Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kieran
The door led to a winding staircase going deeper underground. It shuddered under my weight. Blood pulsed in my ears as I took it down to the belly of the earth. The dirt landing preceded the entrance to the cave. Just a narrow opening. I moved slow, letting my eyes adjust to the dark. I hadn’t brought a light with me, and I soon regretted it. A storage bench sat just at the entrance, and I knew it would hold supplies. At least a fucking working flashlight. All I had to do was brave the darkness within it.
I lifted the seat sending spiders scurrying. The trill sound of bugs echoed in the dark space. Fucking bugs. I hated bugs. I shoved my hand inside feeling my skin crawl. Sweat beaded my brow, my heart raced inside my chest. The bugs climbed on me, crawled along my exposed skin, burrowed underneath. I couldn’t breathe. Finally, I grazed the small flashlight and yanked it out, letting the bench slam closed. It echoed in the dark chamber. My heart pounding in my ears, I rubbed my hand along my clothes. There was nothing there. Nothing. It’d been my imagination. I was fine. Fucking fine.
I didn’t believe it until I turned on the light and inspected my hands, my arms. Nothing. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve and aimed the small beam of light into the cave. The light it emitted did nothing to stem the claustrophobic feeling pulsing inside of me with a warning to run. Darkness swallowed everything outside the narrow beam of light. The cave was stifling. Making it hard not to think of the tons of rock above me. A slight shift would send it all on top of my head.
The guys and I had learned of the catacombs from the journals left at Arcas House. It was one of the secrets we were afforded by being bastards of one of the Four. Information.
So long as I remained on the painted path, I’d be fine. It’d lead me out. Luca knew this too. The path ran on a downward arc for the first hundred yards before it evened out. The sound of my breath was jarring in the silence.
Cillian had hidden me in cellars when he’d first taken me from my grandmother. We’d moved from cellar to cellar. I kept thinking it was a cave, like this one. With no way out. But the bugs were the worst of it. I felt them burrowing under my skin, in my ears, my nose. Their sounds like wailing ghosts wanting my soul. I had killed to make that feeling stop. To keep myself from being buried alive. For my own safety, I had become the assassin my grandfather wanted just so he wouldn’t put me back in that damn cellar.
My mind started to feel the weight of the dead against my soul. Alone in the darkness, the faceless emerged. Like a dark wraith needing justice to find peace. Not everyone in this place were killers, mobsters, evil. Whole families were erased as a lesson to those wanting to live the life. Mothers, children, families. Although I’d never killed an innocent child or even a woman, I had killed fathers, sons, brothers.
The thought of our own vengeance plans poured over me like ice water. Tor after the people who killed his mother. How many innocents would need to bleed along the way? Wren’s need to find answers to his mother’s death. Pointing his finger at Alessandro. Me willing to kill Alessandro just to give Wren peace. When would it ever fucking end? Henry had asked that question once.
“When they are all dead,” I had answered.
But there were so many dead.
I’d never been squeamish around dead bodies. I had done my share of wet work over the years. But the catacombs were different. The number of bones, bodies buried here stretched to the hundreds, at least.
Bones. The legacy our fathers left us. Nothing but bones.
Forensics had made leaving a dead body to be found a risk. Even cremation had become too expensive. Bones were hard to grind and turn to dust. But with no body to examine, the cops had no case. More than 600,000 people went missing annually in the United States alone. Hiding a body was more economically sound. And the whole place was a tomb. Rumor had it that it had been rigged to cave in if anyone disturbed the graves. Nothing would come out of this zone intact. Sorting through the rubble would cost millions. And then what would be left behind?
The catacombs were a perfect hiding place for the dead and should never be disturbed by the living.
An echo of sound reached my ears. Sweat beaded my brow. I blinked away the haze, the light trembled in my hand, and I quickly snuffed it out. I should’ve checked my blood sugar before I headed down here. Dependence on something so mundane for other people made it so fucking unfair. I clipped that thought. It’d do me no good and would get me killed. With my sense of sight muted, I relied heavily on sound for my sense of direction. I’d memorized the layout of this place. Branches of narrow tunnels wound through the mountain. Most ended in dead ends. And in total darkness, getting lost in this place would cost your sanity. The thought made the hairs on my body stand on end. I reverted to thinking about the voices. The only place the voices could come from was this main vein leading to the aqueduct outside.
