Chapter Thirty
Hades
“How much fucking longer?” I’d probably asked the question at least fifty times over the past hour while we waited for Slate to get eyes inside Viktor’s humongous fucking mansion.
Diesel ordered us to wait until after sunset because this was a respectable fucking neighborhood, and we didn’t want to draw stares from nosy people inclined to bring in the law.
“Sun’s down,” Sniper said with a shrug. “So probably not much longer. You need to get your fuckin’ head on straight.” His brows knitted as he hit me with a worried stare.
“Yeah,” I grunted a response because I couldn’t get my head on straight.
How the fuck could I possibly when Raven was in there?
My mind wouldn’t stop flashing images in my head of her scared out of her fucking mind and trying not to show it.
Images of Viktor touching her, of him hurting her.
Was she worried we wouldn’t come for her?
I could have kicked myself for not having that talk with her.
She’d been distant since the other day. I knew the whole thing with me wanting Falcon’s approval to date his sister was fucking with her head.
I should have told her that even if he’d threatened to kick my ass out of town, I wasn’t gonna give her up. And now it might be too late…
My hands tingled with the need to do something. I wanted to rush inside that oversized house and kill everyone in sight until I found Raven. But I couldn’t. Not alone.
So I had to fucking wait.
“We’ll get inside soon enough. There’s no other way out of this block, so we know they’re in there.” He was trying to reassure me, to keep me from diving headlong off the deep end.
Finally, my phone buzzed. “I’ve got eyes,” Slate’s message read.
My shoulders relaxed instantly.
“You ready?” Sniper eyed me cautiously.
“Beyond fucking ready,” I growled, checking my guns as Slate’s voice sounded in my ear.
“Viktor is a paranoid motherfucker,” he warned. “There are cameras everywhere. This is a fucking dream,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Sniper and I looked at each other with knowing smirks. Our brother was damn good at what he did, but man he could geek out over the weirdest shit.
“So,” he sighed. “Falcon and Raven are inside, both in the main lounge.”
Something inside my chest eased at those words, but it wasn’t calm or relaxing. It was a slow readiness to action. My heartbeat slowed and my vision sharpened as Diesel handed out orders.
“We go inside in teams of two. Get Falcon and Raven, do whatever you have to do to get it fucking done.”
That was the order I’d been waiting a fucking eternity for. “Let’s do this,” I told Sniper.
He nodded and fell in step beside me as we walked down the street in long, purposeful strides.
We weren’t wearing our cuts, so to anyone paying attention, we looked like two dudes just passing through.
At the end of the block, we slipped between two dark houses and crossed to dead end road where the mansion sat. “I’ll get Falcon. Focus on your girl.”
I nodded slowly and as soon as Slate gave the okay, we waited for the keyless entry light to flash green, and then we stepped inside.
The house was pitch black when we entered, which meant they probably saw our approach. Sniper kept his gun while I switched for a knife and followed him through the front hall. “Right,” he called out and stepped to the left.
I lunged forward, leading with the blade. With six quick, successive jabs to his gut and throat, I neutralized the first guard. “Clear.”
We made it another few feet before Sniper called out, “Left.”
The second guard put up more of a fight, landing a blow to my jaw before he found my blade buried deep under his arm. I couldn’t see him, but I felt the way his body stiffened. I heard the way he gurgled before falling to his knees. When the thud sounded, I sighed. “Clear.”
We passed something that looked like a library and Sniper ducked his head inside, sweeping left to right. “It’s clear. Switch out the blade,” he whispered and kept moving forward.
I paused at the living room entrance, not because I was afraid but because I knew Raven was close. I felt it in the room, which seemed darker than the rest of the rooms. Sniper’s hand landed on my shoulder and we moved forward together.
“Over here,” Falcon whispered.
Sniper switched on a flashlight, sweeping the beam across the room until it landed on Falcon, who was bound to a fucking chair. “Fuck,” he growled and stepped around me.
“Good to see you,” Falcon said, somehow finding his smile despite the situation.
“Where’s Raven,” I barked because though I was happy to see my brother, I was desperate to find my woman. “Falcon, where is she?”
“Here.” Her voice was quiet and soft, coming from somewhere behind me.
I spun quickly, finding her before Sniper’s beam landed on her. My footsteps froze at what I saw. It wasn’t just Raven. She was flanked by Viktor and his right-hand man, Alexei, who held a gun pressed to the side of her head.
My hands fisted and my jaw clenched tight as rage coursed through my veins. My vision blackened around the edges, and I let the anger bubble over, using it to do what needed to be done in the moment. “Raven.”
She gave one short, sharp nod. It said, I’m good, even though her eyes were filled with pure terror.
Alexei’s laugh boomed in the silence. “You didn’t think it would be so easy, did you?” His shit-eating grin pissed me off almost as much as the gun pressed to my woman’s head.
Easy? No.
“You can’t let them take her,” Falcon demanded, his voice angry and pleading.
I wouldn’t let them take her. I would die preventing her from enduring that hell again.
I took stock of the room, eyes darting around to take in the exits—French doors near Falcon, the way I entered, and I’d bet there was a door that would allow them a quick exit—and then I let out a slow breath.
I could take out either Alexei or Viktor cleanly, but that would give the one left standing a chance to kill Raven.
My grip tightened on my gun, itching to shoot up the whole fucking house.
“Don’t be stupid,” Alexei warned as if the Russian bastard could read my mind.
My mind raced, too many fucking bad outcomes possible. “Fuck it,” I said to myself and quickly raised my arm, taking aim before I squeezed the trigger. The gunshot rang out, echoing in the silence. I watched the short journey to the center of Alexei’s fucking forehead.
