Chapter 49
forty-nine
“You didn’t, by chance, happen to keep any of the fuckers alive, did you?” I ask my father as I help him dispose of the unwanted trash in the back of one of the vans. He just grunts, which I take to mean no, he hadn’t. “Would have been nice if you did.”
“You could have kept Christian alive.”
“Pfft.” I dismiss that real quick. “He would have been useless. Plus, that was all Kenzi.”
My sister rolls her eyes at me. “Save your life, and how do you thank me? By throwing me under the bus.”
I shrug. “I’m not taking the blame for you. Plus, I already said thank you.”
“Could have said thank you by not making me help you carry dead bodies.”
My father chuckles. “Got to learn to clean up after yourself, kiddo.” Kenzi makes a noise of disagreement.
“I don’t clean up bodies,” she deadpans. “I leave them.”
“She never picked up her toys as a kid either,” I whisper loudly to my father. “Always made me or Libby do it.”
Another eye roll.
“Ava!” My ears perk up at the sound of someone yelling my name rather frantically. “Red!”
It’s Matthias.
I walk into the kitchen from the alley, following the sound of his voice.
The bodies of the staff have already been taken to the local mortuary, and the families have been notified by the twins.
I shiver. I’d rather clean up the dead bodies than talk to any family members.
I barely make it past the bar top when my husband scoops me up into his arms, crushing me tight against his chest.
“Matthias,” I choke out. Jesus, he’s crushing me. Death by Russian hug. Wouldn’t be the worst way to go. “I can’t breathe.”
“Shit,” he curses, loosening his hold on me enough to allow my lungs to expand but not enough to squirm out of his hold.
After a few moments, he sets me back on my feet, his hands roaming my body diligently.
He is clinical with his touch, which is probably good since we are in the middle of the bar with everyone watching.
“Are you okay?” I eye the blood covering him from nearly head to toe. In fact, I look around at Maksim, Vas, and Nicolai. They are all covered in blood. The only one who managed to come out barely scathed is Dante. “What happened?”
He looks down at me with a knowing smirk. His hand, covered in dried blood, cups my cheek gently. “Worried about me, Red?”
Feigning nonchalance, I shrug. “I just don’t want to hear Vas bitch and moan about you being dead again, and funerals are a pain in the ass to plan. Trust me, I know from experience.”
My father laughs from somewhere behind me. “That’s my girl.”
Matthias’s chest rumbles possessively, and it makes my core clench like a seasoned hoe. The man has fucking ruined me for anyone else. He tears his eyes from mine reluctantly and gazes around the room. His forehead puckers, eyes narrowing at the scene before him.
“What the hell happened here?” he asks my father, who rolls his eyes as if it is obvious.
“We were attacked,” he deadpans. “And do you mind? You’re getting blood everywhere.” Matthias looks down at the blood-stained wooden floor, then back at my father, eyebrow raised.
“Really?”
My father shrugs. “I’m assuming you were hit by the same people?” He looks Matthias and his men up and down.
“That was my thought, but it seems like they sent considerably fewer men after you.”
Inclining my head, I stare up at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“We were ambushed by nearly four dozen men,” he frowns.
“Highly trained operatives.” Matthias bends down to pick up one of the smoke grenades that had been thrown through the front windows of the bar.
“This is an M18 smoke grenade. Simple but effective. However, it’s not high tech and provides little cover.
“The smoke grenades that were used at the club were M106. Obscurant type. It provides quick and fast cover but also messes with infrared. Mark had a hard time identifying how many men there were because of it.” Matthias pauses and turns toward my father. “Where are the men who attacked you?”
My father shoves his thumb toward the kitchen doors. “Out back in the alley, being loaded into a van.” Matthias nods and stalks toward the service doors.
“You couldn’t change first?” My father groans as we all follow behind my husband, who appears to be on a mission.
Matthias flips him off over his shoulder. “Bill me.”
Father laughs.
We step into the alley where Ioan, one of my father’s lieutenants, and Kenzi are casually tossing the rest of the dead bodies into the back. It is going to be a full load. They stop when they see us.
“These aren’t the men who attacked us,” Matthias mutters and turns to Vas, who nods in agreement.
“They appear to be McDonough’s men.” Vas leans in closer to get a look and points toward the bottom of the pile. “Is that Ward?”
Kenzi smirks. “Sure is.”
Vas beams with pride. “Nice.”
“Slit his throat,” she brags. “Ear to ear.”
“What was he doing here?” Matthias questions.
“Trying to get his hands on your wife,” Kenzi mutters. “Again.”
My husband’s stormy eyes turn to me, and I just shrug.
“Don’t look at me.” I hold my hands up innocently. “This was all Marianne’s doing.”
