Chapter 18
KAIRO
The helicopter touches down on the roof of Andreas’s warehouse forty-three minutes after the call. I'm sober now, not because the alcohol left my system, but because the rage burned it out of me somewhere over the ocean, it replaced every drop of whiskey in my body, and now I am using it as fuel.
My men are already assembled when I come down the stairs.
Fourteen of them, armed and vested, lined up against the warehouse wall like soldiers waiting for a war.
They've seen me angry before, they've seen me kill, but the way they look at me now tells me they can see this is different.
This isn't business, this is the end of everything.
"Castellano's estate is having a gala, and it is still currently running.
Victor Castellano has a lot of security, he uses private military, twenty to thirty men, armed, positioned at every entrance.
If you are attacked, then I don't care about casualties or collateral damage.
My wife is in that building. She is hurt, and you're going to help me get her out. "
My men are surprised by the comment about my wife, no one knows that she exists. I needed the honeymoon to convince her to be my queen and rule by my side, but nobody asks questions.
"Mario Rayne and Storm Rayne are on the premises." I pause. "They don't leave alive."
Andreas distributes the layout. Someone obtained the architectural plans months ago when we first started mapping Castellano's operations. Service entrance on the east side, the main ballroom on the ground floor. The basement is accessed through a corridor behind the kitchen.
The basement.
That's where she is.
Fuck!
I need to get to her, stat. If they have fucking harmed her, I’m burning everything to the ground.
We move at eleven fourteen p.m. The service entrance gives us the first four guards without a sound.
Andreas’s team takes them down with suppressed shots, the bodies dragged behind a catering van before the blood has time to pool.
I step over them and keep moving. I have a carbon blade strapped to my thigh, the holster is warm against my ribs, and my hands are steady.
This is not a normal operation. I’ve never had so much on the line before.
The kitchen is packed when we breach it.
A dozen staff in white jackets, plating desserts, carrying trays, shouting orders over the hiss of gas burners.
They freeze when they see us, fourteen men in black with guns drawn will do that.
A woman near the sink drops a stack of plates, and the crash is deafening in the sudden silence.
"On the floor," Andreas orders. "Stay fucking quiet, don’t be a hero, then no one dies."
They drop fast, chefs, waiters, dishwashers, all of them on the tile with their hands over their heads.
One kid near the service door starts to bolt, and one of my men grabs him by the collar and shoves him down.
I step over a waiter curled on the tile and keep moving.
Through the double doors, I can hear the gala, the bass of the music, the crystal-clear sound of people laughing who have no idea what's coming.
I push through the doors into the main corridor.
The first guard sees me and reaches for his weapon, but I put two rounds in his chest before his hand touches the grip.
He hits the marble floor. The sound cracks through the hallway, and that's when everything changes.
The music doesn't stop, but the screaming starts.
Somewhere in the ballroom, glass shatters, and footsteps scatter in every direction.
I don't go to the ballroom, I let my men handle the upstairs.
I need to find the basement. The corridor behind the kitchen is narrow and dim, service lights only, and the walls are bare concrete painted gray.
Two guards are stationed at a metal door at the end.
They see me coming and raise their rifles.
I shoot the first one in the throat, and the second one dives behind a supply cart.
I close the distance in four strides and put the barrel against the top of his skull before he can aim.
"Where is she?"
He's young, maybe twenty-five. His eyes are wide and wet, and the front of his pants is dark where he's pissed himself.
"The woman, where is she?"
"Last door, end of the hall, then downstairs." His voice is cracked and high. "Please, I didn't touch her, I swear I didn't …"
I pull the trigger.
I take the stairs fast, the smell changing as I descend. Damp concrete, rust, maybe copper underneath that makes my stomach clench because I know what it is. I've smelled it a thousand times. I've caused it a thousand times.
But not to her, never to her.
The basement corridor has four doors. I kick the first three open.
An empty storage room, a utility closet with a mop and industrial cleaning supplies, and the third door is full of linens.
The last door is reinforced, a steel plate bolted to a wooden frame, a padlock the size of my fist hanging from a hasp.
I shoot the lock off after a couple of goes, the sound deafening in the concrete corridor. Then I slam my shoulder into the door once, twice, the frame cracks on the third hit, and I stumble through.
