42. Kade
Chapter 42
Kade
If you want your girl back, meet me at the old power station in one hour. Come alone or she’s dead.
Trick us and she’s dead.
My heart splinters as I scan over the text message that’s just popped up on my phone. It’s from the same unknown number that contacted me before.
I was waiting for something like this—the ransom note. Isabelle has been gone for nearly half an hour.
I never stood a chance of following her. Those fuckers damaged her phone so I couldn’t track her down. I found it smashed in the dirt by the trees.
Tobias comes closer and looks at the message too. He frowns and shakes his head. “You can’t go alone, Kade.”
“I have to.”
What a fucking curse of a joke. This was the part that I wanted to do alone.
Except I never imagined things turning upside down like this. In my head I was supposed to be the one who backed Nikoli into the corner, not the other way around.
We were supposed to fight to the death, his death.
Now the tables have flipped around and I don’t have a leg to stand on.
“Kade listen to me. If you go by yourself you’re both dead. That’s the part they’re not saying.”
“They have her because of me. I can’t fuck this up and fuck with her life.”
“If you hope to save her you can’t go by yourself. They’re not expecting you to go alone either. We have to contact the Knights security squad.”
He’s right and they have the upper hand. I also know nothing other than they’ll be at the old power station in an hour. And they have Isabelle.
I also know I don’t have the luxury of time.
I think hard on what to do but the only thing that comes to my mind is what Tobias is telling me.
If we contact the Knights security squad, people I trust would come to my aid. People like Thorne and Caspian, and my guys Dmitri, Logan and Alek.
I would be a complete fool to refuse help like that.
“You contact the Knights,” I say to Tobias. “I’ll go ahead of you.”
He frowns. “You leave yourself open for attack.”
“But you can still get to Isabelle. The funds will unlock the instant I put the password in and ID my fingerprint. I won’t know what will happen after that. So please just make sure you get my girl out alive.”
It would have been nice to see my parents one more time, but Isabelle is all I care about now. My recklessness got us into this mess. Now I have to fix it and save her even if it cost me my life.
Tobias gives me a firm stare. “I haven’t come this far to fail your parents now. Take the car and go. I’ll round up the men. We’ll be just behind you. Focus on getting to Isabelle, then get yourselves to safety.”
“Okay, I’ll try.” Getting to safety is the best scenario I can hope for.
He hands me the keys and I rush out to the car. The power station is about forty minutes away from here.
I jump into the car and drive, my heart hammering and my hopes guiding me.
As I careen down the dusty road I think of Isabelle and all that we’ve been through in the time we’ve known each other.
It feels like we were destined to be together.
Fated souls.
Our story can’t end like this.
I get to the power station with fifteen minutes to spare. There are cars parked all around but I don’t see anyone until we’re on the hour mark.
First I see Parker walking around the side of the building. I was wondering if he was going to have the balls to face me.
At least we don’t have to play nice anymore.
Nikoli follows behind him carrying a laptop. He’s as tall as Parker, but with black hair and a crooked nose that looks like it healed that way after being broken several times.
Seeing the man I’ve been after for so long flares my temper and my blood pressure spikes like someone turned on a fire beneath my skin.
A guard comes next with Isabelle. Behind him are at least forty men carrying machine guns. They look like a battalion ready to fight.
These guys definitely came equipped for a war.
Isabelle is gagged and ropes are wrapped around her wrists. In the mixture of the moonlight and the lighting from the power station I can see bruises on her face.
They hurt her.
Whoever did that will pay with their lives.
The group walk to the front of the station and stop by the steps leading up to the entrance. The guards fan out on either side with their guns raised.
I open the car door and get out with my hands held up to show that I have no weapons on me.
In these situations your weapons become whatever you can take from your enemy.
I look at Isabelle and the asshole holding her places his gun to her temple. The pleading terror in her eyes grips me and I hate that I have nothing but my presence here to offer her.
I pray with everything inside me that whoever is coming to back me up will get here fast. And that they’ll know what to do without her getting hurt.
“So this is him,” Nikoli says in his accented voice, drawing my attention away from Isabelle.
He looks me over, sizing me up with a smirk on his twisted face.
“This is him,” Parker answers.
Slowly I turn to face my godfather. I stare at him head on, challenging him with the firm look in my eyes. “Is that really all you can say?”
“There’s nothing else, kid.”
“No apologies or anything like that?”
“No. I hoped this day would never come but I accepted that if it did I’d stand by my choice.”
“Your choice ?”
“Wealth and power.”
What an evil asshole. “Was anything real with you?”
“Yes. It was all real. I was real with you. I took you as a son because I couldn’t have children of my own.” He speaks with a straight face, showing no remorse. This is the first I’m hearing that he can’t have kids. It explains his frivolous lifestyle.
“I still thought of you as mine even after my dear best friend found out the details of my secret life,” Parker continues. “Your father wanted to pull the plug on our investments and expose my crimes, but in my mind that didn’t change the relationship I had with you.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“But that’s what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it?”
Maybe. Perhaps I did want the explanation. Because at least now I know.
“Give me Isabelle,” I speak up louder, cutting to the chase.
“Not until you give us what we want first. My money is tied up in the funds you stole from Nikoli.”
