Chapter Thirty-Six
B reaching the place took some planning and they gathered several blocks from the place.
The Erebus assassins on site were Stone, Steel, Savage, Thane, Rogue, Wrath, Echo, and Ice. Plus two new people he didn’t know, but Savage introduced them as Bones and Falcon.
When Real showed up, everyone was careful to keep Azrael’s involvement quiet. That had been Stone’s call and he told them all that he would handle the repercussions.
Real brought with him Memphis, plus two men the man introduced as Gray and Dallas.
Steel gave Justice a salute and walked over to his team. Since Crow was entering the house with Fisher and Azrael, another man Justice didn’t know was handing out orders. He’d heard that Viper had returned to Washington on business.
Calling for Axel, Justice headed toward the group crowded around Savage along with the rest of Erebus. The dog sat at his feet, alert, eyes locked on him.
As expected, they were given minimal instructions—Savage wasn’t one for long drawn-out plans.
“Our job is clearing the inside of the building once Genesis clears the outside. You’re assassins. When we get the word, do what you do,” their boss said and Justice was fine with that.
He was going to get a bird’s eye seat though. Along with the rest of the assassins, they followed Genesis and watched as Real’s team used high-powered rifles to take the outside guards out.
Their only warning was the red dot on the chest or head. Along with Crow’s team and Genesis, they took out numerous guards as if it were child’s play.
He couldn’t help but worry about Fisher and how the man was handling being so close to his perpetrator. On one hand, it had to be terrifying and on the other, it had to be empowering knowing that Tanis would soon draw his last breath.
It didn’t help him, he felt powerless waiting and he hated it.
The only thing he could do was to be ready when Crow pushed the alert button hidden in his belt.
Real signaled the all clear and Justice ordered Axel toward the wall. The dog took a running leap and climbed right up the wall until he was at the top. Along with Erebus, Justice scaled over the wall and dropped to the ground below with his dog glued to his side.
Moving toward the house, they disappeared like mist.
When Fisher walked into the interior of the estate, it was nice , he thought. Well, as nice as a person could call the home of a diabolical madman.
Before he was ready, he was brought into a large study and there was Tanis.
Faced with the monster of his past, his first thought was that the man had not aged well. Lines creased his face and his pallor was sickly as if he didn’t get enough sun.
Beyond that, he felt nothing. No rage and certainly not the fear he’d had as a boy. Perhaps the rage would come , he thought, but for now, he studied Tanis much like he’d study a bug he hated.
“Fisher…” The man’s voice hadn’t changed one bit from the smarmy sing-song tone he’d used on him as a boy—as if that made it okay with what the man had done.
“What do you want?” His tone was deliberately belligerent and Crow shoved him forward.
“You,” Tanis said, moving toward him and when the man reached him, he lifted his hands as if to cup his face.
The look in his eyes stopped the man cold and his hands dropped before they could touch him.
“I want you back,” the man said.
“No.” He knew if he gave in too easily, Tanis would become suspicious.
“No?” One eyebrow quirked and amusement filled the man’s eyes.
“That’s what I said.”
“Perhaps I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
Now, those words rang a bell and that meant the cage. He tried not to tense, but this time, he didn’t manage it and Tanis smiled, sensing his fear.
Crow pushed Azrael forward and since Tanis’ attention had been solely on him, it took the man by surprise.
One look was all it took. Those black-brown eyes fixed on Azrael and widened at the beauty of the boy.
“Oh my…where did you come from?” Tanis cooed, stepping toward Azrael.
“They were together, so I had to bring both,” Crow said, looking bored.
Tanis fingered Azrael’s shoulder-length, silky black hair and then shot a glance to Fisher’s waist-length mass of darkness and glee filled the fucker’s eyes. He knew that look, Tanis was dreaming of them both at the same time, but that was never going to happen.
Azrael jerked away from Tanis’ hand like a wild thing.
“You did good, Crow,” Tanis said, and then turned back to Fisher. “Now, let’s get you both settled.”
Garrett moved from in front of the closed door and Crow, along with Tanis, took him and Azrael from the room. Garrett closed the study door and followed behind them with an automatic weapon in his grip.
“I can’t be here,” Azrael said in a high-pitched voice.
Garrett shoved the teenager forward down the passage.
They headed down a long hallway to the back of the house, through a locked door, and then down two flights of stairs. This basement was deeper than the one he’d been in previously.
“I know what you’ve been doing all these years,” Tanis said as they walked.
“What’s that,” he murmured.
“Killing for a living.”
Wrong, he wanted to say, but he tipped his head as if in agreement.
The hallway wrapped around beneath the house until they were back under the study, he guessed.
The sick fuck would get off on having his victims beneath his feet all day.
They reached the end and it was there he faced an iron door that reminded him of a bank vault.
“I don’t want to put you in there, Fisher,” Tanis sighed.
“Then don’t.”
When the man’s eyes searched his, Fisher kept his gaze neutral, his face blank. The last thing he needed was for Tanis to see his hate.
