Chapter Sixteen
………………………….
Henri
Fifteen minutes earlier
AFTER A LIFETIME OF BEING alone, I suddenly had a family.
A family made up of different races, nationalities, religions, and creeds.
A family made of jewels who ignored their own terror and training to fight with everything they fucking had.
I was so proud of them.
I was one of them.
They were my responsibility.
My redemption.
And unlike my childhood, I would not fucking fail them.
“ Ily !” Skidding to a stop on the deck, I glowered at the star-studded night. Fire rained from the windows above, and embers landed on the deck, sparking with light. Planks caught fire, licking blue, then orange as the stain on the wood became fuel.
“ILY!”
My ears ached for her reply.
Which way should I run?
Where had he taken her?
“Answer me!”
No scream. No sign of which way Victor had gone. No matter. I’d find him.
I broke into a run again.
I leapt over two dead Masters and landed on the grass. I went to charge into the night—
“Wait!”
I ignored the voice.
But a hand clamped onto my shoulder, making me hiss with pain. Without my bandages, my flayed back stung like a motherfucker. Soot and sprinklers, blood and sweat—the recipe ensured my pain added a horrible background screech to the mayhem all around us.
“You can’t go after him naked and unarmed!”
“Let go of me !” I spun on the man holding me prisoner.
No more.
Never again.
I was done being a toy, a possession, a thing.
I bared my teeth. I went to kill—
I stopped as Ben held up a machine gun and a pair of jeans. “Here. Get dressed at least.”
I froze. “You? All of this…is you?”
He shrugged. “No, not just me. Abby and Pen helped liaise with the jewels Victor didn’t punish. And Stewart reminded me all over again that he’s the best computer programmer I know.”
I had a thousand questions.
But they’d have to wait.
Blinking back panic and rage, I snatched the jeans and hoisted them on. After a month of forced nudity, the scratchy density of denim seemed far too restrictive but also…comforting.
Ben waited for me to zip up before holding out the gun. I needed a belt. My waist had shrunk. I barely recognised myself.
The hollowness of my stomach ached with so many empty clenches. My arms shook as I took the gun, finding it far heavier than I should.
I wasn’t in a fit state to fight.
But that wouldn’t stop me from slaughtering every-fucking-one.
“Thanks.” I nodded and broke into a swaying jog.
Ily.
The moment I found her, then I could focus on the rest of the war. I’d be useless if I didn’t know she was okay.
Ben ran beside me, keeping pace easily, all while I panted from the strain my body had endured for so long.
I didn’t question why he’d partnered up with me. I didn’t ask where Stewart was or Abby and Pen. My mind only had one thought.
Ily.
I’m coming, little nightmare.
Hold on.
Groaning, I forced my trembly legs to cover more ground. We ran past hedgerows and fountains all while screams sounded in different parts of the estate.
An explosion made us duck as another room of Victor’s castle imploded. Windows careened outward in a twinkling glass curtain.
Ben raked a hand through his hair, giving me a look. “We were going to wait till Christmas like the original plan, but…watching Vic try to kill Ily tonight. God, we…we couldn’t do it. It had to be now. We were just lucky everyone already knew their roles and could pivot.”
I swallowed hard.
The memory of Vic cutting Ily’s throat.
The blood rolling beneath her collar and down her clavicle.
I shook my head, erasing just how close he came. “You have my thanks. Truly.”
“You’re welcome.” He sniffed. “Also…you should probably know, along with planning this little party without you, Stew and I also requested outside help.”
I scowled but kept running. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’ve wanted to bring in outside help for years, but like most people on this damn island, we have no idea where we are.”
I shot him a look. This was not the time for conversation. “Look, I’m grateful. More than you’ll ever know. And I will repay you by whatever means necessary, but—”
“We might have done something.”
I huffed. “Not in the mood to chat, Ben.”
He gave me a sheepish glance, continuing anyway. “We were there that morning Victor brought out the TV and showed you on camera trying to help Ily. When you were accused of being a cop, we thought fucking finally! The FBI or Interpol has finally infiltrated this wretched place—our own demise included—but no…you proved you were one of them by giving up your own flesh and blood.”
I slammed to a stop. “What the fuck does that have to do with—”
“I’m getting there. Give me a sec.” Rubbing a hand over his mouth, he rushed, “You mentioned you had a pair of cufflinks that had a tracker in them. Obviously, they would never work here. You could throw them a kilometre out to sea, and they still wouldn’t work. That’s how good a scrambler net Victor has around this place.”
My heart sank even though I no longer pinned any hope on those stupid cufflinks. “I…don’t understand. How would you know that?”
