52. Ashes
ASHES
T his was fucked.
I didn’t like hurting innocent people. It went against everything I was as a person. I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved because someone was a fuck-up or just plain wicked. I had the scars on my wrists to prove it.
So as I stood with my lighter in my hand, my white mask in place, dressed in all black, I breathed out and said a soft prayer that the innocent wouldn’t be harmed. Church knew everything there was to know about the horsemen. We knew the kings may be in attendance, which made me feel a little better about setting the fire since I wasn’t a Dominic fan. It was childhood bullshit, but I tended to hold a grudge. Of course, now it didn’t matter because I had Sirena.
“You OK?” Sin murmured from beside me, his mask in place.
I glanced at him. All in black. Hood up, just like the rest of us.
“I can’t wait for this to be over so we can get back to Sirena,” I admitted.
“You’re not alone,” he muttered. “Fucking Everett. Piece of shit human.”
I nodded. He wasn’t wrong.
“Ready?” Church came forward, and I nodded. Stitches and Asylum approached. I didn’t need to know they both looked grim beneath their masks. We’d been watching the guests arrive for hours. Lorenzo De Luca was armed to the teeth. The entire place was one giant arsenal with how many armed men he had.
Too bad for Lorenzo De Luca that he didn’t know the city like we did. We’d grown up in the Underground, and it didn’t get that name for no reason. There were tunnels beneath the city that came up in various places.
And unfortunately for Lorenzo, one just happened to come up in the basement of the venue he’d booked for his engagement party.
Church opened the door to the tunnel from the empty building he owned. We could have gone in straight from the Underground, but Church said the less time he spent with his father, the better.
We stepped into the dimly lit hallway where countless people made their final walk, all thanks to Everett’s secret network, and someday, Church’s.
The door closed behind us.
“Creepy,” Sin muttered as the lights buzzed and flickered overhead.
“If you listen closely, you can hear screams sometimes,” Asylum murmured, completely serious. “Usually I’m the one making them scream, so we should be OK.”
“Fucking morbid, man,” Stitches said.
“Focus,” Church snapped. “You know the target. We grab him in the fray. We get home. Got it?”
We murmured our agreement and continued the short walk to the venue.
“Ashes, go,” Church murmured.
I said nothing and walked past him, deeper into the tunnels. I knew where the ventilation system was. I opened one of the grates deeper down the tunnel and crawled inside, really fucking hoping there weren’t going to be spiders. I hated spiders.
I traversed the tunnels until I got where I needed to be, pulled the pin on my grenade, and dropped it down one of the shafts before moving onward to start the fire. The chemicals in the grenade were non-traceable and would work fast and dissipate before we made our entrance. But just in case, Asylum made sure our masks could filter out anything that might confuse us.
I breathed out as I pulled more stuff from my bag and set to work with the smoke and flame. I had to do this right or I’d be fucked trying to get back to the guys.
Within minutes, my fire was started. There was a pretty big chance I’d burn the venue to the ground if the fire department didn’t make it fast enough. It was a slow fire, but once it took off, it would go like old paper.
I was OK with that.
I liked when things collapsed into ash and soot.
I just didn’t want innocent people to die. It was a moral dilemma I fought constantly. Once my smoke was rolling, I crawled quickly back to the entrance and jumped out. Stitches was waiting for me.
“All good?” he asked tightly.
“Yeah.” I looked at my watch. “We should go. It’ll fill with smoke quickly. The air was turning on when I dropped the third fire.”
“Is that gas you put in good enough for us to get through?”
“Should be.”
“ Should be ,” Stitches mumbled. “Great.”
I clapped him on the shoulder, and we rejoined the guys. I gave Church a nod, and he pushed open the door leading into the small entry to the venue. We climbed the ladder behind him and came up in a storage room.
“Ready?” Church asked from behind his mask.
“Yes,” I answered tightly with the guys.
“We don’t die. Got it?” Church continued. “In and out. You know what this guy looks like. Got your drug?”
I tapped my pocket with my black leather-gloved hand where I had the syringe.
“Let’s fucking go,” Church said.
We swept from the storage room and into the madness of the venue. Gunfire sounded out around us.
“What the fuck?” Church snarled, pulling a gun from his black jacket.
“Looks like we aren’t the only ones crashing the party,” Sin said tightly, pulling his gun out.
“Fucking hell,” Stitches muttered.
“Go,” Church shouted. “You know the plan.”
And with those words, he swept into the haze of smoke.
I clocked a guy who rushed at me, screaming. Someone shot at me, so I shot back, nailing the idiot in the chest and killing him. We’d split up, so I couldn’t see where the guys went. I killed three more guys with guns before I caught sight of my target.
Ethan Masters.
He was kneeling next to a woman who was dead, Lorenzo De Luca next to him.
Ethan wasn’t in his right mind. His eyes were wild, and he was shaking. Lorenzo shook him violently.
Poor fucker.
I raised my gun, really not wanting to kill Lorenzo, but I needed to get Ethan. Sirena was practically nuts at this point with worry. I couldn’t let my heaven suffer. In our world, ugly things had to happen, and people had to die.
I aimed and pulled the trigger, but a screaming guest ran into me, trying to get out of the building, knocking me sideways. Enzo was struck, and he fell backward, but it wasn’t the head shot I’d been going for. If I had to guess, I’d hit his shoulder or arm.
