CHAPTER SEVEN
K ai took the call and then texted Ramos with the room number his father had given him.
He told him he was alone, and whether he believed him or not, he gave him the room and told him to bring the dagger.
He was probably banking on the power of the dagger getting him out of the Hotel cleanly, even if Kai had brought reinforcements.
It was hard to second-guess the man because he wasn't logical or rational on most days.
Kai’s goal was to get Tarek away safe and unharmed, and he tried to keep his focus there.
His father had shown that he could be brutal and deadly, but he was also slightly unhinged, and Kai considered that an advantage.
The man's main weapon was his mouth, and Kai had long ago stopped listening. Like Ramos had said, he wasn’t as big a problem as Kai had been envisioning.
Unless, of course, he had a few mercenaries in the room with him.
Ramos hadn't wanted him to come inside. He wanted him safe, not in the middle of what was taking place, but he understood Kai's need to be here for his brother, and he did not fight him.
Instead, he was shadowing him, something Ramos seemed very good at doing.
Kai moved to the side of the door and stood there for a few seconds, and then his father's voice came through the opening.
"What are you waiting for, Kai? Come in." Kai had a handgun in the waistband of his jeans along with a variety of knives strapped to his hips and ankles, and he hoped he got an opportunity to use them. He pushed the door further open and took a tentative glance inside.
Nolan Azar stood with his back to the glass door that led to the small balcony. He was holding a nine millimeter handgun fitted with a silencer. In front of him was Tarek, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands tied behind his back.
The look he gave him was filled with disappointment and regret. There was a bruise forming under his left eye and blood at the corners of his mouth. Nolan Azar was smiling when he saw Kai, and he stepped forward.
“Drop your weapons.” He commanded. Kai bent and removed the knives and dropped them on the floor. He then pulled the gun from his waistband and set it on the floor with the knives. His father took another step forward and gave him a brief pat-down.
“Where’s the dagger?” He barked and motioned with the gun he held for Kai to move away from Tarek.
Kai had gradually been moving closer to Tarek, but he wanted them separated.
"Stand over there by the desk." He caught Tarek's gaze, and he saw understanding there.
Cal was talking to him, and Tarek could feel Cal and Ramos close by just as Kai could feel them.
There was a brief flare of relief in his eyes that he quickly hid.
"I left it in the car." The anger that erupted over his father's expression may have been frightening at some point in his life, but not now.
Nolan Azar no longer had the power to scare him.
Kai could see his uncertainty; he wasn't the terror he used to be.
He tried to wear that persona and tried to look intimidating, but it was no longer working on Kai.
“Go get it!” He shouted.
"Release Tarek and I will go get it." He offered, and a humorless smile crossed his father's lips.
"How about I shoot you both and go get it myself?" He countered sarcastically. Ramos was on the balcony, and Cal was behind the adjoining door to the room next to them. Things were in place.
"Where is all your hired muscle?" Kai asked, hoping to delay and distract. "They nearly got what you wanted back in Sedona, but like always you drop the ball and fail to pay them." Kai smiled hatefully. "Mom always said you had zero sense and no follow-through."
"Shut up." He barked at him, and the moment he took that agitated step toward him, the room exploded.
Kai jumped onto his brother and pulled him to the floor just as their father got off a shot intended for Tarek.
Kai retrieved one of his knives from the floor and cut the ropes binding him.
They both moved away from the fray and watched as Ramos and Cal took the man apart.
Kai noticed a body lying on the balcony; it was a cougar shifter, one of his father's hired men.
Later he would learn that there were two others in the room next door that Cal had neutralized.
His father had hired men positioned to handle any problems but failed to realize the strength and single-mindedness of a beloved.
***
Ramos was furious with himself for allowing Kai to enter the Hotel on his own.
He should have stayed in the car and let him and Cal handle Nolan Azar and whoever he had with him.
But to deny him the right to save his brother was never an option Kai would have accepted.
