Crouching beside the paling girl, he ran the back of his fingers along her forehead, down her temple, and over the curve of her cheek. Amy cringed and turned her face away. Malachi fisted his hand and pulled it back to his body.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, still focused on the girl. When he stood, his eyes were sharp and the black around them had darkened. “I am going to take the redhead, and you’re going to let me, or you’ll end up just like your friends—the ones who tried to take her the first time.”
Andrei’s grip tightened, turning his fingers white with pressure.
“I know you heard about what they found,” Malachi said in a warning tone. He took a step forward. “The blood on the ground, and all that was left of your friends in the alley.” Twigs cracked under Malachi’s soles as he eased toward them.
Andrei swallowed. “I knew there was something wrong with you. Mr. Green saw you die.”
Malachi grinned. “He thought he saw me die.”
“You were in the hospital after they took the girl, and then you were stabbed in the chest. But you came back. You came back both times without a scratch.”
Malachi inched forward. He was getting that look again, the gleam in his eye he’d had before he attacked those men in the alley.
Andrei’s grip loosened for the first time since they’d gotten off the bus. She craned her neck and stared at the woods lining the brick wall—the only thing separating her from the rest of the world. The populated street was in the distance, and barely visible through the scattered trees, but it was there.
She turned her attention back to the scene at hand. The shadows on Malachi’s face spread as if death itself peered from behind his eyes. “Now, give me the redhead, and I’ll bring her to the boss.”
Andrei’s grip loosened even more.
Her heart pounded in anticipation for what would have to be an epic marathon to the brick wall. She readied her legs, drew in a deep breath and, with a burst of adrenaline, tore her arm out of Andrei’s grip and sprinted through the yard.
There was no looking back. That would only slow her down. Each frantic stride carried her that much closer to freedom.
She ran toward the woods, and the textured brick beyond that. It was so close. Her instincts got the better of her and she glanced over her shoulder. Andrei’s contorted face loomed mere feet behind her, and she jumped as the panic arched through every muscle in her body.
A shove between her shoulder blades sent her catapulting to the ground with only her extended forearms to break her fall. A loud crack vibrated in her ears when her head smacked against the ground.
“You little bitch.” Andrei panted and pulled her to her feet with a single hand. His hot breath broke over her neck. “You want to try to run?” A solid punch to her gut sent her crumbling to her knees. She coughed and wheezed. He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her to her feet for a second time. Even with blurred vision, she could see Malachi marching toward them. Her spark of hope was met with another blow, this time a back handed lap to her cheek that spun her in a half-circle and threw her to the ground.
With her face pressed against the earth, she forced open her eyes. Malachi stood just yards away.
The sound of metal scraping against Andrei’s belt buckle made Tara flinch. He pulled her up by her arm. She caught a glimpse of a gleaming blade. It seemed larger than she remembered. Or maybe the fact it was inches from her throat made it a whole hell of a lot scarier.
Her stomach twisted in knots, and she felt her eye begin to swell. In the core of her heart she yearned for Peter’s gentle embrace and the sweet smell of freshly fallen rain. She wanted to hear Zanya’s quirky giggles and see her shy smile, and get the kind of hug only her best friend could give. She just wanted to be home with the people who loved her.
But none of that made a difference when the edge of the sharp blade kissed the delicate skin of her throat. Thick fingers spread around her chin and lifted her head, forcing her eyes to the sky. She shrieked in panic, fighting against every urge to pull away. One wrong move would end her with a slit throat. Very carefully, she strained her eyes to look in front of her.
Malachi fisted his hands. “Let. Her. Go.”
“You want her?” Andrei tightened his grip, and the blade pressed closer to Tara’s skin. Even though she tried not to, she swallowed. Her skin lit on fire with a nick from the blade. “I don’t know why you want her, but I will kill her first.”
“You really want to know why?” Malachi said in a teasing tone as he took a step forward. His gaze met Tara’s, and a grin played over his lips. “Because the party can’t start until a redhead’s in the room.”
