Chapter 61 The Wraith – Seven
THE WRAITH
SEVEN
Hooked blade in one hand and Colt in the other, I flatten myself against the wall next to the window, breath even and pulse slow.
Closing my eyes, I listen. Counting the number of distinct footsteps in my head as they approach.
When I get to a number above fifteen, I can't even be excited about it. In any other situation, I'd be fucking ecstatic at the challenge, but not this time.
Right now, they're just in my way.
Leave one alive, I remind myself, repeating the words in my head until I'm fairly fucking confident they're stuck firmly enough that I won't forget when the killing starts.
The glass shatters as they pour in through two windows while several more kick down the door.
I take a bullet to my vest before I'm able to get a hand hooked beneath the tactical visor of the man who shot it, pumping two bullets up beneath his chin and then using his lifeless body as a shield when I advance on the other three who came through after him.
At a slash of pain in the back of my calf, I fall into that other place, the one where everything is rage and reflex. Here, as long as there's air in my lungs and a thudding in my chest, there is no stopping.
I move like a wraith, ditching my Colt in favor of the blade for closer contact as the bodies filter in and are broken like rushing water over stone.
The blackout comes swift, and I let it take me. Losing myself in the dance of death and the song of screams.
I revel only in the fractured moments of stark clarity the darkness allows before it consumes me again. Admiring the inventive way a spinal column can be severed with a little flick of my blade in the right spot. The sound a windpipe makes when it's crushed beneath my thumbs.
I drive my hooked blade up into a stomach and am rewarded with a waterfall of wet heat rushing over my hand.
A flash of lucidity reveals Elijah mercilessly covering the eastern window, not allowing a single entry without a ticket punch.
When I'm knocked from behind, I whirl, and it takes a fraction of a second for my blood-soaked mind to recognize the man who puts his back against my own.
There's an animalistic rage in every fiber of Atticus's being.
It's in his bared teeth and his ruthless focus as his gun runs out of bullets, and instead of going for a fresh mag, he uses the butt of the weapon to bludgeon the next attacker and the next, switching seamlessly to using his bare hands when the gun isn't giving him the satisfaction he craves.
Seeing him brings me back from the blackout enough to remember…
Leave one alive.
I step atop and over the bodies on the floor as I slip the second sidearm from its holster on my right side.
We're running out of options. There's one outside the door, shouting orders at two others.
Eli is finished with the couple by the window and Atty is done turning that face into a crater behind me, then it's these three left.
And the one with the white band on his sleeve is the clear leader of this team.
"White armband," I say through my teeth. "Leave that one for me."
"I've got it," he snarls, dragging a blood-covered hand across his mouth, streaking it with red as he shoulders past me and cocks his weapon against his thigh.
And I'm actually content to watch and listen to Atty's music as he dispenses the few men outside and drags the one with the white armband into the villa by the back of his jacket and throws him at my feet.
Atty must have rang his bell pretty good, because his eyes are all googly and shit. He'll need a sec.
There's one final gunshot that silences a plea behind me, and I stomp down on the leader's chest to pin him to the ground. "You good, E?"
He holsters his weapon and wipes the blood from his eyes as he comes to join us, gesturing forcefully. "Get him up."
I do as Elijah says, bending to jerk the half-conscious bastard to a seated position in time for Eli to ram the business end of his weapon against his junk. That wakes him up quick.
"No, no," he protests, staring down in horror at his soon-to-be obliviated manhood. He struggles in my grip, but I hold him firm for my brother. "Por favor, no."
I have no idea what Eli is saying as he interrogates the man in Spanish, pushing harder and harder against his cock and balls until he's singing like a canary.
"Lo llaman Casa Mi…" he sputters. "Casa Mirabella."
Atticus nods. He knows which one it is. That's all we needed.
I stand and shoot the fucker in the head.
"Let's go."
We take the remains of our arsenal and steal one of their armed vehicles.
The hour drive is like nails on a chalkboard, scraping and scraping over and over again until I'm convinced there will be no end to this drive.
And maybe we died in the villa, and this is hell.
Trapped on these fucking roads in this fucking country, driving and driving but getting nowhere.
