Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Drago
Song: Suffocate - Kayzo, Bad Omens
I’m pissed I couldn’t make it to Lily’s gallery. I haven’t had time as Enzo, and I have been planning this take-down all evening over a secure phone line. And now it’s two a.m., and everyone is exhausted, but we're ready.
“Enzo, are we good to move?” I ask through the headset.
My eyes lock on the club. My pulse steadies. My world narrows.
“Thermo is showing at least thirty men inside,” Enzo tells me.
Conan Quinn claps his hands together beside me, adrenaline filling the Bentley like smoke. I inhale once, letting everything sharpen. I have to watch him. He’s a champion MMA fighter with a very short fuse.
“Security feeds are down. Go!” Enzo orders.
“Two on the door. The twins can take them now,” I order.
Declan Quinn, the oldest brother and boss, put me in charge of the Preacher takedown. My connections, my language, my methods. No one can hunt Russians like I can.
“Got it,” Rowan chimes in.
I watch the twins take position. Reggie moves first, Rowan shadows him.
“It’s go time,” I tell Conan and Finn as I open my door, flicking the safety off my pistol.
The guard drops with a thud as we approach. Rowan must have nailed the bastard in the neck. He’s twitching, gulping for air. Pathetic.
I pause, crouching beside the enemy. “Need some help on your way to hell?” I ask.
Tears streak down his face. I grip his hair, pull the blade from my boot, and drive it deep into his throat. I slice clean, end-to-end, until he goes slack.
I wipe my hand, slide the blade back, and stand.
“Once we’re done, we’re cutting the heads off every single one of these motherfuckers and leaving it like a red carpet of blood for the Preacher,” I say as the men gather behind me.
I remember the first time Lev and I left a message just like this in Moscow.
“Brutal. I love it,” Conan growls.
Even Dr. Quinn gives me half a grin.
I nod toward the black door, and Conan kicks it open. We go in with guns raised. Our back team should be filtering in now.
These Russians don’t stand a chance. Not on our turf. The men they’re using aren’t trained like I am. They’re lackeys at best. The only reason we haven’t defeated them yet is that they hide too well.
Yet when they come out of the shadows to play, we take them down.
I drop the first two men on my right, while Finn slices his blade up through another man’s jaw. Conan grabs one by the collar and smashes his skull against a beam.
Glasses shatter. Gunshots crack. Bodies fall.
Then I hear a woman scream.
Not panic. Terror.
It cuts straight through the fight fog.
I sprint toward the sound, motioning for Reggie and Rowan to cover me. At the far end of the club, I see Enzo’s right-hand man, Romeo, with his gun pointed at a familiar face.
The face of a beautiful woman I knew I’d see again.
Madame Eve.
The woman is responsible for trafficking girls across state lines.
She’s the friendly face that lures the innocent girls in, not knowing the future they’re really agreeing to.
We found her once, back in Arizona, when we went to visit Hunter Sterling.
Back then, we didn’t know the extent of the operation. And we needed intel, not bodies.
But after they tried to kill the twins and their girl, Bella, the rules changed.
When the Preacher sent spies into Inferno to take part in the Decadence games, that puts Isabella and Charlotte in danger. No one puts that little girl’s life at risk.
They declared this war.
Now we end it.
“Romeo. We need her alive,” I order, because I believe Madame Eve is the closest link we’ve come across to the Preacher. She’s higher up the chain of command. She is of value to the cult.
And out of all the men I’ve tortured that are part of this organization, not one has given us anything of substance. I’m wondering if Madame has a weakness, a real one we can extract. Which Enzo is already working on.
She straightens her spine, but fear flickers in her eyes. She knows she’s done.
I don’t make a habit of hurting women, but monsters don’t get the privilege of mercy.
“Pleasure to finally meet you, Madame Eve,” I offer her my hand.
She presses her lips into a thin red line, while her eyes blaze.
“You won’t hurt me, you need me…” She trails off, gaze dragging over my blood-splattered white shirt.
“Do I? I’ve tortured nearly thirty of the Preacher’s men, and they gave me nothing. Your cult doesn’t break easily. Are you going to talk, or just beg for death like the rest of the pussies who work for you?” I growl.
She laughs, tilting her head back. “You’ve tortured meaningless soldiers.”
I take a step forward. “The Crow didn’t seem meaningless. He led us to you the first time.”
Her frown gives her away. He was the only member of the cult to provide us with any usable information. He told us where she was working in Arizona and what she was doing. He threw her under the bus, and she knows it.
“You didn’t kill me then. Why would you now?”
Another shot erupts behind us, and she flinches.
“Because this time… you’re fucking with me. And I don’t take prisoners, Madame. I hunt. I leave messages. Then I kill.” I grin. “Just how I was taught back home.”
She swallows as I take her hand, lift it to my lips, and press a slow kiss to her knuckles.
“Pretty nails,” I tell her.
Black daggers. Fitting for the woman who’ll soon bleed for her sins.
“I won’t talk. Just kill me and get it over with.” She smiles, like she’s not asking for death.
I pull back, studying her. “That’s far too easy. You will pay for every woman you destroyed. Every life you’ve ruined. You’re a poison, Madame.”
I slam her hand onto the desk and pull the blade from my boot. Fresh blood still coats the edge.
“And what are you? Some kind of savior?” She says, full of sarcasm, looking at the knife.
I grin. “Yeah. Maybe I am.”
I know I’ve saved at least one person that matters.
“I hunt. What do I do next?” I ask her, looking at her to answer.
“Y-you leave a message.”
I nod.
“You’re a good listener, Madame.” Then, with one swift strike, I sever her little finger. She screams, high and piercing.
“Romeo, pick that up for me.”
He snatches the finger off the floor and positions himself at the door, gun trained on Eve. I dig through the desk and pull out cable ties.
“And now… I’ll take you to my boss, and he can decide if you talk or die.” I bind her wrists and shove her toward Romeo.
I’m hoping Enzo gives us the go-ahead to extract information from her.
“Take her to Inferno. Grab one of our men, and have Enzo check her for trackers. I don’t trust this bitch.”
“Got it,” Romeo confirms.
Taking the finger, I storm back down the corridor.
“We got Madame Eve,” I tell the twins, stepping over two bodies.
“Holy shit,” Rowan mutters.
Bella is going to want a turn with Madame Eve. And she’ll get it. The twins’ girl has fire and precision, the perfect combination for breaking monsters.
The bar falls quiet as we return. It’s only our men left now.
“Rowan, go grab the machetes from the trunk,” I order, scanning at least twenty corpses.
“Any of our men hurt?” I ask Finn.
He adjusts his flat cap. “A couple superficial wounds. Nothing major. We’re good.”
I exhale, a weight lifts. This pressure, this obligation to The Quinn’s, it’s different. I’m being trusted to lead them, I’m responsible for not fucking it up.
Usually, the consequence of a bad decision is just my own life, something I can deal with.
Rowan returns and hands each of us a machete.
I pull mine free and step over the first body, and in one clean motion, I send his head rolling across the floor.
The men flinch, half-horrified, half-impressed.
“Don’t be babies. You want the Preacher to know who he’s fucking with or not?
This is how we do it. Let him see exactly what will happen to him next. ”
I pull out Madame Eve’s finger from my pocket with a wicked grin. “We don’t know where to send this message, but I say we leave it right on the door. The heads will lead the Preacher right to it.” I suggest holding up the severed digit.
We were already planning to take down the Preacher. But now, we’re getting closer to really fucking ending this.