He grinned. “I know because that’s how we met Victor. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly his usual type. We met because he found us on the dark web almost two decades ago. Stew and I were a few years out of college and trying to earn some money for a tech start-up. We put our gifts for coding up for hire. Mentioned we could make anyone disappear. Prevent any Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other signal waves from ever being broadcast. He hired us to make a net. A net that he uploaded to a fucking satellite.” He shook his head. “We were young and impressionable. We figured he must’ve been some sort of big league if he had his own satellite. He never gave us the location we were scrambling, only the size he wanted covered. He also had a bunch of other hackers go over our code to ensure we didn’t install backdoor access. Because we delivered a good product and didn’t try to scam him, he kept in touch every now and again, asking for updates and improvements. That’s how we earned a personal invitation. He opened his home to us but never told us where that home was. We would’ve stopped coming, but…then we met Abby and Pen, and well…we couldn’t leave them here.”
“I don’t have time for this.” I broke back into a jog. “Speak if you must, but I’m not standing around. I need to find Vic.”
He chased after me, his fingers tight around his own gun. “Stew is literally the best hacker I’ve ever met. Better than me by far, and I got a hundred percent in all my coding classes.”
“Fuck’s sake, Ben.” I bared my teeth. “This is not the time for—”
“He’s so good, he finally managed to hack into his own unhackable software.”
That got my fucking attention.
I slowed again. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying...” He grinned. “He managed to turn the scrambler off for a few seconds the other night.” He grabbed my elbow and squeezed. “We called your—”
“ Stop . Stop!” a girl begged. “You’re killing her!”
The scream wrenched my head to the side.
My heart stopped.
Roland.
He stood over a jewel, his thumb punched on his electricity remote.
The girl on the ground twitched and jerked, white foam appearing on her lips.
Another jewel, a petite blonde, scratched and clawed at Roland, sobbing for him to stop. She weighed a fraction of what he did. To him, she was nothing more than an insect.
He laughed and backhanded her, his bulk jiggling with the motion.
I didn’t even think.
Swallowing a roar, I clutched my gun and sprinted toward the sick fuck who’d gotten me into this nightmare. All those dinners I’d had to pretend I liked him, getting his trust to be introduced to Victor. All those nights I’d had to sit in his basement watching snuff films where poor kids—
My stomach roiled.
Raising my gun, I aimed—
The blonde leaped up and threw herself on him again. “Stop hurting her!”
You’re in the fucking way!
Lowering my weapon, I ran closer.
With how shaky my arms were, I’d end up shooting her instead.
“No one can hear you. No one cares.” Roland smirked, grabbing the girl’s arms and wrenching her off him. “You’re going to die, and I’m going to fuck you while you do.”
“Help!” the blonde yelled. “Help us!”
Roland just laughed.
He didn’t see me, too absorbed with finally letting his fetish out to play. Removing his thumb from the remote, he shoved it into his pocket and unbuckled his pants. Smiling like a fucking monster, he punched the girl trying to hurt him and stomped on the leg of the one moaning and barely conscious on the ground.
A bone snapped.
The girl screeched.
Roland dropped to his knees and yanked his cock out, his hands reaching for the girl to rape her, suffocate her, fuck her into death just like all those films he’d made me watch.
I lost it.
Shifting the gun in my hands, I sparked with fire and surged with power.
All that pain Victor had given me. All that pain my father had made me deliver.
It twisted and mutated, and that phenomenon where a human being became something else gushed through me.
Hysterical strength poured free.
Adrenaline and stress fired every muscle and made me lucid, rabid, unhinged .
Leaping through the smoky sky, I swung the gun like a baseball bat.
Roland looked up, his hips pressed to the sobbing jewel’s, his face twisted into something heinous. His arm flew up to block my swing.
Too late.
The heavy weapon clunked against his skull, sending him tumbling sideways. The blonde grabbed the other jewel, dragging her out of the way.
I barely noticed.
I only had eyes for this sick fuck who deserved to die a hideously long death.
Roland blinked and fumbled with his trousers. His gaze narrowed as he recognised me. “You! How the fuck did you…!?” With a gasp, he reached for the remote in his pocket.
The remote to shock my collar, to incapacitate me—
“Goodbye, Roland.” I swung again.
The beast inside me forgot the purpose of a gun with a trigger and bullets and used it as a bludgeon instead.
I trembled with hate.
I snarled with fury.
And I beat that motherfucker to a pulp.
Swing after swing, crunch after crunch.
I was ruthless.
Merciless.