I haven't spoken since we left the villa. Atticus has almost killed us twice on these winding roads, pushing the vehicle to its maximum limits in a reckless way I didn't think him capable of.
I can't tell him to go any faster when I know damn well he is going as fast as humanly possible while still keeping us all intact.
"This is it," Elijah says suddenly from the back, tapping on the tablet Atticus gave him to zoom in. "It should be right there."
He points out the window to the left, where the sea is somewhere beyond the trees.
"Did we pass a road?" Elijah asks, still trying to make sense of the map. "There has to be a road somewhere, but it's not on here."
Atticus's hard stare finds mine.
"Do it," I tell him, and he cuts the wheel at the first break in the trees he can find, the vehicle lurching from smooth pavement onto uneven, rocky ground as he carries us through the trees.
"Eyes open," he growls.
I scan the jarring, blurring landscape, and I know he sees the road down to the right at the same time I say, "Road. Ten o'clock."
The tires skid over the sand-coated asphalt as the tail end fishes out, and Atticus rights the vehicle to speed down the narrow strip of road.
"Yes, this is it!" Eli shouts to be heard over the engine's roar. "Through those trees!"
I check my mag and click off my safety as the enormous villa comes into view. It's gated in the front.
Unguarded.
"What the fuck?" I hiss through my teeth.
"Hold on to something," Atty orders, gunning it toward the gate.
I brace my foot against the dash and shield my face as the vehicle rams the gate, and my hip buckles under the pressure of the crash when Atty drives us right into the building.
He was clearly aiming for the massive front window, but he clipped the stucco concrete and smashed his forehead against the wheel.
"Christ, Atty," I growl, wrenching him back by a fist curled into the shoulder of his tac vest. "You good?"
He shakes off the stun I can see in his eyes, swiping the back of his palm across his brow to stop the blood from the gash in his forehead from impairing his vision.
"Move," he snarls.
I check to make sure Eli is good, waiting for a hail of bullets that doesn't seem to be coming, but he's already kicking his way out of the back door.
I try my door, but it's jammed.
"Fuck."
I grip the frame and haul myself through the window in time to fall into Eli's shadow as he clambers over the busted rubble and through the shattered window into the mansion.
"Aurora!" he calls, and I cover him as he moves through the house with Atticus only seconds behind us.
"Something's not right!" he shouts from the rear, and heat floods into my chest. "Where the hell is everyone?"
"Aurora!" I bellow into the tepid silence.
I look into every room. Every nook and opening. Stalking the halls like a feral beast chasing the scent of prey.
"Auro—"
I run into Elijah, and he's knocked forward a step.
"What are you—"
My heart stops when I see the head of dark hair and the slender frame attached to it on the floor in the next room.
"No." I race past Eli, dropping to my knees, flipping her onto her back, ready to start CPR or whatever the fuck Atty tells me to do to save her.
But it's not her.
My fingers twitch over the woman. She's not that much older than Ro, maybe in her early thirties. She's in a white blouse with a tacky red stain coating the front where she was shot in the chest.
"It's not her." I push the words out of my throat, past the raw, scraping sensation there.
Eli stomps forward. "Who is that?"
"I don't know," I mutter, setting her back down and picking up the gun I never should've dropped. "But she's in uniform. House staff?"
"They all are," Atticus growls on approach, jerking his chin toward another body.
This one's only half visible, hidden behind an island farther into the kitchen. She has an apron over the top of a similar uniform, a chef's knife out of her reach, eyes vacant.
"What is this?"
The thudding in my chest hits like a hammer, reverberating through my skull. Loud in my ears.
If he killed his entire staff, it's because he didn't want any loose ends.
"Where the hell is she?"
I shove through my brothers, pushing deeper into the house.
"Ro!"
I pass another body—then another.
"Ro!"
There's a trail of blood ahead, like someone was dragged, and I race to follow it, leaving the others to chase after me.
It leads through an atrium, not up the wide staircase, but into a library.
"Sev, wait!" Eli shouts after me, but I'm not stopping.
If there's someone waiting to shoot me through those office doors, they better not fucking miss.