The room is cold and gray and lit by a single bulb hanging from a wire.
She's there.
Hanging from a hook by her wrists, a rope looped through cuffs that have rubbed the skin raw.
The white dress is torn at the shoulder and soaked dark from the chest down.
There are cuts across her collarbone, her arms, her ribs, shallow and precise like someone took their time.
Her bare feet don't touch the floor. Her head hangs forward and her hair is stuck to her face with dried blood.
My knees almost give out, my heart breaks, and I want to murder everyone.
What have they done to you?
For one second that lasts a lifetime, I think she's dead, and I'm too late. This is not where our story ends, with me standing in a concrete room staring at the body of the only person I've ever loved while the world keeps turning above us.
Then she lifts her head.
Her eyes are swollen and unfocused, but they find me. They find me, and my heart breaks open inside my chest. I will never be able to put it back together.
"Kairo …" My name on her lips is barely a whisper, but I hear the hope in the tone.
I cross the room, and the knife is already in my hand.
I reach up and cut the rope above the cuffs.
She falls forward, and I catch her. She collapses against me, and I go down to my knees with her, one arm around her back, the other cradling the back of her skull, pulling her into my chest. She's so light, as if she weighs nothing.
She's shaking so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
"I've got you." My voice cracks as I press my mouth against her hair, and I can smell blood and sweat underneath. "I've got you, baby. I'm here. No one is ever going to hurt you again. You’re safe.”
She sobs against my neck as her fingers find my shirt and grip it like she's drowning and I'm the only solid thing left. I can feel the blood from her cuts soaking through my shirt, warm and wet against my chest.
"They sold me," she whispers. "Again.”
"I know, baby." I hold her tighter. "I know everything."
"Castellano, he …” she says before passing out.
“Don’t worry about him, his time on this earth is over,” I say as I kiss her forehead, her temple, the bruise forming along her jaw. "Nobody is ever touching you again."
I strip off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders. I lift her, and she curls into me, her face pressing into my neck, one hand still fisted in my shirt. I carry her up the stairs, through the corridor, and I don't look at the bodies on the floor, they mean nothing to me.
Andreas meets me at the top of the stairs. His face goes white when he sees the blood on the dress, the cuts, the bruising.
"Doc’s on the plane," he says. "Ready when you are."
"Her father and brother?” I sneer.
"We've got them. Back office, second floor, two of our guys are on them."
"Take her." I try to hand Summer to Andreas, and her fingers tighten on my shirt so hard the fabric tears.
"No." Her voice is small and fierce. "Don't leave me."
"Baby, I need five minutes."
"Kairo, please." She's crying again, her whole body rigid with fear. "Please don't leave me."
My jaw clenches, and I look at Andreas. He reads my face and nods.
"Bring them to me," I say. "Down here, now."
They drag Mario Rayne into the corridor first. He looks smaller, gray-faced, sweating through his shirt, his eyes darting everywhere except at his daughter.
Storm comes next, limping, one of my men has already worked him over, and there's blood running from a split above his eye.
They dump them both on the floor ten feet from where I'm standing with Summer in my arms.
She sees them and goes still.
Mario looks up, and his mouth opens. "Summer, sweetheart, I can explain …"
"Shut up," I yell at him.
I lower Summer gently onto a chair by the wall. I pull the jacket tighter around her shoulders and crouch in front of her, so my eyes are level with hers.
"You don't have to watch this," I say quietly. "I can have Andreas take you to the plane."
She looks past me at her father and her brother on their knees, her swollen eyes are steady.
"I don’t care anymore."
I press my lips to her forehead, then I stand and turn to face the men who sold my wife. Mario is already talking, words tumbling over each other.
"Saint, listen to me. It wasn't my idea, it was Storm’s. He set the whole thing up. Castellano approached him months ago, I didn't know until …"
"Dad, shut the fuck up." Storm spits blood on the floor. "Don't beg. He's going to kill us anyway."
Smart boy.
I walk to Mario first, he's shaking so badly his teeth are rattling. I crouch in front of him, I’m going to look him in the eye when I sign his death warrant.