I moved slow, deliberate, the voices getting clearer as I narrowed the gap between us. My eyes caught the wave of light illuminating beyond an archway leading into a wider chamber.
I’d never worked with Kade or Sabriel, but I knew of them. Kade had come up from Poland with his father, a steel worker, and his mother. He’d joined the life against his father’s wishes and when Kade fucked up a deal, they killed his parents for it. Sabriel was third generation criminal. He’d been a bully at the onset. Liked young girls. There was no shortage of information when you knew where to look. And I made sure I looked. “I’m not going to ask you again,” the voice came from Kade. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
My blood ran cold at the sound of Tomás’s voice.
“Gag him and let’s get the fuck out of here” Sabriel said. “This place gives me the creeps.”
I heard Tomás pleading, voice tight, some shuffling. My mind played it all in my head. Them forcing Tomás into a gag. Hurting him. My first instinct was to charge the fuckers, but that would be a good way of getting us both killed. Once I rounded the corner, I’d be exposed. I needed a view of the layout. I needed to plan. I inched my way around a pillar wall, pressing myself against the limestone to get a better look of the layout. Patience was the key to all engagement. Despite the need to rip these motherfuckers’ heads off their shoulders for touching Tomás. Hurting what was mine, I swallowed that shit down. My heart pounding too damn hard, pulsing in my ears by need. Raw, violent need to end these motherfuckers. So engrossed in my own internal war, I missed the unsettling of the air around me as something shifted behind me. The hairs at the back of my neck stood on end as Luca materialized out of thin fucking air at my back. He pressed his body into mine. The smell of oil paint and mud surrounding him blended in with the stench of the cavern.
Fucker.
He sniffed my neck. “Your scent gives you away,” he whispered, his warm breath peppering against my skin. “Is that Dior?”
The realization that Luca got the drop on me rattled through my brain, bringing me into a much sharper focus of the threat around me. I fucked up lowering my guard. I fucked up letting my feelings for Tomás get in the way of securing my surroundings. I should’ve known better than to assume there were only two threats.
Too fucking late.
I felt Luca’s breath against the shell of my ear. “What are you willing to do to save your beautiful liar?”
I didn’t have to answer. Luca fucking knew I’d do anything to save Tomás.
The two guards started arguing about which way to go. Kade wanted to test the guards at the gates to get the fuck out of the school now that they had their target while Sabriel wanted to return to the castle and wait for Luca. Luca cocked his head when Sabriel mentioned his name.
“What the fuck for? That fucker’s insane. It’s better we don’t hook up with him.”
“Boss wants them both.”
Why the fuck would the Mancinis want me? What play were they making against Tristan? Questions I’d get the answers for soon enough.
“I’d rather put a bullet in his head,” Kade said.
Sabriel shrugged. “Fuck if I care.”
I could’ve sworn Luca smirked.
The chamber was lit by a portable light casting a glow of about twenty feet around the room. “Look,” Luca whispered so close to my ear that I felt his breath tickle my neck. Then he slowly lifted his finger to a section of raised ground that looked smoother than its surroundings. A two-by-two metal plate camouflaged in dirt. Then Luca lifted his finger, leading my eyes to a mace above the trio. A booby trap.
I’d thought the rumors of the catacombs being booby trapped were bullshit. A way to get people away from venturing into the graves. I’d been so fucking wrong.
Cold steel met my skin just under my ear and I stiffened. I could fight Luca but that would mean giving away my position and I didn’t think the two morons with Tomás would wait until I beat the fuck out of Luca before attacking me. So I waited for Luca’s play.
“Go save him,” he whispered.
Slowly, I reached for the blade. Fucker handed it to me sharp edge first. By the time I wrapped my finger around the hilt, Luca had melted back into the darkness.
I didn’t know Luca’s game but took the offering anyway. Sabriel had Tomás in front of him, gagged and zip tied. I almost lost my shit then and there. Tomás’s eyes were wide, face painted with blood. I needed to end these fuckers for touching what was mine. Death would be too quick.
Balancing the dagger in my hand, I broke cover.
