Chapter 12
Wren
Three Weeks Later
I tap my fingers on the windowsill, staring blankly out of the window as the bus ambles along Arcadia’s streets. “Come on, come on,” I murmur as panic mounts inside me. Something’s wrong. Very wrong.
Sinister went out the night before last to do one of his walks through downtown.
He likes to keep his eye on “his city,” as he calls it.
But he didn’t come home. At first, I thought little of it.
After all, he has things to do and Aidan’s business to help run.
But as the hours ticked by with no word, I began to worry.
Maybe I’m paranoid. Perhaps Aidan’s taken a turn for the worse, or Sin got caught up with work. But if there’s one thing he takes seriously, it’s his word. He kissed me goodbye and told me he’d be back that night.
Only he never showed. And his cell phone goes to voicemail every time I call it.
A lump forms in my throat at the thought of something happening to him. My hands tremble, and I clasp them together, my knuckles turning white. I can’t think like that. He’s fine. Maybe Aidan needed him to torture someone, and he’s lost track of time.
Please let that be it.
I press the bell and jump out of the seat, working my way to the front.
My foot taps impatiently as the driver slows to a stop.
I barely wait for the doors to swoosh open before catapulting myself out of them and onto the busy sidewalk.
Aidan’s compound lies three blocks to the west, and my feet automatically turn that way, breaking into a run and shouting at people to get out of the way.
The ten-foot iron gates loom before me, and I stop at the booth to tell the guard my name. Only, there is no guard. My chest heaves as I suck in air, fighting the swelling panic. Sinister told me a guard is always on duty, so where is he?
The metal handrail creaks as I pull myself up the steep stairs and peer through the window. The blood-splattered window. Jesus fucking Christ. A man lies on the floor of the small booth, his chest riddled with bullets.
My mouth dries as I clamber down the stairs and walk over to the gates.
Whoever killed the guard didn’t close them all the way.
I push against one, straining to force it to open just enough for me to slip through.
Ahead of me is a quarter-of-a-mile winding driveway, surrounded by green lawns and lined with trees.
The compound rises three stories at the end of it, with two lookout towers at each side.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Every part of me wants to run forward and burst inside. I know Sinister’s in there. I just do. But there’s only one of me, and besides the couple of knives I’ve tucked into my pockets, I’m not armed.
And I can’t walk into a gunfight with a knife .
Indecision locks me in place. What the fuck do I do? Breathe, Wren.
I slip back out of the gate and lean against the wall surrounding the compound. There’s no way I can do this alone. There’s no telling how many people are inside, if any. If anyone is alive. If Sin…No. Just no.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and click on the bloody kiss. “Pick up. Please, pick up.” The screen clears, and I almost cry with relief. “Hello?”
One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three.
“Dolly? What’s wrong?” Cruz, Dutch’s husband, asks. He moves into the frame and sits down. I can’t help it. Tears mist my eyes before sliding down my cheeks. Asking for help isn’t something I’m comfortable with, but I need it now, and I can’t let past traumas prevent me from doing what I need to.
“Cruz, I need help. Please. Something’s happened to Sinister.” I explain about the dead guard and my intuition telling me he’s in trouble. “I don’t have adequate weapons, and I need back-up. Are you guys still in Australia?”
Cruz nods. “Yeah, we’ll be here for some time yet.” His brows furrow, and he turns his head to the left. “Trey, do you know where The Duke is?” he calls out. “Just a minute, Dolly.” He gets up and moves off screen.
My back slides down the wall, and I land in the soft grass.
Minutes tick by, and with each one, my anxiety ramps up further.
I pound my fist on my thigh and blow out breaths, willing myself to calm down.
Sinister needs me to be functional, not a blubbering mess.
If he saw me right now, he’d be disappointed in me.
That thought makes me sit up straighter and dash away the tears. I survived my parents’ deaths. The loss of my home. The supposed death of my brother. I lived through countless assaults, torture, and starvation .
I can get through this.
Cruz comes back onto the screen and gives me a smile. “You’re in luck. The Duke is about an hour away with her team. Trey pinged your location and sent it to her. Don’t worry, help is on the way. Sit tight, okay? The girls send their love.”
“Thank you,” I say. “If we can ever return the favor?—”
“We’ll let you know. Good luck, Dolly.” The screen goes blank, and I tuck the phone back in my pocket. All I can do now is wait.
I hear them before I see them. A dark-gray helicopter appears in the distance, and I head back through the gates and stand on the grass, covering my eyes with my hand as it comes closer. The force of the wind makes me brace, the vibrations running through me and making me tremble.
It lands about two hundred feet from me, and once the blades stop whirring, a woman jumps out of the front and strides toward me. She has long blonde hair and wears all-black military-style clothing. A coiled whip wraps around her shoulder, and she walks like a fucking boss.
I nearly snap to attention and salute her. Thank God I stop myself at the last second.
Six men tumble out of the back of the helicopter and join us. They, too, are dressed all in black, and I’m relieved to see them packing guns, knives, and what looks like gas canisters.
“Dolly? I’m The Duke. I hear you’re in need of help. Can you tell me the situation?”
“I don’t know. My…boyfriend, Sinister, has been missing for almost two days.
His phone goes straight to voicemail, and when I arrived here, I found the guard dead at his post.” I point toward the gate.
“Oh, and the gate was left open. I can’t say for sure he’s inside, or if he is, who else is in there.
I-I don’t even know if he’s alive,” I finish with a whisper.
“How was the guard killed?”
“Gun.”
“Do you know how many people are normally inside?” I shake my head. It wasn’t something we had discussed, and I hadn’t been inside the compound often enough to notice.
