15. Tempest
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
tempest
The bikes have been quiet for less than a minute, that's it. Less than a fucking minute since the last engine cut, and I'm already done waiting. I stare at the farmhouse. She's in there. That's the only thing I give a fuck about.
Ghost steps in front of me before I can move. "Don't."
"Move," I grit out.
"No."
My jaw clenches. "She's in there."
"And Calloway wants you in there."
"I don't give a fuck what he wants."
"You should, because he's got Lilah."
That stops me in my tracks, and I look past him at the house. The curtains are closed, there’s no movement at the windows, and nothing at the front door. It's too fucking quiet.
The brothers have spread out around the property. Nobody needed telling twice. Savage and Hades headed around one side as soon as we pulled in, Venom and Renegade took the other, and Sniper disappeared around the back with Rogue a few seconds ago.
Lorenzo's men are staying farther out, watching the road and the fields around the house. If Calloway or Webb somehow gets past us, they're not getting much farther.
I take another step, but Ghost catches my arm. "Tempest."
My temper is flaring. "Get your fucking hand off me."
"Give them a minute."
The fuck? "She's already had two fucking hours."
His grip tightens. "And charging through that door without knowing what's waiting on the other side isn't getting her back any faster."
I look at him but he doesn't move. Fuck. I drag a hand over my face and turn away from the house before I do exactly what he's trying to stop me doing.
Lorenzo is standing beside his car with his phone in his hand.
He looks at me, but I look away. He knows.
Out of everyone here, he alone probably knows exactly how close I am to saying fuck it and going through that door.
After all, he’s been close to where I am right now; his wife almost died at the hands of her sister and her fuck buddy.
"How long?" I ask.
"Until we know where she is," Ghost says.
I clench my fists. "That's not an answer."
"It's the one I've got."
I start pacing, but all I keep thinking of is what they’re doing to her. Knowing what that cunt did to her years ago, I know he’s hurting her. "Fuck this."
I make it two steps before Rogue appears from around the side of the house. "Ground floor."
I stop. "What?"
"I got close enough to see through the side window." He's breathing harder than usual. "She's in the front room and tied to a fucking chair."
Everything inside me goes still. "Is she hurt?" Rogue hesitates, but that's enough for me to know. "Answer me.”
"I saw blood."
I'm moving before he finishes, but Ghost gets in front of me again. "Tempest."
"She's fucking bleeding."
He stays in front of me, blocking my path. "And she's alive."
"Move," I snarl. He's pissing me the fuck off, continuously blocking my path.
"Think."
"I am thinking."
"No, you're not. You're about two seconds from getting yourself shot and leaving her in there with him."
I shove a hand through my hair. Fuck. Fuck. I look at the house. "Who else?"
"Calloway and Webb," Rogue says. "Both in the room."
"Armed?"
"Couldn't see."
"Then we assume they are," Ghost says.
Of course they fucking are.
Savage comes back around the corner with Hades behind him. "Back door," Savage says. "Nothing stopping us getting through it."
Ghost nods. "Front and back."
Simple, there’s no fucking elaborate plan. Half of us go through the front and half through the back, we get Lilah, and deal with whoever gets in the way.
Ghost looks at me. "You stay with me."
"I'm going through that door."
"I fucking know you are. I'm telling you you're not doing it alone."
Then I hear her. "Kai!"
Everything inside me fucking stops at her voice carrying through the house.
I'm moving before I even start breathing again, but once again, Ghost catches the back of my cut and yanks me to a stop.
"Let me fucking go."
"Listen."
"Kai! Don’t come in!" I freeze. "Kai, it’s a trap!" Her voice cracks and something crashes inside the house.
“KAI!”
"Lilah!" I surge forward but Ghost holds on.
"Tempest!" he grunts, holding me still.
I try to shrug him off but it’s no use. "She's fucking screaming for me!"
"She's warning you!"
That gets through, and I stop fighting him. My chest is heaving as I stare at the front door. She's not screaming for help; she's telling me to stay out. After everything that fucker has done to her, she's in there worried about me. Of course she fucking is. My Lilah.
Another crash comes from inside.
That's it, I'm done. I look at Ghost, whatever he was going to say disappears as I pull out my gun. "Front or back?"
"Front."
I nod.
Ghost looks at Rogue, then Savage, and back to me. "Let's get your girl."
And we move.
The front door gives on the second hit and I'm through it before it finishes swinging, heading toward the room where I heard Lilah scream.