He had to meet his beloved where he stood and never try to minimize or weaken him no matter how hard that was going to be.
He was boiling with rage at the way Nolan Azar was playing with his beloved and took out that rage on the cougar shifter standing guard on the balcony.
He did it quickly and quietly with a short sword plunged through his back between his shoulder blades and a dagger in his throat.
Ramos quietly laid him out off to the side and moved to observe those inside room 242.
He'd continually channeled strength and composure to Kai, although a little worry might have seeped in as well.
It wasn't a reaction he was used to having, so controlling it was going to take time. Kai was confident and relieved that his brother, although trust was up on the bed, was still alive. Ramos could also feel Kai’s total trust in his ability to keep him safe.
People had always trusted Ramos because he'd proved himself and his skills, but this trust hit differently. This trust existed for no reason apart from looking into each other's eyes and knowing the truth, and it was attached to a love that had pierced his very soul.
Cal was in the room to his right; there had been two shifters in the room they both smelled them, and he was confident that Cal had handled them.
There had been no other shifters with that distinct mercenary stench, so Nolan Azar must be running low on cash.
He stood staring into the room, waiting for the moment he could strike without putting Kai or Tarek at risk.
The Hotel hummed with activity around them, unaware of what was taking place in room 242.
He moved closer to the door Nolan's back was to him, and he was not picking up on the fact that two vampires were there to kill him.
He heard the cutting remark Kai shot at his father, and Ramos smiled. He had a deliciously sharp tongue.
Then the man shouted at Kai and made an aggressive move toward him.
Ramos took that as his cue to end this. He burst through the glass door and threw his dagger at Nolan, piercing his left shoulder and knocking him back a step.
He turned abruptly and took a shot at where Tarek had been seated, but Kai had already tackled him to the floor, successfully getting them both out of harm's way.
Cal was through the door in an instant, quickly surveying the room and moving toward Nolan. He took several shots at Cal, two of which hit their mark, but unlike humans and Liminals, vampires were not affected by bullets unless it was a very specific headshot, and Nolan was not that good.
"Stay down." He heard Cal call out to Tarek, who apparently was trying to get to Cal. Kai pulled him back to the floor and held him there as Nolan pulled off a couple more shots. Thankfully, he was forward-thinking enough to have used a silencer, so they didn’t disturb any of the other Hotel guests.
The bullets ran out, and Nolan sat there on his knees trying to stop the blood flowing from his upper arm.
"I have powerful friends." He shouted. "You touch me, and you will pay.
" Both Ramos and Cal approached the battered and injured man who had abused both Kai and Tarek and, in the end, had a plan to kill them cold and without mercy.
He was a true monster, and his time on this earth was coming to an end.
Neither Cal nor Ramos spoke; they moved slowly back and forth around the man who was still cursing threats and demands.
Ramos reached out and grabbed his right arm and broke it at the elbow, knowing that was the hand that had put the scars on his innocent beloved.
The man howled and fell backward before struggling back to his knees and then to his feet.
"You're a dead man if you don't release me now.
" He continued to bluster, but no one was listening.
Cal then stepped forward and wrapped his left arm around the man's neck, and with his right hand, he snapped the man's neck.
It was clean and final, although Ramos would have preferred more pain metered out before the end, but Cal hadn't seen Kai's back and he never would.
Cal was eliminating a threat to his beloved, and Ramos understood.
Kai got to his feet and then reached out his hand to his brother. They stood side by side and stared down at the man who had terrorized them their entire lives. "I'm glad he's gone," Tarek said coldly as he rushed into Cal's waiting arms.
Kai bent and picked up his gun from the floor, aimed it at what remained of his father, and pulled the trigger twice, once in the heart and once in the middle of his forehead.
He did not say a word; he just looked over at Ramos, who took the gun from his hand and stuck it in the waistband of his pants, covered it with his jacket, and then placed his arm around Kai's shoulders.