The Duke taps her hand against her thigh and blows out a breath.
“Okay, I want two of you around the back, one at each side, and two at the front. Mask up, vest up. There are possible civilians inside, so we’ll use the gas and rubber bullets.
Dolly, you’ll be with me.” She leads us back to the helicopter, where I’m fitted with a bulletproof vest, thigh pads, and a gas mask.
“Do you know how to use a gun?” The Duke asks.
“No, I’m more of a knife kind of girl.”
“Ah, you’re like Tessa and Rebecca, then. Here.” She hands me two military knives and helps me strap them to my vest. “All right, boys, there’s nothing stealthy about this. No one inside that building missed the sound of the copter touching down. Let’s do this.”
As one, we race across the lawn. Prickles of sweat dot my brow, and I can’t help but feel a surge of hope. If Sinister’s alive, we’re going to get him out.
When we near the compound, our group splits up according to The Duke’s instructions. We pull our masks on and run up the stairs, exchanging looks at the wide-open doors. One man stops at the threshold and throws a canister in. It slides across the floor, emitting a cloud of gas.
We step inside, but the foyer is suspiciously quiet. No one is at the reception desk, but the walls are covered in dried-blood splatter. Fuck. What the hell happened here? The Duke points two fingers, and the two men with us split off, one going right, one left.
“Where are Sinister’s rooms?” she asks, her voice muffled by her mask. I gesture toward the stairs, and The Duke pushes me behind her and heads up first, gun trained and sweeping back and forth. Once we hit the landing, I’m again astonished at the silence. At least there’s no blood up here.
We take our masks off and attach them to our vests. The Duke pulls to a stop and presses a finger to her ear. “Got it,” she replies. “Dolly, they found people locked in the basement. Eight dead, seventeen alive. Sinister wasn’t among them.”
I give a jerky nod and fist my trembling hands. Stay calm. Breathe.
The Duke sweeps each room we pass but appears to let her guard down when they continue to turn up empty. I pull to a stop outside Aidan’s room, a slither of premonition locking my muscles. My head shakes back and forth, then I squeeze my eyes closed and push the door open.
My knees give out, and I fall to the floor, gasping for air. The nurse lies sprawled on the floor with a bullet in her head. And Aidan…fuck. His sightless eyes stare at the ceiling, while the jagged slash in his neck mocks me with a crimson grin.
The Duke grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet. I stumble into the room, coming to a stop by his bed. I take his icy hand in mine and whisper, “Go in peace, Aidan. Thank you for keeping him safe for me.”
Shock and sorrow morph into anger, and my chest burns with the need for blood. Whoever did this is a dead man. And if they hurt Sinister, I’m going to make it as painful as possible.
I storm out of the room and head toward Sinister’s apartment, pulling out the knives as I go. The Duke follows me silently, keeping her own counsel. Calm down. Don’t lose it. Stay alert. Fuck that.
I hurl myself at his door and tumble through it like the Tasmanian Devil on steroids.
The living room is empty, so I carry on toward the bedroom.
The moment I enter the hallway, I see him through the open door.
Someone strapped him to his bed, gagged him, and he sports shallow-looking slashes all over his bare chest.
The Duke tries to grab my arm, but I shake her off and race toward the room. Sinister’s eyes widen, and he screams into the gag, shaking his head. He struggles against the bonds, the muscles in his arms standing in relief. It’s enough to warn me when a shadow appears from behind the door.
Richard steps out from behind it with his gun raised and pointed at my head.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the little bird, alive and well.
I have to say, I was surprised to discover you were still alive.
” I freeze in place as childhood memories slam into me with the force of a tidal wave.
My teeth clench as I force them back into their box. I don’t have the luxury of spiraling.
“That both of you are still alive,” he goes on. “So imagine my surprise when I got word of Jack’s and Evan’s deaths, followed by Chris’s, Leo’s, and Thom’s disappearance. You two have been busy, haven’t you?”
“We have,” I agree. A smile lifts the corners of my mouth. “All to draw you out, of course. Thank you for making it easy for us.”
Richard’s features twist with unease, and I take that moment to drop to the ground.
The Duke steps forward and shoots him in the leg but not with one of her rubber bullets.
His knee explodes in a shower of blood, and he drops his gun when he crashes to the floor with an ear- piercing scream.
The Duke steps over me and kicks the gun away before heading toward Sinister.
“You can take the trash out,” she says, tossing me a grin.
I crawl to my knees and straddle Richard’s waist, placing one knife to his throat. “Who do you work for?”
He sneers at me, even as he writhes in pain. “Go fuck yourself, you little cunt.” My arm whips out, and I stab it through his hand, pinning him to the wooden floor. His back arches beneath me, trying to buck me off him as he lets out a pained shout.
“Who do you work for?” I scream back at him, pressing the other knife tighter against his throat. A slick line of blood appears, and Richard’s eyes bulge.
“Governor White,” he grits out, baring his teeth at me.
“He’ll roast you both alive. He’s better guarded than Fort Knox—you don’t stand a chance against him.
” The last of his words come out gargled as I plunge the knife into his chest. Years of suffering and hatred pour out of me as my arm swings down over and over again.
Hot metallic blood splatters my face and obscures my vision, while tears stream down my cheeks and pool on his chest.
Time ceases to exist as I exorcise my demons on the man responsible for it all. His heart stops beating long before I’m satisfied, and I only stop when Sinister pulls me off him and wraps his arms around me.
I sob into his shoulder, hot desperate tears of relief. He’s okay. He’s alive. The pain in my chest eases as he whispers in my ear. “It’s okay. Shh, Wren. Sinister is here, and no one will hurt you again. You’re safe.”