I find her in the main room, and everything inside me comes to a fucking stop. She's tied to a chair with her wrists pulled behind her and rope around her ankles. Evan Calloway is standing behind her with a gun beside her head, but for the first few seconds, all I can see is what he's done to her.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Her lip is split, one side of her face is swollen, and bruising is spreading beneath her eye and across her cheek. There's dried blood at her temple, more around her mouth, her hair is tangled around her face, and the skin above the ropes around her wrists is red and fucking raw.
I can't breathe properly. I've spent the last two hours telling myself she's alive, holding onto that because if I let myself think about anything else, I wouldn't have been able to function.
I just had to find her alive, get to her, and bring her home, but I never let myself focus on what Evan might be doing to her while I was trying to find her.
Now I don't have a choice, because every fucking mark is right there in front of me.
I left her this morning smiling across the table at me, kissed her before I walked out of the apartment, and told her I'd be gone an hour, and now she's tied to a fucking chair, battered and bleeding, because that bastard got to her while I wasn't there.
My eyes burn and I blink hard, forcing everything back because I can't lose it, not while she's still sitting there with a gun beside her head.
Lilah looks at me. "I'm okay."
Fuck me. Of course that's what she says. She's been kidnapped, tied up, and beaten, and somehow, she's sitting there trying to reassure me.
"Baby," I manage, swallowing around the fucking lump in my throat. "You're really fucking not."
The corner of her split lip lifts slightly, and it nearly breaks whatever control I've managed to hold onto, because she's still in there, my Lilah, looking at me like she's trying to convince both of us that everything is going to be okay now that I'm here.
"There he is," Evan says from behind her.
I don't look at him, because I don't trust myself to do it, not yet, not when every part of me is screaming to put him on the floor and keep going until he never fucking touches her again.
"Keep your men back," he says. "Anyone moves and this gets a lot shorter."
Ghost stops somewhere to my left and Rogue is behind us. I know the brothers are there, but they barely register because Lilah has all of my attention: the blood on her face, the ropes around her wrists and the fucking gun beside her head.
"You know what she did to me?" Evan asks.
"Don't care."
"She destroyed—"
"Don't fucking care."
His story means nothing to me; whatever excuse he's been feeding himself for the last three years means even less, and I refuse to give him the attention he clearly fucking wants.
I keep my eyes on Lilah instead. "You and me, sweetheart, keep looking at me."
"I'm looking." Her voice is steady, but I see her chin tremble before she catches it.
Fuck.
I want to cross the room, rip those ropes off her, and pull her against me. I need to feel her breathing, need to put my hands on her and know she's really here, then I can find out where she's hurt and how badly, but I can't do any of that while Evan has that fucking gun.
"Tell me what you need," I say.
She blinks at me. "What?"
"Right now, what do you need me to do?"
Something shifts in her face and for half a second, she looks like she might cry. "My hands," she says quietly. "I need my hands free."
"I'll get them free."
"Kai—"
"I'm getting you out of that chair, baby."
Her eyes fill and mine fucking burn again, but I hold it together because she needs me to. She can have every other part of me when she's safe; she can have Kai when I've got her in my arms, but right now she needs Tempest to get her the fuck out of this house.
I take a step forward, and Evan moves the gun closer to her head. "That's far enough."
Every muscle in my body locks, but Lilah's breathing changes, and I force myself to concentrate on her instead of imagining what I'm going to do to him.
"Look at me." Her eyes find mine again. "Not him, baby, just me." She takes a breath, shaky at first, then another. "That's it."
Movement near the wall catches my attention and I recognize Marcus Webb immediately from the footage Rogue found earlier.
He looks nothing like I expected him to.
There's no confidence, no satisfaction at seeing us walk into the trap he helped build.
He's pale and tense, and he keeps looking between Lilah and his brother like something has already happened between them that I don't understand.
Lilah follows my gaze. "Marcus." His eyes move to hers. "Ask him."
Evan's voice sharpens immediately. "Lilah."
"Ask Evan about Lucy."
Marcus looks at his brother.
"Shut your mouth," Evan says.
"Ask your brother if she was tied to a chair when she died."
I stare at Marcus in a new light, and he goes completely still.
"Ask him what he did to us for two days before that," Lilah continues, and although her voice shakes, she doesn't stop. "Ask him how my sister died."
"I said shut your—"
"Was she tied up?" Marcus' voice cuts straight across Evan's.