Chapter Twenty-Four
Hades
It took a week, but our plan was finally in motion.
I didn’t like it one fucking bit, but it was the best path forward according to Diesel and Rocky, so I went with it.
Raven needed to reach out to Viktor to set the trap, but I hated every fucking letter she typed.
They’d gone back and forth over a couple of days with her playing the role of the repentant pet, which was nothing like the woman I knew.
The woman I loved.
But it had to be done to set the trap. She reached out to set up a meeting and while nothing had been settled—yet—he was eager to get her back under his control, which meant he would act first and fast. We were counting on that which was why we, mostly Slate, decided to route the emails through an IP address that would send them to one of our vacant properties.
“Are we sure this is the right thing to do?” I asked for at least the twentieth time this evening. My nerves were shot and I knew it was because I was too invested in the outcome.
Dagger nodded, giving me a sympathetic look while he gripped my shoulder. “Yeah, man. This is the right plan.” He sighed and shook his head. “Or it’s the right starter plan.” His smile was crooked but still full of sympathy, which I kind of fucking hated.
I looked around the second bedroom where Dagger and I waited for the men we knew would show up sooner or later. “They left us hanging last night, why would they show up tonight?” Maybe they were watching us and knew we were here.
“Because Viktor is hungry as fuck to get his girl back, though it seems like she’s your girl.” He smirked but there was no heat or judgment in his eyes. “Falcon know yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not sure there’s anything to know, anymore.” Since we got back to the clubhouse Raven had been distant. I wasn’t sure if it was because she’d decided we were a bad idea, or whether she just didn’t want to do anything before I spoke with her brother.
He laughed. “That means there’s definitely something going on and you’re at the part where shit just got complicated.”
“I don’t know.” My head fell forward and a heavy sigh escaped. “I think I fucked up and right now I don’t have the space in my head to think about it.” I had to fix it, but first I had to make sure she made it out of this shit with Viktor alive.
“If you say so. As the guy who has your back tonight, I’m happy to focus on the job at hand. But as a guy who’s recently been through the wringer known as falling in love, let me tell you that it’s never over when you first think it is. Not if it’s real.”
I wanted it to be real, so fucking bad she was all I’d thought about for the past week.
Day and night, Raven was on my mind. When I woke up, it was her smiling face I saw.
When I fell asleep, it was her with her eyes shut and her head tossed back with passion.
She was everywhere and she hadn’t spoken to me since she told me to leave her room.
“I’m not sure what it is or what it was. ”
“A sure sign that it’s not over. Better tell Falcon before he finds out another way.”
I nodded and held my hand up to quiet him when I heard Slate’s voice in my ear. “Two black sedans just slow rolled up to the curb. Eyes up, people.”
“Got it,” Maverick said from where he and Hollywood waited in the living room.
“Ready and waiting,” Rocky said from the main bedroom where he and Gio waited, locked and loaded if necessary.
I fucking hoped they put up a fight. I was well past ready to put some of this aggression where it belonged. Waiting in a dark house for the second night in a row was not how I pictured this plan playing out, but it was finally about to pay off.
“Has to be them,” Dagger whispered. “This neighborhood is a lot like my own and most of the houses are pitch black by eleven.”
I nodded. “So it has to be them,” I said, my voice thick with violent hope. My hand slid to the holster on my hip and removed it. The feel of the cool metal against my palm was soothing and my heart rate slowed, ready for action.
A full minute passed in absolute silence before I heard it, the click of the front door as it opened.
I inhaled sharply and let it out slowly, gripping my gun a little tighter.
And then I heard it, the familiar crunching sound of fists connecting with soft tissue, with bones.
Grunts cut through the silence followed by the familiar sound of two big bodies falling to the ground.
The back door opened next.
There were two of them based on their footsteps. The sound grew louder as they turned down the hall, and then they started whispering.
My eyes met Dagger’s and he nodded just as the knob turned.
We were ready.
The door opened slightly and the barrel of a gun appeared first.
I pounced, grabbing his wrist and yanking him forward and down. The gun fell from his hand and slid across the floor. He landed a blow with his other hand that grazed my cheek. It was a quick distraction, but not quick enough. My grip tightened on his wrist, tugging it back until it snapped.
“Fuck!” He shouted and dropped to his knees. “Just give us the girl.”
“Fat fucking chance, asshole.” I pulled my arm back and unleashed half a dozen blows to his face. I punched him for the shit Raven went through for three years. For the fear that’s been reignited in her since they killed that girl. For the ways I fucked up recently and felt powerless to change.
“Stop,” Rocky called out, but I didn’t stop. I was blinded by rage, white hot and burning throughout my body and the only thing that soothed the burn was burying my fists in his face. “Goddammit, Hades, stop!” he grunted.
The next thing I felt was hands gripping my arms and tearing me off the Russian motherfucker. “I’m not done!” I shrugged out of their hold and dove for him again, but all three brothers pulled me back. “He deserves…” I began but I couldn’t finish the rest of that sentence.
“I know, brother.” Rocky’s words held patience and understanding, two things I knew I didn’t deserve in the moment. “He deserves a hell of a lot more than the beating you just gave him, but this ain’t part of the plan.”
All the fight left my body at the reminder of the bigger picture. “Fuck,” I growled. I pointed at the man, bloody and gasping on the floor. “Today, you live.”
“Two others weren’t so lucky,” Gio said wearing his signature smile. “Buck up, asshole, you get to live today.”
“For now,” I spat, still glaring at him.
“Come on, we need to do this shit right.” Dagger clapped me on the back before he and Rocky picked the man up and dragged him to the living room where two of his men lay with bullets in their heads while the other was barely alive.
“What do you want?” His question came out in heavy, labored breaths and his eyes were wide with fear and something else.
“Easy,” Gio said and kicked his foot. “You just have to deliver a message to your boss.”
The man spit out a mouthful of blood and shook his head. “He does not receive messages. Only results.” His breathing was labored but he wore a smile. “You might as well kill me here and now.”
I smiled at the plea I heard in his tone. “Where would be the fun in that?”
Hollywood strolled back into the front door with furrowed brows and pinched lips. “Found this shit in the back of one of the cars.” He held up zip ties and a bottle of chloroform.
My jaw clenched tight as my mind flashed with images of what they had planned for Raven. They were gonna drug her and tie her up before carrying her off, back to that sick Russian fuck. Not on my watch.
I turned to the asshole on the floor and picked him up by his hair. “I don’t give a fuck if your boss kills you, just tell him to meet her tomorrow at noon. Lavender Leaves. Got it?”
He nodded quickly, happy to still be alive. For now.
“Repeat it back to me.”
The man nodded again. “Noon. Lavender Leaves.” He swallowed hard, as if he wasn’t sure if I would kill him now anyway or if he had another hour or two to live. “Can we go?”
I flicked a gaze to Rocky, who was staring at me like I was somebody he didn’t recognize. I held his stare until he gave the slightest nod, and the two assholes darted for the front door as fast as they could.
There was a long beat of silence once they were gone and then Rocky snorted. “We need to get rid of these fuckin’ bodies.”
“You think he’s gonna show?” Gio posed the question as we left through the back door, hopping a fence and walking the two blocks to our parked bikes.
“He’ll show,” I said with a confidence that bordered on certainty, even though there was a big part of me that hoped he smelled the trap and took his ass all the way back to Russia.
“We’ll be ready.” Gio’s confidence didn’t make me feel better about any of this. Raven’s willingness to put herself in harm’s way was something we needed to talk about.
Before she met with her former captor.