Hunter claps his hands as if trying to gain the attention of school children. “We’ve gotta go.”
The two women climb to their feet together, hand in hand.
“Penny?” the blonde asks.
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even flinch.
“It’s okay. I’ve got her. We won’t be far behind you.” I turn my attention to Hunter. “I’m going to need to get her cleaned up. There’s too much blood.”
It’s all over her hands. Her legs, too. She can’t walk back through the Naxos port like this.
“Can you handle her on your own?”
“I’m good.” I glide my grip around Penny’s wrists and gently guide her away from Chloe. “There’s another woman left hiding in one of the bedrooms. I’ll get her to help. Just make sure you grab that fucker out of the trunk and put him into the backseat. If he’s not awake, there’s smelling salts in one of the duffels. And you’re also going to need to get him to swallow some of the liquid E I’ve got stashed in there, too. We need to make him look like he’s drunk, not a fucking prisoner, when we haul him to the boat.”
He grins. “My pleasure.” He turns for the door. “Come on, ladies. Let’s get you home.”
After a few moments of tear-stained contemplation, the women follow, leaving Penny behind with me.
I guess I should be thankful for their compliance. But I’m not. I’m fucking bitter they only spared a few seconds for Penny’s concern when left with a stranger, after she put everything on the line to save them.
She fought for those women. She begged and threatened.
And they’ve walked away from her.
“Come on, shorty.” I rub her wrists. “The worst is over.”
She’s still unmoving. Not even nudging out of her shock.
Fuck it.
I wrap an arm around her back and the other under her knees to lift her off the ground. She doesn’t fight, barely gives a muted whimper as I carry her through the dining room, into the hall to the darkened bedroom with the three bunks.
“Are you still in here?” I place Penny on her feet. “It’s safe to come out.”
There’s a rustle of movement as the woman crawls from under the bed. She’s another wide-eyed innocent, her pain trapped behind generous beauty. “Penny?”
“Help me get her cleaned up. Can you get me some fresh clothes and a wet cloth?”
She nods, the movement jerky, before she hustles to the closet.
“You’re going to be okay.” I brush Penny’s arms, trying to rub away the chill of shock as I lean in. Eye to eye. “You’re strong. You can get through this.”
She meets my gaze, sorrow thick in her dark irises.
“Here.” The other woman returns with a thick layer of white material in her hands. “It’s her favorite dress.”
“Thanks.” I take the offering, ignoring how inappropriate a frilly, feminine dress is at a moment like this, and fling the clothing over my shoulder.
“Let me help.” The other woman moves closer, protectively nudging me out of the way as she makes easy work of Penny’s oversized T-shirt, raising the hem from her thighs to expose pure nudity.
Holy. Shit.
Decker’s sister is entirely naked under that shirt. No panties. No bra. Only smooth, perfect skin marred with sinister bruises along her hips and inner thighs. My gaze latches on to those marks—the sickening implications, the fucking brutality—as the other woman scrambles to cover Penny again, lifting the dress over her head.
“Wait.” I halt her with a raise of my hand and quickly turn off the microphone around my neck. “Where’s her underwear?”
She shakes her head. “We’re not allowed.” She doesn’t pause as she helps guide Penny’s head through the material.
“Wait,” I repeat with barely leashed frustration. Fuck. I’m getting pummeled here. Visually. Verbally. The muttered conversation through my earpiece along with the approaching freight train of a migraine is making it hard to think. “She can’t put on a fucking white dress when her hands are covered in blood. I’m going to need that cloth. Now.”
The woman retreats at my anger, her hands trembling.
“I’m not going to hurt her. Just get me that cloth. We need to get out of here.”
She straightens her shoulders and nods, leaving me alone with the most heartbreakingly gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Penny…” Fuck me. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know where to look as she stares at the floor.
“Chloe…” The name is whispered from her lips. “She’s gone.”
“I know.” I shove my gun into my waistband, loosen the brain-numbing comm device in my ear so Hunt and Decker’s voices stop punishing me, and reach for the nearest bed to tug off the coverings. “I’m sorry.” I grab her wrist, needing to busy myself with something other than visual violation, and wipe the blood from her fingers. “You’ve been dealt a rough fucking hand, sweetheart. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
I stroke her skin, over and over, sweeping away layer upon layer of death. “You’re going to be okay.” I keep my gaze trained on her arms as I utter the placation. In honesty, I have no idea if she’ll physically make it through, let alone mentally. “Once we get you home, you’re going to be fine.”
She shudders out a breath, the warmth brushing my face.
I want nothing more than to wrap her in cotton wool. To shelter her. To slay every sick son of a bitch who dared to witness her suffering only to turn a blind eye.
“Lilly…” Penny blinks to awareness when the other woman re-enters the room, her trance of grief lessening the slightest fraction. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too.” The other woman hands the cloth to me while her attention remains on Penny’s arms. “Is that your blood? Are you hurt?”
“No. It’s—”
Shit. “Lilly, I need you to go outside and find the others.” She has to remain ignorant. I can’t risk any more theatrical delays. “Tell them we’re almost ready.”
“But I want to stay with—”
“It’s okay, Lil.” Penny’s voice is hollow. “Find the others. We won’t be long.”
I keep my attention on the cleanup as Lilly reluctantly backtracks from the room. I wipe Penny’s wrists, her palms, in between her fingers.
“I can do that myself.” She attempts to pull her hand away, but I cling tight, needing to remain tethered.
“I’m sure you could.” I give a half-hearted grin. “But would you do as good a job as me?”
“Luca.” My name is part plea, part exhausted warning. “I can do it.”
“What did I say about listening, shorty?” I grab her other arm and begin t
he same ritual.
Soon, she’ll be on her way out of this nightmare, and I’ll be stuck thinking I didn’t do enough to help her. That I left her in Luther’s clutches when I shouldn’t have. That I caused her more pain than necessary.
This is the least I can do. Mere swipes of a damp cloth over delicate skin. Bit by bit I clean away the blood, wishing I was cleaning away her suffering.
“I…” She lets out a long breath. “I think I blacked out in there. Or…” She sighs and shakes her head in confusion. “I don’t know. I’m so tired.”
“It’s shock.” I make quick work of her other arm, trying to remain gentle as her nudity taunts me. I can’t stop myself from taking a glimpse. But it’s not for pleasure. It’s because of those fucking marks. “Those bruises…?” I can’t finish my question. It’s not the time or place to voice my angered curiosity when it’s clear who marked her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look.”
“The exposure means nothing to me anymore,” she whispers. “I lost ownership of my body long ago.”
I clench my jaw. Tight.
Anger clogs my throat. Rage burns my veins.
I wipe the last of the blood from her hand, throw the cloth to the floor, and help drag the material from around her neck to cover her nudity. “Nobody owns you. Not Luther. Not his men.”
“You don’t understand.” She busies herself righting the dress, her attention downcast. “You’ve got no idea.”
“Then tell me.”
She shakes her head.
“Tell me.”
She stiffens, her frantic gaze raising to mine. “Luther may be dead but his shackles still enslave me. There’s no escaping what he did. He’ll always own me.”
“I fucking disagree.”
“I wish I had your optimism. I guess it’s true that ignorance is bliss.”
Her argument is solid, but I refuse to fucking believe it. There’s no way this woman can’t bounce back. There’s too much life left in her to give up now.
“We’ll discuss this later.” I grab her hand and lead her from the room, stepping over the dead guy in the hall. We reach the front door together, then as soon as Penny makes her way outside she stumbles forward to her friends. The other women are already crying, their sobs increasing tenfold as Penny engulfs them in a group hug.
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