Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Rio
D espite being honorably discharged over a year ago, preparing for a mission still felt like second nature. I wouldn’t say I felt at home doing it, but it was something I was good at—hell, something I’d excelled at for a long time.
Having Max beside me was new, but I also knew he was highly skilled and we weren’t going up against an armed militia. We were liberating a bunch of brainwashed people from the hands of some truly evil sociopaths.
I sent a quick message to the group chat I’d created with everyone, including August and Polly, telling them that we were about to go dark. That I loved them.
I was coming home with closure for my Omega. There were no other options.
I turned back to Kross. Toledo had gotten some satellite footage of the compound, and I wasn’t surprised it had never been found. They’d managed to camouflage it beautifully with the surrounding national forest—even the rooftops—making it hard to distinguish it from the surrounding terrain. There were no vehicles, any farmland must’ve been worked in between the trees, and even the fence was a drab green that looked like it had been reclaimed by nature long ago.
All in all, if the others hadn’t led us to their doorstep, we would never have found them.
“We go in through the entry point here”—Kross indicated where the tunnel came out in the ceremony room—“and we scale the walls here and here.” He pointed to the south and southwest corners, which were closest to the access road. “Minimal casualties is the aim of tonight, people. They’ll be scared and confused, and unless you are in immediate threat of grave injury, keep your phasers set to stun.”
Max looked at me with wide eyes. “Did he just make a Star Trek reference?” he muttered under his breath. My Beta Packmate had been a little bit of a nerd growing up, and I didn’t want to tell him that I’d scrolled on my phone the entire time I was meant to be watching Star Trek .
Llew would’ve known, though. He was one hundred percent supportive of anything we ever wanted to do. When I’d tried to play baseball in seventh grade? He’d been at every game, right there with my foster parents. Max had taken up close-up magic in eighth grade, and Llew had watched with rapt attention, applauding every trick. Though I think we’d all been glad when that phase passed.
We went over all the small details once more. When we’d call the cops to clean up. Who would talk to the cops. Who the hell would get the fuck out of there—that was us. We’d fuck shit up, Leader Malakai would conveniently “disappear” before the cops arrived, and then we would go home to our Omega.
I looked down at my watch. It was go time.
I hugged Max close. “Be safe.”
He slapped my back a couple of times, already in the zone. “You too. No revenge is worth not going home to our Pack.” It was a timely reminder, because my Alpha was already snarling underneath my skin.
Finally, we rolled out, and we hiked the short distance to the wall. It was at least fifty feet tall, with an almost perfectly sheer face. If there had been a forest fire in this part of the Ozarks, the whole place and everyone inside it would have perished.
We split, and I kept Henry with me. He had a bit of hand-to-hand training, but he was mostly here to keep people calm. I’d happily kept him on my team, because it was obvious that Polly loved him, and if we were right, he was her brother, at the very least. I wanted to keep him as safe as possible.
Throwing my grappling hook over the wall, I hoped that the night sounds would muffle the noise. After a few moments of waiting for any calls to ring out in the darkness, I started climbing up the wall. I’d check out what was happening on the other side, and if I thought it was safe, Henry would come up after me.
The solid top of the wall was enough for me to rest on, and I got my first impression of the place where Polly had been born and raised. There were four low, wide, flat-roofed houses in different sections of the compound. The entire place had basically been built beneath the canopy of the trees. There were only dirt paths, and even the agriculture had been spaced in natural fields.
It was pretty genius, really. A prepper’s wet dream. I could respect how they’d created the place and still hate what they’d created.
Nodding down to Henry, I waited until he climbed up—a little slower than I had—and then anchored our ropes so we could belay down the other side. Again, I went first, pulling my gun and waiting for Henry to land beside me.
He indicated the house on the far right. “That’s our old home. Leader Malakai’s house,” he whispered, and that rage that had been simmering in my chest quieted. We had a lock on our target. We would make him pay for what he’d done to Polly, and Henry, and every other poor kid who didn’t fit with his agenda.
I could see other dark-clad figures moving towards the houses. There were sixteen of us in all, but only a few would still be here when the cops arrived. More than enough for us to clear out this nest of depravity.
Two more guys joined us—another Alpha from Kross’s little rescue, along with a huge Alpha, almost as big as Llew, who didn’t speak and had brutal scars than spoke of violence, but not the type you’d get from war.
I lifted my hand, indicating they should go around the back, and we’d enter through the front. Of course the door was unlocked, because why would it be locked out here? Creeping through, I looked over at Henry, who indicated we should travel down the main hallway to the back portion of the house.
