Chapter 29 Andre
TWENTY-NINE
Andre
I’m still mostly calm and mostly following Noah’s orders as we work our way through the house.
He knows what he’s doing. He’s clear and direct, and he kills a lot of men.
There’s a small part of my brain that’s recognizing in his actions how he managed to orchestrate such a sophisticated and brutal attack on the Island.
Noah and I sweep into an office where it looks like there’s been a fight—toppled chair, blood on the floor, plus a bloodied letter opener. Some windows are broken and casings litter the floor, but the room is empty.
We move along the hallway back to the lodge’s central room where we entered through the now-shattered floor-to-ceiling windows.
The room is high-ceilinged and spacious with a huge fireplace and mounted hunting trophies.
Movement in a doorway has my gun swinging that way, but it’s Dante. He and Wes enter the room.
Frustration twists viciously inside me. Where the hell is Elias?
Abruptly, I’m done with this methodical work. My brain simply stops engaging with it. It’s a switch being flipped, but it’s not exactly what I expected. I thought I would be angry. I am angry, but the anger is still deep. There’s no frenzy, not yet. But the logical part of me is just gone.
I turn away from the others and walk off. Noah calls after me, but it registers only dimly. I prowl through the house. I’m alert but not methodical, not like I was with Noah.
I’m prowling. Hunting. I’m imagining Elias as my prey. What he would do. Where he would go.
Out. He would go out.
There’s a muffled part of my brain that says he might not have been able to, that he might be bound in some as-yet undiscovered room, but I can’t seem to listen to that. And I don’t have to. The others will. Noah will.
I’m drawn back to the office with bloody letter opener.
Everyone else had guns. Everyone else had knives.
Only a small, hunted, cornered thing would grab for such an improvised weapon.
And it was clearly used, given the blood.
But there isn’t enough blood for anyone to be dead. I track back to the doorway.
In the hallway, I consider my prey’s open paths. He wouldn’t have gone into the big room. There was too much happening in there. Nothing about it would have seemed safe. He would have run away. So I move in the other direction, imagining his flight and what would appeal to him.
I find a billiards room. It’s quiet and empty—and has an open door. Not broken. Open.
I stalk through the room and out onto a dark patio. I’m on the side of the lodge. Around the corner, the car we blew up as a distraction for our entry is still burning.
Away, he would have gone.
As I prowl across the patio, my nape prickles. I turn partway back, ready to fight. When my hands curl into fists, I realize that I’ve holstered my gun. I don’t remember doing it, but I’m past that kind of fighting anyway.
But Wes only watches me. Even with his face covered, I know it’s him. I know his body language. His finger goes to his ear, and he speaks into a comm device. “Relax the perimeter to the north. One of ours is coming through. Don’t shoot him.”
I turn my back to Wes and resume my hunt. I stalk across the lawn into the woods. The faint, flickering light dies out behind me. Everything gets dark, except where the moonlight trickles down.
I can’t move silently with my boots crunching through the deadfall, but it doesn’t matter. My prey wants to be caught.
At least, he wants to be caught by me. I stop and take off my hat, stuffing it in a pocket. I pull down my gaiter to expose my face. I wait.
Elias is quieter than I am. He creeps out of the shadows and into a pool of moonlight twenty feet ahead of me.
He doesn’t call out or approach. He watches me.
I’m not at all in a headspace where I can make myself say, Come here. It’s okay—because it’s not fucking okay.
I don’t even have the words to tell him that he was bad, that I’m angry. I’ve left all of that behind.
And so has he. I can see it in his body language, the wild, primitive grace of him.
I can’t help it. I growl. He, of course, bolts—and I chase him.
We race through the woods. This is no manicured park but a rough woodland left wild for hunting. Elias leaps a fallen log. He’s fast and agile, beautiful in his flight.
But he doesn’t get far. I chase him down into a creek bed. We splash through the water and race up the other bank. Though he’s fast, I’m more powerful, and I launch myself up the bank as he scrambles. I tackle him at the top, and we go rolling through the underbrush.
He thrashes under me, but there’s no hope for him. I grab the back of his neck and hold his face to the ground. I hook my other arm around his hips and haul his ass up against the hard ridge of my cock. I bite his shoulder.
He quiets under me, though he’s breathing hard. His stiff cock is pressing against my forearm. His hands are fisted on the ground.
Anger is rolling harshly through me. I want to smash his face down harder. I want to tear his pants down and fuck him until he understands how angry I am, how bad he was, how fully he belongs to me.
But I’m too angry. I’m dangerous. I would hurt him.
Gunfire erupts in the distance, back the way we came, and I remember where we are. I remember that this isn’t just about me and Elias.
So I shove my anger back down. It’s not gone, but it’s buried. For now.
I get up, hauling Elias up with me. He doesn’t resist as I turn him and start to lift him. He wraps his arms around me, his legs too. And I start walking.
Elias clings to me like I’m not going to punish him. Or maybe he knows that I am. I bite his neck hard enough that he whines. He tucks his face against me because he knows that even though he’s in trouble, he’s safe.
The gunfire has quit and the brightness ahead tells me that the lodge is burning. The fire lights up the clearing, flaring bright over a single dark form.
Wes’s eyes flick up to me above his face covering, but they drop again to the screen of his drone’s controller. The rocket launcher is at his feet.
His finger goes to his ear, and he says, “They’re here.” To me, he says, “The others are at the vans. They have Piero. We’ve got about twelve minutes before the fire department arrives.”
I hear him, but I don’t react. I’m in the part of myself that can’t.
Wes doesn’t seem worried about it. I once thought he didn’t understand me, but he does.
“Get moving,” he says. “I’ll catch up.”
As I turn to leave, Wes stows the drone’s controller and shoulders the rocket launcher.
I head through the woods. I’m almost to the road when there’s an explosion. I look back. Through the trees, I see the burst of flames.
By the time I get to the vans, Wes catches up.
Rafael is pacing behind Rocco’s van. He’s agitated, playing with a knife. His cock is hard. Dominic is leaning against the side of the van, watching him.
“Fucking finally,” Rafael mutters as he gets in the back of Rocco’s van. So does Dominic, then the rest of his waiting crew.
Seeing me watching, Noah, who’s waiting at the back of Wes’s van, explains, “They have Piero. They’re going a different way.”
To kill Piero, Noah means. And they’re going to take their time about it.
Good.
They leave as Wes loads his equipment, then the rest of us get in his van. He starts it up, and we get moving.
I’m still holding Elias, who’s huddled silently against me. No one says anything about it. No one stares at me.
It’s really fucking freeing, I realize, to be understood, to not have to hide the way I need to be.