It took every ounce of strength for Tara to keep her knees from buckling. She’d thought it was stupid the first time he said it—the code phrase for them to cut and run—but it was perfect for a club setting, so she went with it.
When he gave a reassuring nod, she knew. Even after all that had happened, Malachi hadn’t abandoned her.
The grinding of Andrei’s teeth scraped along Tara’s eardrums. She gasped when he shoved her to the ground and then charged after Malachi with the blade raised above his head. Malachi waited until the last second, then ducked and collided with Andrei’s knees. The towering Russian flipped over his head and landed on his back with a loud thud and a wheeze.
Tara used all of her strength to stand, but only managed to stay upright by swaying like a drunkard.
Andrei turned onto his belly and pushed onto his hands and knees. Malachi grabbed his adversary’s hand and twisted it, sending the blade clattering to the paved driveway.
“You have a real problem with touching little girls, don’t you, Andrei.” The loud snap of the man’s wrist cued a scream, which was quickly silenced by a blunt punch to his jaw. Andrei collapsed flat against the ground. “I told you I wouldn’t need the gun to put you down.”
Tara scanned the grounds and spotted Amy, still slumped against the tree. She ran toward her, stumbling along the way, until she fell onto the mulch beside her. Pale cheeks and dusky lips masked the girl’s once rosy features.
The girl struggled to breathe. The raspy inhales and wheezing exhales sounded like she was having an asthma attack. “Do you have any medicine?” Though barely noticeable, the girl nodded and leaned to the side. Tara slipped her fingers into the back pocket of Amy’s jeans and found an inhaler. “I—” She flipped the inhaler on either side, searching for instructions. “I don’t know how to use this thing.”
A hand rested on Tara’s shoulder. Malachi grabbed her forearm, Andrei’s knife clenched in his other hand. “Hold still.” He sliced through the rope binding her wrists, finally setting her free. The skin on her wrists sighed with relief when the cool air caressed the swollen marks.
Malachi grabbed the inhaler and fell to his knees beside Amy. He shook the cartridge, slipped the mouthpiece between her lips and pressed on the top. A sharp blast of medicine pushed into her lungs as she inhaled. Amy nodded, and Malachi gave her another dose. “Sit up.” He picked her slumped body from the base of the tree and straightened her back. “Remember what Mom always said. Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth, like you’re blowing bubbles.” He mimicked the process, his stomach puffing out with every inhale, and the exhale passing through the soft O of his lips.
Amy strained to look at him with her big brown eyes. The wheezing hadn’t stopped, but the flush had returned to her cheeks. She caught her breath enough to speak. “How do you know—?”
Her words were cut off with a labored breath.
“Don’t worry about that right now. You’re doing great,” he reassured her. “Once. Twice.” She followed his coaching. “That’s good. You’re doing awesome.”
Tara stood up, rubbing her tender wrists. She dabbed at the sticky blood on her neck and winced when her fingers brushed against the tiny cut. She was lucky she hadn’t gotten her throat sliced wide open, and had Malachi to thank for it.
Tara froze. “The o
ther girls. Where are they?” Malachi gestured to the slanted doors of what she assumed was an underground tornado shelter nestled beside a storage shed. She ran toward them, and moments later, Malachi matched her pace. Tara glanced at him. “Where’s Amy?”
“I left her in the shade. She needs to rest.”
“Fine. We have to get those girls out of here. Right now.”
Malachi grabbed her arm. “No, we can’t. The boss is in that house, and stopping him is the only way we’ll really help.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Listen. We’re lucky he hasn’t realized anything’s gone wrong, but if someone doesn’t come knocking on his door with a first class delivery, he’ll know, and there will be no way we can save those girls after that.”
He stopped talking when Tara tightened her jaw. His gaze locked with hers, and his shoulders slumped forward. “Look at you.” He brushed his finger softly along her temple near her eye, now swollen half shut. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I swear. I just needed you to believe it, or they wouldn’t have believed it, and everything would have fallen apart.”
