The Adler Squad #2
“Harvey?” His heart is pumping so furiously he’s sure for a moment he feels dizzy.
But there’s no response from the comms anymore.
The lines for the entire team have gone dark.
“Harvey!” Christian screams for his friend across the comms, but the only answering sound is the crackle of the flames in the trees. In the space where they’d hidden the RV.
Grief clogs his throat, but there’s no time. A catlike screech cuts through the air, bringing him back to his senses, and he runs out of the room towards it.
This was a setup.
“Max?! Mitch! Everett!” He runs through the empty hall, the sound of his desperate footsteps overshadowed still by the ticking sound of the antique clock, filling him with a dread that sinks into his bones.
“Fuck! Answer me!” He takes the stairs three at a time, but instead of their voices, a catlike yowl answers him. He follows the sound, past the kitchen, until he hears fighting in the living room.
“You—fucking traitor!”
Christian barges into the room at the sound of Max’s voice. A voice he’d never heard raised in his life. And the scene unfolding in front of him when he enters the room doesn’t make sense.
Max holds Mitch to his chest, furious tears staining his cheeks and blurring his vision as he points a gun at Everett across the room.
But his hand is shaking—his hand never fucking shakes—and he’s covered in blood.
It seeps into his clothes and spreads from his body, reaching for Christian like a shadow from a nightmare.
There is only the light from the terrace to bring the scene into focus—
The vision of death in Mitch’s usually bright brown eyes.
Max screams. Through tears, through suffering, through rage, “You fucking killed us—”
Two shots go off in the air, and his scream snaps mid-breath, stolen by silence so quickly, Christian swears it’s still bouncing off the walls, ringing in his ears. It feels like an eternity within a moment, as the light in Max’s eyes flickers out like a candle—
Like a star swallowed up by an infinite darkness.
Max’s body thuds to the floor, his blood adding to the pool, reaching for Christian across the tiles, amplifying the nightmare, and Christian still doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t understand the pounding in his ears.
He doesn’t understand the silence—can’t sink his teeth into the reality of the last few moments.
And when he looks at Everett, he still barely understands it—
Why he’s facing the barrel of a smoking gun.
“Sorry about this, Chris,” his co-captain’s voice is an unfamiliar indifference—a dull apathy in his grey eyes.
“It’s just how the world works.”
Before he can pull the trigger, Beau lunges for Everett, sinking sharp teeth into the skin of his hand.
Everett cries out as the gun clatters to the ground, and the sound is the only thing breaking Christian out of his trance, wrenching him out of the hands of the nightmare.
He leaps forward and his fist connects powerfully with Everett’s cheek. His rage is an explosion of red behind his eyes; it is a void suddenly packed too tightly with hatred. With frustration and disgust and suffering.
Yet even then, he can find nothing to say. No curses or insults or raving.
His fist connects again with Everett’s jaw. Again. Again.
Until his vision blurs.
Until it drowns the red behind his eyes and threatens to suffocate him with his grief.
Because he doesn’t see the point anymore.
Within the span of mere moments… he has lost everything.
A black cat screeches, and Christian knows it is to warn him—knows because it has warned him so many times before… but still, he barely hears it.
He is too slow—when he turns, Geoffrey Nash is in the doorway, a tall man with a lean body and a twisted smile on his face. The smile of a demon moments before reaping its rewards.
The shot echoes through the air like an explosion of its own and the world goes still.
Pain flares into Christian’s nerves like liquid fire, spilling blood from his lips…
And when he looks down, he sees it there.
A fist-sized hole in his torso.
He falls to his knees with a joyless laugh, but not before another shot echoes through the air, this time from behind.
Two shots in his back.
By the man he thought he could trust the most.
By the time his head hits the floor, he feels no pain. By the time his head touches the cold marble, the loss of his men no longer feels like agony pulsing through his heart, and the hole in his chest no longer feels like liquid fire.
Because by the time his head hits the floor, Christian Adler is already dead.
“You really saved my ass this time,” Geoffrey hands his shotgun to his closest servant with a wry smile, and Everett smiles easily.
“I’m sure you’ve seen stuff like this all the time in our line of work.”
“More times than you think,” he laughs humourlessly, “I was lucky there was a man like you to get me out of this situation easily.” He opens his phone with his fingerprint and after a few swipes and taps, he locks it and puts it down on the kitchen table.
“Your money’s been sent. Twenty million, as we agreed.
Five for each head. As you suggested, I’ll be leaving Portland today.
” He pushes a burner phone across the counter, “If the family still insists on following me, you can use this to keep me updated on their whereabouts. I can give you another ten easily in exchange.”
“I appreciate your business.” Everett takes a swig from his drink, feeling the burn at the back of his throat.
“What I don’t understand,” Geoffrey watches him curiously, “is if you only wanted money, all of this—” he waved his hand in the direction of the living room, wrinkling his nose, “—drama could have been avoided. Why get rid of them?”
Everett is quiet as he takes another sip of his glass, “Because they’re more skilled than I am. If I’m to move up in rank with the Taiga family, I can’t be outshined by those kids.”
“I don’t follow.”
Everett grins, “I plan to make Christian the traitor in all this. The one who leaked our plans and allowed you to escape. I’ll be the only one to return having beaten all the odds and survived. I’ll be given glory.”
Geoffrey’s eyes twinkle with unhidden mirth, obviously laughing at his naivete, “Being a survivor doesn’t give you glory, Mr. Parks.”
“No.” Everett sets his drink down with a strange finality, before looking up at Geoffrey with a smile, “But killing you will.”
Geoffrey doesn’t get the chance to stand or run before Everett pulls his fingers on the trigger of the silencer hidden inside his jacket.
Two shots for Geoffrey, one for his servant, and the world resumes quietly around him. And when he turns to leave, he doesn’t notice the small black cat watching him in a corner of the room, fur bristling with hatred.
By the time Everett leaves, only death and sorrow remain, and there is no one to notice the small animal that stares at Max and Mitch, unmoving.
It is not used to the sensations—to the hot anger that threatens to carve its skin from its bones, and the bottomless sorrow that makes breathing so unnaturally unbearable.
Emotions have always been… new. Until this point, they were vaguely warm—whenever it dodged Max’s bullets or heard Mitch’s jokes.
But these feelings are different.
The small cat pads over to Christian, and they become worse. Sharp, uncontrollable, encompassing… hot and scratchy and infuriating… Raw hate mixed with a desperate need for revenge.
Christian was never like other humans. Christian was bright and beautiful and strong. It was Christian who named him… Who took him in when he was struggling to find that place humans called home—
With a sinking realization, the cat realizes the truth too late.
Christian—this team—had been its home.
And now it was gone.
Stolen away by a traitor.
The cat doesn’t know why it shifts then. When it came to this world, it tried and failed to blend in as a human. Everything it’d learned about their customs was outdated and wrong… Because of that, they gave him strange looks no matter what he did—no matter how hard he tried.
He has remained a cat for 571 days, ever since failing to live as one of them… but his loss and his hatred this time, is the catalyst—it is greater than his courage and his fear as he shifts into a man again.
But this time, it is a man with bright blue eyes and black hair.
This time it is a lean body honed from years of training, with toned muscles and a pretty face.
This time—
It is Christian Adler.