More revelations. If anyone had told me this shit would happen weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed them. I would have thought someone was selling me a cock and bull story to screw with me.
“I want to see her safe first before I do anything.”
Parker grins back at me. “I never thought I could use a girl against you. But you practically wore your heart on your sleeve with this girl, making it easy for me to see your weakness.”
“Shut the fuck up and do what I said. Get her the fuck away from that guy or I’m not doing shit.” I have a plan of sorts. If Isabelle isn’t near them then she stands less risk of getting hurt if bullets fly.
Parker nods at the guard and he releases Isabelle. But he only ushers her a few paces away from them, then returns to stand next to Parker.
“Come forward boy, we don’t have all night,” Nikoli barks.
I cut him a hard stare and move forward.
He walks over to a wooden crate in the corner, sets the laptop on it, and flicks it open.
I walk up to it and crouch to type in the bank’s website.
I click a few buttons and just as the site is loading the guards to my left drop to the ground like ragdolls. The instant I see the bullet holes in their heads I know backup is here. Only the Knights can shoot with such precision and uniformity.
I waste no time.
We can only have that element of surprise once. There are still at least twenty-five guards left, along with Nikoli and Parker, who now have their guns out.
As all hell breaks loose I run to Isabelle, grab the gun from the guard that just went down in front of her and cover her while I shoot.
I don’t make the mistake I did before by leaving her. I stay with her and watch until the Knights rush out from the woods in full force and continue the battle.
We vastly outnumber the men from the Malina at sixteen to seven.
Tobias pushes forward. He’s the only Knight who isn’t masked up and wearing uniform.
He shoots two of the guards as they rush him and I shoot two more.
Three of them are left now—Parker, Nikoli, and the guard who was originally holding Isabelle.
The Knights surround them and it’s only then that I step away from Isabelle and shoot the last guard.
“Drop your weapons right the fuck now,” Tobias yells at Parker and Nikoli.
They hesitate like I thought they would but then they drop their guns.
Tobias looks across at me. “Over to you.”
The Knight closest to me takes off his mask and I see it’s Dmitri. When I glance at Isabelle, Dmitri knows what to do. He also knows what I’m going to do.
I don’t want her to see me kill like this. I’ve been shooting and killing all night but that was in a kill or be killed situation. This will be an execution for vengeance.
Dmitri moves forward and scoops Isabelle up, then he takes her away.
Her eyes cling to mine the whole time until he disappears in the thicket of trees with her.
The remaining Knights remove their masks. Thorne, Logan and Alek stand together, but I’m looking at Thorne.
He nods at me and I remember his words; sometimes you can’t always rely on your fists.
This is what he meant.
I cock the hammer on my gun and walk over to Parker and Nikoli.
“You are scum,” Nikoli spits.
I ball my hand into a fist and slam a punch in Nikoli’s face. I hit him so hard he falls to the ground. I had to make use of all that training with Thorne in some small way.
Nikoli tries to get up but I shoot him in the head. “That’s for taking my family captive and stealing the last three years of my life.”
I look at Parker next. He heard what I said.
“I know they’re alive,” I say and his eyes go wide. “That’s the only reason I’ll allow you to live. To find them. Then you can be executed in front of everyone.”
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t have to.
I’m not interested in anything he has to say.
My parents were picked up from an old army base in Moldova the next day. Two days later, after the doctors reviewed them and checked that they were
okay, they were flown back to Boston.
They have a house here that we used when my father was on Knights’ business, so I’ve been staying here.
I’m sitting in the living room waiting. They should be home in the next few minutes.
Part of me still can’t believe this is happening. I keep having to correct my mind every time it drifts back to their funerals and to the night of the attack in Greece. It’s going to take me awhile to wrap my head around the truth, but I will.
Parker came clean with everything. He was taken to Aleksander and there he confessed all. That monster had been responsible for fifteen murders including Isabelle’s mother.
He didn’t kill my parents because they were more useful to him alive because of the money he had tied up in their investments. He kept them captive instead and even carried on business as useful with my father signing various checks that no one thought to question.
Nikoli got involved at first because of the art collection. He and Parker had an elaborate scheme set up to sell on the black market. They used my father’s resources to do so and fund other illegal activities.
It’s over now. All of it.
I hear the click of the front door and I sit up straighter.
That’s them.
I stand and listen, waiting to hear their footsteps. I could always tell them apart.
My heart stills when the sound fills my ears. Dad’s sure, confident steps and Mom’s light ones following in line with his.
I walk out of the living room. And there they are.
Right there in the foyer. They stop and look at me.
The three of us stare at each other. Them looking at me as if I’m real and me looking at them in the same way.
Dad has more gray hair than he did when I last saw him. But looking at him is like staring at an older version of myself. Mom looks thinner but she’s still so beautiful and the Greek goddess with her long raven hair and bright blue eyes that mirror my own.
I feel like I’m in a dream again. This time a good dream. The kind that comes true.
“Kade,” Dad speaks first and hearing his voice, a voice I never thought I’d hear again breaks me.
I rush to them and they hold me, then we hold each other.
The nightmare is over. I can wake up now. I don’t have to live in the darkness anymore.
I have so much to live for now. I got my parents back and I found the girl of my dreams.
Having the life I want with Isabelle Kolyav is next on my list.
Because she was always mine.