Kade’s attention veered to me first, his hand already reaching behind him for an unseen weapon. Stupid motherfuckers. In a quick jerk, I launched the blade. It sang through the air landing on its mark. Kade’s head whipped back, the blade deep into his left eye. Before he hit the ground, I was already moving. Sabriel was faster. Already pulling out his weapon. But his fate was sealed the moment he pushed Tomás to safety to get a two-handed grip on his chrome Smith & Wesson. I stomped my foot onto the trip plate and lunged into Tomás, taking him down just as the spiked mace swung down, grazing my elbow. It slammed into Sabriel, impaling him against the rock wall at his back. The mace didn’t swing back.
I lifted myself to look at Tomás. His face pale, eyes wide, blood from a wound at his temple. “Are you okay?” Before I thought about how stupid that question sounded, it’d already pushed out of my throat.
He shook his head. The gag still in his mouth. Eyes tearing up. Of course he wasn’t okay. Not yet. There was still one threat to consider. And I felt his approach this time.
I spun, catching Luca by surprise. I slammed into his hips, forcing the air out of his lungs. But the fucker was slimy as fuck. Something pinged on the floor. A knife or a gun, I didn’t bother to look. Maybe Luca was the enemy, maybe he wasn’t, but I was fucking tired of his games.
On the ground, he scissored his legs and kicked at my Achilles heel, forcing me on my ass as he popped onto his feet. I spun my body, ready for the attack, thinking he’d go after me.
Nope.
The fucker went for Tomás, had him in front of him with a blade to his throat just as I got to my feet. If I thought I didn’t love Tomás, this fucking emotion strangling me said otherwise. That was the truth I’d fight for. That was the truth I’d give anything for.
And Luca knew it.
Luca spat a wad of blood on the ground. The face paint brought out the hard edges on his face making him look fucking insane. Still gagged, his hands zip tied behind him, Tomás couldn’t do anything.
“Let him go and I won’t fight you,” I said, taking a step closer.
Luca cocked his head, his curious eyes on me. Separating the two halves of Luca Mancini had been something everyone struggled with. The whispered rumors of his insanity, trying to kill his own mother, being put in a mental institution, on meds, tearing the wings off butterflies. But how he masked himself to the world while on kills had fascinated me. A transformation from a civilized lie, to who he allowed himself to be wearing the paint. This was Luca. Standing in front of me. Trying to make sense of his world.
The paint set him free.
And that put fear in my heart. Free men were the most dangerous. They had everything to lose. I wondered what Luca had to lose. What he cared for, fought for. I knew the fuck it wasn’t Alessandro or his family.
“Do you remember what you asked me back at the bar?” I asked, ignoring the scared as shit look on Tomás’s face. The warning of me to stop my approach in his large brown eyes. “You were right. I lied. The correct answer to your question is yes.” I love him .
I didn’t need to elaborate. Luca knew exactly what I meant and what I would do to save what was mine.
Luca pressed the edge of the blade deeper into Tomás’s throat. Blood pooled around the steel, dripped down his throat. I stopped moving. “I’m done with your games, Kieran,” Luca said. “Face down. Hands behind your back.”
Seeing no other way to save Tomás, I did as the fucker said. Once I was on the ground, he released Tomás and approached me. With one knee on my back, he zip tied my hands behind me. Then he pulled that fucking collar out of Tomás’s bag. I felt betrayed. Tomás had brought it. Thought it an actual option? By the look of regret in Tomás’s eyes, I wasn’t so sure.
“It isn’t you I want.”
His words were like ice inside my veins. Luca’s words back at the castle tasted like deadly poison on my tongue. “You do love him. Do not lie. Lies fester. They stain what could be. Even if they fall from the lips of a beautiful liar. Tell me, Kieran. What would you do to protect your beautiful liar?”
“Anything,” I had blurted.
“Remember that when the truth finds you.”
I hadn’t considered what truth Luca meant, not until now.
He cut Tomás’s binds, freeing his wrist. Tomás lowered the gag, swallowed hard. “Luca,” he said. “Let him go. You got what you came for.”
Yeah, betrayal hurt like a motherfucker. Tomás had known Luca was after him and he’d gone willingly to the slaughter.