“She was here too?” Matthias closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. I wonder if he’s going to have a stroke or something. With the way the vein in his temple is throbbing, I wouldn’t doubt that one is near.
“Take a chill pill, caveman,” Kenzi snorts. “Everything went fine. Christian’s dead. All their men are dead. Marianne escaped somewhere.”
I groan, then think about it for a moment.
“Wait.” If it wasn’t my grandparents’ men who attacked Matthias, then who did? “Who were the men who attacked the club?”
“We haven’t been able to figure that out,” Dante admits with a shake of his head.
“They had no identifying marks or tattoos,” Vas informs us. “They were special forces and black-ops trained, that is for sure. High-grade explosives and smoke screens. Their moves were practiced and precise. We never saw them coming.”
That doesn’t make any sense. “Wasn’t Mark monitoring radio chatter around the club?” I ask. “He should have been able to give you a heads-up.”
Maksim snorts from where he leans against the metal doorframe between the alley and the kitchen. “Except there was no radio chatter. It was completely silent until the alarm was tripped, and the one fucker who had managed to barely survive didn’t say shit. Silent as a fucking mime.”
“Or a mute.”
We all turn to look at Kenzi, who is washing her blood-covered hands off with the spigot on the wall.
“What do you mean mute?”
Kenzi snorts. “You know, like can’t talk? Silent. Suppressed. Quiet. Take your pick.”
“Why the fuck would you think they’re mute?” Vas eyes her skeptically.
Shutting off the spigot, Kenzi whirls around to face the tall Russian, hands on her hips. “Did they make any noise at all? Did you hear them shout out orders to each other or scream when they were hit?”
“Well,” Vas stutters slightly before looking defeated. “No.”
“That’s what I thought,” she reprimands him before turning to Matthias. “Did you look inside their mouths?”
Vas sneers. “Why the fuck would we do that?”
Kenzi ignores him, focusing her attention on Matthias, who shakes his head.
“What about radio chatter?” she continues. “You said Mark didn’t hear any, but was that just words or was he listening for anything else?”
“Like what?” Matthias questions.
“Knocks. Tics. Tones,” she explains. “Anything like that.”
Matthias eyes his men, who all shake their heads.
“I’m not sure.”
“Great,” Kenzi huffs. She grabs her phone from her pocket and hits speed dial.
“What’s up, Kenzi?” Mark’s voice fills the alleyway on her speakerphone. “Kinda busy.”
“Aren’t we all,” she drawls. “When you were monitoring the comm lines near the club, did you pick up on anything?”
“Nah,” Mark denies. “There wasn’t any chatter on any frequencies in the area. Just the hangar and the bar. Why?”
“You’re sure you didn’t hear anything at all?” Kenzi questions further. “Not just voices. Any kind of tapping or tones that didn’t quite make sense?”
Mark’s silence is all the confirmation we need.
“Well, there was this kind of…beeping sound that was embedded in the radio frequency, but it was random. It sounded like it anyway.”
“Did it sound a little like Morse code?” she asks him. “Long beeps and short beeps.”
“Yeah, a bit, but I thought it was just static,” he tells her. “I thought it could have been Morse code at first, but none of the words would have made any sense.”
“Perfect. Thank you for your help.”
“Wait—” She hangs up on him.
“They’re called Timbres,” she breathes, one hand white-knuckling her cell phone while her empty hand clenches and unclenches at her side.
Kenzi is scared. “I don’t know much about them, just that they’re deadly.
Rumors floated around that they’ve wiped out whole corporations in bloody massacres, leaving no trace behind. ”
“So what?” Vas scoffs. “Only mutes can apply? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Those soldiers aren’t born mute, idiot.” Kenzi’s eyes darken, lips turning up in a sneer. “Their tongues are cut out when they’re recruited.”
“By choice?” Maksim balks, licking his lower lip.
Kenzi bobs her head. “Some of them,” she concedes. “Others are forced into recruitment depending on their skills evaluation.”
“But why cut out their tongues?”
“When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it,” Kenzi recites.
Dante smiles down at his daughter. “Jean de LaBruyère.”
“I am so confused right now,” Vas admits.
“It means that whoever employed them ensured they wouldn’t be able to spill their secrets,” Dante explains. “That must be why Mark heard the beeping sound over the comm frequency. It’s how they communicate.”
“I’m not sure what it is, but Mark was right when he said it wasn’t Morse code.”
Matthias shrugs. “Morse code can be easily changed to meet someone else’s needs as long as the people who are receiving it know it as well.”
“Great,” Maksim grumbles. “Now we have to worry about someone powerful enough to send deadly mute assassins after us. Just what we need.”