She slapped his hand away. “I don’t care what your reasons are, but you owe me some answers. After we finish this, you’re going to give them to me. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
“You’ll have answers.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ve already made sure of that if it’s really him in there and the shit hits the fan, you get Amy and run. Understand?”
She snatched her cell phone tried to turn it on, but the battery was dead. She dropped her hand to her side. “Of course.”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t waste the battery for nothing. Now, promise me you’ll get Amy out. Even if you can’t get the others. Save her.”
She shoved her cell phone into her pocket. “What is it with you and her anyway? Why do you care about her so much?”
Anguish flooded his gaze. “She’s the girl they took—the one I thought I’d never see again. I know this won’t make any sense, but…she’s my sister.”
Tara’s lips parted, shocked at first, and then just pissed. “Liar. I know that’s not true.” She curled her lip into a snarl. “She told me you were the one who kidnapped her—tore her away from her brother!” Tara stepped toward him, toe to toe. “Do you know that boy died on the street? Alone. Scared. And now you have the nerve—”
He grabbed her arms. “I know. I was scared as hell, staring up at the dark sky with only the sound of screeching wheels in my ears.” He swallowed and loosened his grip. “My sister was gone, and I was alone while blood pooled under my body. The blackness crawled around my vision, sucking me in faster than I was ready to go.” His voice caught in his throat. “Then it happened, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
Her blood pressure spiked. Could it be true? It didn’t make sense, but impossible had become a word stricken from her vocabulary. Still, Amy would have recognized her own brother.
He dropped his hands to his sides. “Just…trust me. This one last time.”
With little choice, she nodded. “Let’s just get this over with so we can get those girls out of that hole in the ground.”
It took them several minutes to reach the main entrance to the house, a large carved door with wooden dragons slithering along the dark trim.
“Remember,” Malachi whispered. “Stick close to me.” He wrapped his fingers around the heavy brass knocker and slammed it three times.
A soft spurt of static whispered from a speaker mounted beside the door, followed by the subtle voice of a man. “Who is there?”
Malachi leaned toward the speaker. “I’m here with your delivery.”
Tara jumped when an electric buzzer sounded, and the heavy lock clicked out of the frame. They glanced at each other before he pushed open the door and peeked inside.
There was nobody there to greet them, and she sensed from Malachi’s hesitation that he was nervous. She glanced over her shoulder at the brick wall. It seemed so far away now.
Chapter Eleven
They stepped through the entry on to light bamboo floors, gleaming against the dark wooden shutters and transparent shoji screen doors.
“Hello?” Malachi called out, his muscles tense while he glanced around the open space with clean, sleek lines. Sunlight beamed through the skylights in the ceiling.
“Please, come in and make yourselves comfortable,” a man said from another room. His accent was subtle, but eerily familiar. Tara’s attention was drawn to the shadow of a man sitting behind one of the screen doors.
“Boss?” Malachi waited for the man to respond.
“Do you have my delivery? I have been eagerly waiting to see her again.”
The knots in Tara’s stomach pulled tighter. She didn’t know what he meant by “again,” but if they were going to get close to him, she would have to play along.
Malachi’s eyes narrowed, and the darkness around them deepened a shade. Tara still hadn’t figured out who, or what, Malachi was exactly, but he had promised answers, and she’d have to wait until this was over to get them.
With more confidence than Tara expected, Malachi strutted into the boss’s living room. A man sat on a plush floor cushion beside a low-lying table with his back facing them. Steam from hot tea rose above his head, infusing the air with ginger and berries.
He extended his hand. “Please. Come sit.”
Malachi’s glares choked what little bravery Tara had left. From the raw loathing in his fixed stare, things were going to get ugly—fast.
She stepped back as the boss rose gracefully from the floor. The black sheen of his neatly trimmed hair matched his Japanese house robe, paired with white linen pants that stopped just above his ankles. His bare feet shifted, and he turned to face them.