Reborn.
I lost track of time, turning Roland into something gelatinous and boneless. The partially healed fracture in my arm went pop, delivering another wash of burning pain.
I didn’t care.
All I cared about was death and murder and—
Someone clutched my lashed and stinging shoulder.
I whirled on whoever dared fucking touch me—
Ben ripped his fingers away and held up his hands. “Just me. It’s just me.” Cocking his chin at the gooey mess left of Roland’s face, he shrugged. “He’s, eh…he’s dead, Mercer. Perhaps save some of your hate for—”
A loud crack of gunfire.
“ Guh .” I staggered backward as a blazing hot poker arrowed through my side.
My blood-streaked hand clamped over the tiny hole that appeared in my waist. The shock in my system. The morphine Dr Belford gave me. The adrenaline nature drenched me in all blocked the pain.
One second, agony, then…nothing.
Not a single damn thing.
Even as the bullet hole filled up with blood and oozed through my fingers.
“Ah, shit!” Ben gasped. Spinning on his heel, he looked for who’d shot me.
I followed his stare, stiffening as Larry stepped out of the night-shrouded gardens, aiming a guard’s Glock at me.
“I can’t believe I’m the one who has the honour of killing you.” He grinned. “Must be my lucky night.”
Memories of Peter warning me that Larry had bribed a guard to give him his gun when the time came tried to distract me.
I didn’t care how Larry ended up with a fucking gun.
Only that he didn’t fire it again.
Grinning, he pointed it at my heart.
I did the math on how quickly I could raise the brain-splattered machine gun. How quickly I could fire compared to him.
I didn’t like my odds.
“Any last words, prick?” Larry smirked. “Want to tell me you truly are a cop?”
Ice-cold prickles spread out from the hole in my side. I clutched it harder, grateful that it seemed as if the bullet had gone straight through.
I bared my teeth.
I braced myself—
A loud bang and Larry dropped to his knees.
The Glock fell out of his hands as he clutched his neck where a fountain of blood appeared. He gurgled and panicked, his eyes wide and welling with fear.
And that was the last time I saw the weedy, pot-belly Master alive as a flurry of gunfire let loose, slamming into him like darts.
He shuddered and jerked, falling backward as an entire clip of bullets ploughed into his chest, stomach, and legs. He twitched on the grass, animated only by gunshots, dead with his eyes wide open.
“ Oh . Oh, wow.” Ben blinked and nudged me to look toward the blazing inferno of a castle. There, in the orange light of so many glowing fires, Rachel stood with blood on her cheek and a pregnant belly poking through her dressing gown.
The ricochet of firing the automatic weapon flung her backward. She landed with a thud but scrambled to her feet a second later.
Our eyes met.
I stepped toward her—
Another explosion detonated.
We all looked toward the Western corner just in time to see the tower that led to the dungeons topple and timber. It fell in an avalanche of stone. The ground shuddered beneath our feet as it vanished into the courtyard and kicked up a plume of dust and rubble.
“Fucking hell.” Ben grinned. “This is going better than we hoped!”
Rachel stumbled and clutched her belly.
I shifted to go to her, but a silver-red blur caught my gaze as smoke billowed and turned the entire island grey and hazy.
Black hair streaming behind her, long legs tripping and staggering, Ily bolted out of the gardens.
“ Ily !”
She didn’t hear me.
The fire roared.
People screamed.
Too much distance and chaos.
She kept running. Swaying weakly, gasping strangely.
She shouldn’t be running.
Not with so much blood pouring from her neck.
Not after Victor cut her.
Victor.
My eyes narrowed as I scanned where she’d bolted from the hedgerows. My fingers fumbled for the gun’s trigger, ready to fire if he gave chase.
But nothing.
No one followed her.
She was on her own.
She was alive and breathing, and…a fresh surge of adrenaline bowled through me.
She’s alive.
I’m alive.
For the first time since I’d come to this fucking place, my single-minded focus of keeping her for myself merged into finally having a way to save her.
To deliver on all my broken promises.
To get her free.
My senses amplified, feeding me every piece of mayhem surrounding us.
Everything grew noisier, smokier, crazier.
Masters slaughtered jewels.
Jewels attacked Masters.
Guards fought guards.
Bullets fired, knives slashed, and the entire burning castle crawled with people fighting for their lives.
Some deserved to survive.
Some deserved to die.
I was ready to join this war to ensure Ily was safe, not just for tonight, but for the rest of her life.
I forgot about the pesky hole in my side.
I embraced the cold-heartedness of extermination.
And with a roar, I charged into battle.