Reaching the master suite, I opened the door silently, noticing a girl curled up on the furthest edge of the bed, her eyes wide with fear. I lifted a finger to my lips, telling her to be silent. Fuck, she had to be younger than Polly. I indicated she should leave, slowly, and she slipped from the bed.
If I had any doubt about what a piece of shit this guy was, the fact that a barely legal girl was terrified in his bed in her underwear would’ve been enough to warrant the bullet between the eyes I was going to give him.
But not here. Not right now.
Picking up a dirty sock, I waited until I was standing over him. “Rise and shine, fuckhead.” The old guy’s eyes snapped open, his sallow jowls hanging down loosely. He opened his mouth to yell, and I slammed the sock in there, muffling the sound. And then I punched him in the face. “Night night, you piece of shit.”
While he was out of it, I hog-tied him facedown on the floor. He was naked, his liver-spotted ass and shriveled mole dick sure to haunt my nightmares for years.
“Go, wake the rest of the house’s occupants,” I told Henry. “Get the big guy to disarm anyone he thinks might cause a problem and herd them all into the main living room. From there, we’ll work out who’s a victim and who needs to meet their god, other than this piece of shit.”
With a nod, Henry disappeared out of the room, and I looked down at the man who’d caused so much hurt. He looked like any other old guy, gray-haired and soft around the middle, like he should be complaining to the barista at Starbucks that his coffee didn’t taste the way it used to, not leading an underground cult that dipped its toes in human trafficking.
He’d be so easy to kill, and holding back my Alpha from stomping on his frail neck was taking every ounce of willpower I possessed. Once I was sure he was properly secured and probably in a little bit of pain, I dragged him into the bathroom and threw him into the bathtub. It had three different shower heads and multiple hot tub jets.
To think, Polly hadn’t even been able to use her shower that first day because they’d always had to haul water from the well to bathe, while this piece of shit had a bathroom like the penthouse of the Hilton.
Setting the water as cold as it would go, I put it on full blast from all three shower heads. The icy blast brought him back to consciousness.
“ Argh! What the hell?” he screeched, and he sounded like someone’s grandpa. I hated him even more.
“Have a nice sleep, Leader Malakai? I can promise you, you’ve woken up to a nightmare, but don’t worry, it won’t be for long.” My earpiece let me know that Kross was on his way here. “You’re about to meet your maker, and it isn’t some fucking made-up god that you use to exploit other people.”
“Who are you?” he hissed.
Squatting down in front of him, watching him shiver beneath the frigid water, I smiled. “I’m just an Alpha who loves a woman you threw away.”
He screwed up his nose. “Paloma. That fucking little bitch was always trouble. I should have had her killed instead of—” I kicked him in his pudgy stomach for even saying her name.
Behind me, the door to the bathroom opened and closed. My Alpha was acutely aware that it was Kross. I looked over my shoulder at him, and as if he could see how close the Alpha was to taking control, he gave me a wide berth.
Malakai looked up at the man. “ You? What the… You double-crossing son of a bitch!”
Kross squatted down in front of him and pushed away the stringy gray hair that was across the old man’s face. It would’ve almost seemed gentle, if the other Alpha’s eyes weren’t promising death. “Not the son of a bitch, actually. The son of Robert and Leslie Kross.”
The Leader frowned. “Christopher?”
I raised a brow at the Alpha beside me. “Your name is Chris Kross? No wonder you just go by Kross.” I couldn’t wait to tell Max. He’d get a kick out of that.
Ignoring me, Kross nodded. “You do remember me. I’d almost feel honored, if I gave even the smallest shit about your opinion.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m going to level with you, Ken. You’re dying tonight. However, the amount of pain you’ll feel beforehand will be dependent on your answers to my questions. Answer everything, and this guy here”—he indicated me—“will put a single bullet between your eyes, and that’s the end.”
He leaned forward, the expression on his face menacing. “If you don’t answer, I’m going to remove a limb for every broken Alpha teen that I had to scrape up off the side of the highway, or nurse back to health from an overdose, or had to watch spiral into depression in a world they didn’t understand. And there were a lot. In the end, you’ll either tell me what I want to know, or you won’t. But the outcome is the same. You’re dead, and everything you’ve built is gone.”
The old guy had nothing but hatred in his eyes, but I knew the face of a coward when I saw one. I was quickly proven right.
“What do you want to know?”
Sighing unhappily, I turned from the bathroom door. “I’ll go help the others. But Kross? His death is mine.”
Kross nodded, but didn’t take his eyes from the guy in front of him. I grinned at Malakai—or I guess his real name was Ken—and it was a demonic expression. When Kross was done, my face would be the last one he’d ever see.