Mr. Yamamoto returned her stare, and the light smirk that played across his lips vanished. “What happened to her?” he said sharply. “You were to deliver her to me unharmed.”
“You should be worrying about yourself right now.” The words slithered from Malachi’s lips, while the darkness around his eyes deepened to midnight black.
Mr. Yamamoto responded by calmly untying his robe and allowing it to fall from his shoulders. The satin floated to the floor, revealing tattoos that cloaked his body from the collar of his neck to the cuffs of his wrists and vanished below the waistline of his pants. Tara had never seen so many tattoos. She gawked at the painted Japanese warrior driving his samurai sword through a whale swimming across Mr. Yamamoto’s chest. Blue waves of ink stretched down his arms in patterns, only interrupted to flow around flames and the rope to a harpoon.
Not wearing his glasses, and with the curves of his lean muscles pushing up the elaborate tattoos, Mr. Yamamoto looked nothing like the frail man at the club where she’d first met him. He appeared to be a gang lord—the kind who ruled with no mercy and gave little regard to human life. Just the sort of man Sarian needed to do his dirty work.
The tattoos that wound around his legs flexed when Mr. Yamamoto bent his knees and took the stance of a warrior.
Malachi gently pushed Tara toward the door, his gaze locked on his opponent. “You’re done here. Run.”
She nodded and backed away, but when her back met a solid chest, she froze, panic screaming through every nerve.
Thick fingers pressed over Tara’s mouth, muffling a shriek. “I want to stay and watch this,” Andrei whispered in her ear. “It should be very entertaining.”
Her eyes widened when Mr. Yamamoto rushed forward and kicked Malachi square in the chest, sending him flying back. Tara screeched against the hand holding her and tried to break free, but her efforts were met with the coil of muscle in Andrei’s arm.
Malachi pushed himself to his feet.
They sprinted toward each other at the same moment, colliding like two battering rams midair. Yamamoto curled his fingers and used his hardened palm as a weapon, striking Malachi in his face before targeting his chest and torso. A crack sounded when the
last of the punches snapped Malachi’s rib. He shouted and hunched over, blood dripping from his nose.
Malachi’s back rose and fell with every furious breath. He slowly straightened, grinding his teeth as the black over his eyes spread over his face.
Mr. Yamamoto took a step back. It was the first sign of hesitation Tara had seen since they walked in, but it didn’t last long. Before Malachi could recover, another attack was underway. Yamamoto grabbed an elaborate sheath displayed on the wall and pulled out a curved sword.
Tara wrapped her hands around Andrei’s forearm and struggled to get free. She’d already seen Malachi stabbed in the chest once. She had no desire to see it again.
She froze.
Malachi had been stabbed in the chest…and survived. She had forgotten he was more than the average guy. Malachi straightened up, his fists balled while the black around his eyes grew to nearly covering his face.
The long blade gleamed, displaying something written in Japanese along the curve. Yamamoto gripped the handle of the sword, causing the tendons in his fingers to tighten under his skin. He swiped the blade gracefully through the air in an elaborate figure eight, lowering his stance and carefully positioning his feet on the floor.
They circled each other, one cautious footstep at a time.
“You know there is no hope for you now,” Yamamoto said.
Malachi spit a mouthful of blood. “My hope was gone when I died.” Yamamoto peered at him, and Malachi charged. The weapon sliced Malachi’s gut, splattering blood over his shirt, but it didn’t stop him. He jerked the weapon from Yamamoto’s grasp and cast it to the ground.
Malachi gripped Yamamoto’s neck, not quite strangling him, but holding him still. Malachi parted his lips, and an eerie hissing noise floated out of his throat.
Struggling to breathe, Yamamoto stared into Malachi’s changing features. “What are you?” Yamamoto choked.
Malachi raised him into the air with a single hand, cutting off any breath the boss could pull into his lungs.
The darkness slithered from his mouth with his words. “I. Am. Vengeance.”
Interlude (The Stone Legacy Series Book 2) Page 9