Ethan was wild. The man was inconsolable as he tried to drag Lorenzo away from the gunfire.
I watched Lorenzo cradle Ethan’s face and say something to him. Ethan nodded as Lorenzo righted himself, gun in hand.
Lorenzo was on his feet, not seeing me, and rushed into the fray, leaving Ethan behind.
“Go,” Asylum said.
I nodded and surged forward with him.
Ethan’s face was fucked. He’d clearly been fighting before he’d lost it. His lip was split, and he appeared to have checked out.
He didn’t even raise the gun in his hand as Asylum moved in and stabbed him in the neck with the needle.
“Easy. Easy,” Asylum murmured to him. “Don’t fight it. Don’t fight. There you go.” Ethan jerked and twitched for a moment, a tear slipping from his eye.
“Rosalie,” he choked out before going silent.
My heart hurt for the guy. It hurt for Rosalie, a woman I didn’t know, because I knew she’d suffer his loss.
“Come on,” Asylum said grimly.
Stitches joined us and helped us rush Ethan from the noise and gunfire to the storage room. I shot a few more people along the way, but we got Ethan into the tunnel where Church and Sin met us a moment later, looking disheveled.
“Good. Let’s go,” Church said, looking down at a passed-out Ethan.
We put him on the cart Church had grabbed. There were various strewn throughout the Underground for purposes just like this.
We carted him wordlessly for several city blocks before we reached our destination.
“I shot Lorenzo,” I finally said. “I was trying to get to Ethan.”
“Kill him?” Church asked.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. He may be dead now, though.”
Church nodded tightly as we walked the ramp to the entrance.
“You guys can return to Sirena and Shadow. I will take it from here,” Church said grimly. “Asylum, go to Shadow and Sirena. Make sure they’re OK. You can’t be seen working with us.”
Asylum nodded without a word and left.
“I’ll stay. We’re a team,” I said.
“Ghosts of the Underground,” Stitches added. “Or monsters, depending on how you want to spin it. We’re with you until the bitter end, man.”
Church nodded and pushed open the door to the city his father had created.
We hauled Ethan inside and down more hallways until we met Everett.
“Good. You have him. Bring him to room three ten.” Everett seemed frantic but excited. Almost manic. I glanced uneasily at Stitches, who glared at Everett’s back as we followed him.
When we got to room three ten, screams in the distance that made my skin crawl, we went into the dingy room to find another man bound on the floor, a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
I frowned.
I’d seen him before.
“Why the fuck do you have him?” Church demanded, spinning on his father. “That’s Fox Evans. You wanted Ethan Masters. How the fuck did you get him here?”
“Well, that’s an interesting question. We’ll talk in a moment. Leave Ethan here with him. We can go to my office,” Everett said.
Church scowled but nodded for us to leave Ethan. We unloaded him from the cart and followed Church and Everett to his office at the ground level.
“Why do you have Fox Evans?” Church demanded again once we were inside.
“Take off the mask,” Everett said, going to his bar.
Church shoved his mask back and glared at his father. “Answer me. How did you even get him?”
“I wanted to have a little leverage. No one likes to be lonely, and I’m fairly certain Ethan Masters needed a friend.”
“It was bad enough taking Ethan, now you’ve taken Fox. Do you have any idea what will happen? Fox isn’t just some-some regular guy. He’s popular. Football. Another horsemen. They’re going to fucking know he’s missing and attention will be drawn to us. A goddamn Heisman winner can’t just up and go missing. The entire empire you brag about will come under fire?—”
“It won’t. It’s why I brought in the Russians to help.”
I glanced at Stitches, who fidgeted.
Everett noticed him. “Malachi, my son. How are you? You look… perfect.”
Stitches shifted and put his head down. Sin and I crowded around Stitches as a means to hide him from the monster in front of us.
Everett chuckled and went back to talking to Church.
I watched as Everett settled behind his massive desk.
“What Russians? I thought we cut off ties to family?—”
“New family.” Everett hit a button on his desk, and a door opened. A pretty girl walked in wearing a short red dress and high heels, her auburn hair tumbling down her back. She went straight to Everett, slid onto his lap, and kissed up his jaw.
“Who the fuck is that?” Church asked, sneering at the sight.
“This.” Everett kissed her deeply before looking back at Church. “Is your new sister. Or wife, depending on what you want. Celeste.”
“I want her dead. Can she be my corpse?”
“Why? You want to fuck her?” Everett smirked at him. “She obeys quite nicely. Greet your new brother.” He pushed the girl off his lap.
She slinked over to Church and ran her manicured fingers down his chest.
In the flash of an eye, Church had her back to him and his knife at her throat. Her eyes flew open wide, and she gasped.
“I’ve killed bitches for less,” he snarled in her ear. “Never fucking touch me.”
Everett chuckled.
“Don’t kill her. She’s doing God’s work for me,” Everett said.
“We got you Ethan. We want Cady. Cut the shit and give me the exchange.”
“Easy,” Everett said, not looking the least bit ruffled. “Let go of Celeste and we’ll talk. OK?”
I knew this wasn’t going to go anywhere good. The look in Everett’s eye convinced me, but I also knew him. There was a catch. Always a fucking catch.
And we were about to play hardball.