I kick them open and blink at the sound of gulls coming from the open window.
At first, I think the office is empty, and I want to rage, until I see a set of blue eyes staring blankly across the room.
"Goddamn it," Atticus roars, stepping past me into the room. He bends to check the woman's pulse, as if there's any chance she's still alive when her brains are splattered all over the floor.
"Is that…" Eli trails off, standing next to me, staring down at the dead woman with familiar dark hair and facial features who, without a doubt, is Ro's mother.
I'd have known it from her features alone, but my grip tightens on my Ruger when I see the necklace.
Ro's necklace…
Around her dead mother's throat.
I turn, finding the other body—a hired gun. Dead from a neck wound.
There are bloody scissors on the floor. Broken glass and shelving all over this side of the room.
My stomach turns.
"She fought," I find myself saying, knowing it's true.
My baby fought for her life here. Maybe for her mother's life.
And then she was injured. Dragged out. Taken.
She fought, and we weren't here.
She…
I hit my temple with the side of my gun, needing to clear the racing, spiraling thoughts. Snap myself out of this.
But it's not working.
"Sev," someone says.
"Sev, stop it!"
Atty goes for my gun, and for a second, I don't see him. I can only see the different patterns of blood all over these tiles and wonder which ones came from my woman.
My woman who I wasn't here to save.
I slip out of Atty's grip, but only for a second before he muscles the weapon from my hands, thrusting it at Eli to grip me by the arms.
"Enough," he snaps, his face a dark cloud of rage and regret. "You don't get to fall apart. No one gets to fall apart until we get her back. Hear me?"
When I see Eli unclasping the necklace from around Diana De La Rosa's neck with trembling fingers, I know he's right, but it doesn't put a stop to the chaotic thoughts swirling in my head, begging me to hurt and maim and kill.
"Yes," I say, jerking against his hold.
He doesn't let up, shaking me until I meet his eyes.
"Ambrose knew we'd come," he says. "That means it isn't safe here."
"We can't leave." Eli's voice is tense, watery, and I can't stand to hear the pain in it. "What if there's something here that can lead us—"
"You're not listening," Atticus snaps. "We need to leave right now. We can't fucking find her if we're dead."
Finally, he lets me go, and I rush toward the desk, ripping drawers from their sockets.
"I said now, Sev."
Eli takes my lead, tearing open cupboards and filing cabinet drawers, but everything is fucking empty.
It's all cleared out.
He knew this was coming.
The motherfucker played us again, and we let him.
A broken shout scrapes from my throat as I throw the last drawer through the window and down into the sea.
"We have to go." Atticus's voice is lethally calm now.
"Go where?" I demand, gesturing with my gun. "We have no idea where he's taken her!"
I kick another drawer, and it sails into the wall.
Atticus works his jaw, and speaks through his teeth. "I know, Sev, but I'm going to find her."
"Like you found Eli?" I snap, even knowing it's not fair.
He steps up like he wants to hurt me for saying it, but he won't. "I am going to find her!"
Is he telling me?
Or himself?
"He's right, Sev," Eli says, his tone hollow. "She's going to need us. We need to get out of here."
"Julian," Atticus mutters, eyes tracking back and forth over the floor as he thinks. "Julian knows something, I'm sure of it."
Eli's brow furrows, shadowing his eyes.
"You know I'm right," Atticus pushes.
"Even if you are," I grit out. "It doesn't mean we'll be able to get whatever it is out of him."
We tried that once. It didn't work. All we did was upset him even more.
"We need to get him off all those meds. Away from that graveyard of a house where he lives in a past that no longer exists."
"Atty, I…" Elijah clenches Aurora's necklace in his fist, voice trembling.
"We'll figure it out," I tell him, grabbing him by the arm to help him stand.
"Do you think he's hurt her?" The question falls from his mouth. "Do you think she's—"
He bares his teeth, and his arm goes rigid in my grip.
He's in no state to fight.
Atty is right. We have to go.
"Get us out of here, Atticus."
He nods.
"That armored car is totaled."
He's already moving when he calls out, "I saw a garage around the side. Let me get some wheels. Meet me out front in three minutes."