Raven gasped and dropped to the floor as Alexei crumpled to the ground. Viktor, ever the survivalist, dropped to the floor and for several long seconds they were both out of my sight.
“Raven!” I called out, my heart slamming hard against my chest.
“Hades…” My name came out on a strangled sigh and then she appeared with Viktor’s arm around her neck, Alexei’s gun pressed to her head.
“Don’t be a hero or I will put a bullet in sweet Daisy’s head.” He kissed her temple gently. “I don’t want to do it, but I will. She is mine.”
“Wrong, asshole. She’s mine.” My gaze met Raven’s for a long moment and the heartache I saw in her eyes gutted me. “Don’t give up, babe. I got you,” I promised. It was a promise I planned to make good on.
No matter what.
Viktor’s expression darkened, possessiveness sparked in his eyes even in the dark. “Daisy is mine. I bought her. I groomed her and turned her into exactly what I want.”
I barked out an evil laugh, shaking my head. “It’s pathetic,” I snarled. “A man with so much money can’t get a woman so he takes a woman like Raven, removing her sparkle and her fire. A perfect robot too frightened to run away.”
“Fuck you,” he spat, taking a step back and pulling Raven with him.
“Nah, fuck you,” I shot back with a laugh. “Except she wasn’t too scared to run away, was she?” I laughed again and advanced another step. “She couldn’t get away fast enough.”
He opened his mouth and then slammed it shut. “She won’t get away this time.”
My smile faded. “You’re a dead man, Viktor.”
He smiled but there was no humor in it before he backed out of the room, dragging her with him.
I took off after them, knowing my brothers would catch up when they could. It was what we did. It was how we operated. I followed the dark silhouette down a narrow hall before it opened up to an open door that led to a big ass backyard with a pool.
Viktor hadn’t spotted them yet, but Rocky and Hollywood were on the other side of the pool, effectively trapping him between us.
He finally looked over his shoulder and froze when he saw there was no way out.
He gripped Raven tighter, his gun hand shaking like it was his first time holding the cold steel.
“Don’t come any closer,” he shouted, head swiveling back and forth between me and my brothers behind him.
“There’s no way out of this for you, Viktor. Let Raven go and you might live to walk out of here too.” There was no way I would let that happen, but I needed to get Raven away from him.
His lips pulled into a tight smile that didn’t meet his icy gaze. He was daring me to risk it, to risk her. “Do you want me bad enough to risk harming Daisy?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know who the fuck Daisy is.”
He arched a brow, silently calling me out for not answering his question.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to risk Raven for anything.”
“Then back the fuck up,” he growled.
I shook my head. “I don’t, but she does.” I looked at Raven then. There wasn’t a trace of fear in her eyes. Worry was there, but no fear. Worry and a hint of resignation because she knew that what mattered to me was what she wanted. I couldn’t take this from her.
More than that, I wouldn’t.
“You know what I want,” she said to me, her gaze steady as one arm gripped his forearm.
“Do it, Hades. Do it now.”
I knew what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to shoot with no fucking regard for her life. I would never do that, risk her life. Not for any-fucking-thing.
“Raven!” Falcon’s voice was a roar behind me. “Fucking shoot him,” he demanded, his voice raw with fear for his sister.
I didn’t flinch in the face of the chaos that surrounded me. Instead, I found absolute peace in the effort it took to focus on just one thing. Not Raven. Not my brothers. Just Viktor.
He sneered as if he was disgusted at me for being so sentimental about a woman he viewed as property. Triumph filled his eyes because he couldn’t imagine a world in which he didn’t emerge victorious. “That’s what I thought—”
His words were cut off, first by the echo of a gunshot and then by the bullet that blew half his face off. The second bullet landed in that sweet spot between his eyes, and he was dead before his body fell directly on top of Raven.
My legs took off instinctively in Raven’s direction, the sounds of her screams had my legs and arms pumping faster until I was there, on the ground beside her, helping her shove the dead Russian off her.
“Raven, baby, talk to me. Are you okay?” I checked her body with my eyes and hands, making sure she wasn’t injured by my bullets.
“Hades!” she cried, the sound like my name had been ripped from her throat.
“I’m here, baby. Talk to me, tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m not hurt,” she answered when I pressed my forehead to hers, cradling her head in my hands.
“Fuck,” I growled as relief pulsed through me. My heart hammered so hard I could hardly breathe. “Fuck,” I said again and held her even tighter.
“I was so scared,” she admitted barely above a whisper.
“I got you, Raven. I got you. I’m here.” I held her close, chest to chest with no regard for the blood that splattered her clothes and her hair. Her face. In that moment, my heart settled. The world was right again.
The peace was broken by the sound of my best friend’s angry voice. “Just what the fuck is going on here?”
Sniper stepped between us, pushing Falcon back. “Now ain’t the time, man.”
“Fuck that,” Falcon shrugged away his touch. “Now is the exact fucking time. What’s going on with you two?”
“None of your business,” Raven said, her voice quiet but I heard the fire and steel in every syllable.
Anger spiked in his eyes as they met mine, daring me to tell him that I’d been fucking his kid sister behind his back. “Well?”
I couldn’t find the words to explain what I felt. How did you tell your best friend that you loved his sister and didn’t want to spend another day away from her? I froze for too fucking long, and that gave Raven time to find her anger again.
She shoved out of my embrace and got to her feet. “Nothing,” she said to her brother, but her gaze never left mine. “Nothing at all.”
My heart dropped to my stomach as I watched her walk away with Hollywood at her side. Comforting her.
It should be me.
It should be me, but I fucked up.