He needed that door opened; he had a barbecue to get to after this mission was completed.
“What do you really want, Tanis?”
The man’s eyes lit up with pleasure when he used his name, which he’d never done before.
“I want you to be my partner.” Tanis reached out and fingered a long strand of his dark hair.
“And get out of my shitty apartment, live here, and help you do what?”
“I’m edging into Solomon’s old business,” Tanis said.
“That’s my line of work,” he frowned for show.
“Exactly.”
He studied Tanis for a long moment and then nodded a bit reluctantly. “I can give it a try as long as you don’t boss me around,” he said, poring it on.
Tanis smiled, pulled a gun from the back of his pants that had been hidden beneath the suit jacket he wore, and handed it to him.
Fisher gripped the gun, keeping the barrel pointed downward.
Garrett moved closer and pointed the automatic rifle at his head.
“Good. Now for your first assignment, kill Crow.”
“What the hell?” Crow said, lifting his hands. “I just brought you these two.”
“I know and thank you, but this is Fisher’s moment.”
Fisher’s mind raced. Fucking hell. Now what? Tanis had effectively turned the tables on him.
They had to get that bunker door open and they needed Tanis to do it.
Fisher turned toward Crow, thinking of where he could shoot the guy and not cause death or too much damage.
He needn’t have bothered with that because Azrael went ballistic.
“I can’t be here!” Screaming at the top of his lungs, Azrael ran toward the bunker door and slammed against it, sobbing and banging his hands on the heavy iron with dull thuds. “Let me out. Let me out!”
He, including Crow, Garrett, and Tanis, was taken aback. When Azrael slid down the door to his knees and showed no signs of slowing his breakdown, Tanis took action.
“There, there, I’ll let you out,” Tanis soothed the boy with the lie and lifted the sobbing Azrael up from the ground. Easing the boy toward Garrett, Tanis turned to the vault.
With his eye to the laser, his thumb on the mechanism, and his voice activated, the bunker door locks disengaged and rolled open with a deep resounding clunk. Once the locks were done, the door popped open automatically.
“I have a nice bed for you to sleep in,” Tanis told Azrael and took him back from Garrett.
The door swung wider beneath Tanis’ hand and Fisher got a look at the room. It stretched probably fifty feet with cages lining each side. Some were filled and others were vacant. Each cell had a bed that looked comfortable and Fisher didn’t need to imagine how Tanis used those beds. The boys of various ages jumped to their feet and some gripped the bars, others cowered in the back of their cells in fear.
Crow hit the button on his hip that was hidden in the man’s belt and Fisher knew the calvary was coming.
Now they only had to get—
Crow launched at Garrett and Fisher lifted the gun to shoot Tanis, only Azrael was in the way.
“Get down,” Fisher ordered Azrael, but Tanis snatched the boy before he could move.
“Let him go,” Fisher snarled.
Tanis kept his head behind Azrael’s, not giving him a clear shot.
“Can you get down?” Fisher said exasperated and Azrael grinned, a gleeful gleam in his eyes.
Oh hell, this was not going to go well.
Fisher could hear the thundering footsteps of the team coming down the hallway.
Real came through the door along with Stone and Steel and several darkly dressed men.
Garrett’s firearm discharged with a tat, tat, tat, as Crow knocked it out of the man’s hands. Fisher had no clue where the rounds had gone.
The next moment, Garrett and Crow locked in a wrestling match that was brutal and deadly, and he was tempted to turn his weapon and shoot Garrett in the head. He couldn’t though, because more than likely, Tanis had a weapon down here.
And he couldn’t get dead, he’d promised Justice.
A few things happened simultaneously. Azrael spun around and head-butted Tanis, knocking the man away.
Justice slammed through the door at the same time and fired, shooting Garrett somewhere, not killing the man because his screams of pain filled the room. Crow lunged free of the big fucker and kicked the guy in the head, knocking him out.
The room grew noisy and filled with snarls and sobs from the caged boys.
Tanis backhanded Azrael in the mouth and sent the slighter boy flying against one of the cages.
Justice grabbed him around the waist and spun him around, taking his aim from Tanis. Not that he could have shot the guy because someone was now in his way and that someone was Real.
When the big soldier took in the scene and realized that Azrael was on site, all fucking hell broke loose. Fisher spotted blood dripping down Real’s side, one of the bullets from Garrett’s gun, he was sure.
Tanis lunged for what Fisher suspected was a weapon, but the man never made it.
Real converged on Tanis and lifted the man by the throat before pushing the guy’s head against the nearest cage bars. Thankfully, that cage was empty.
Tanis screamed and scratched at Real, but with the military gear the man wore, nothing penetrated.
Real’s muscles corded and bunched and they all watched as Tanis’ head was pushed through the bars of the cage and into a very tight space that wasn’t designed to fit a human head.
Tanis’s face and skull caved between the bars and the onslaught of Real’s force.
The big soldier stepped back and left Tanis hanging there.
Tanis gagged and jerked until he went still.
Fisher blinked up at Justice and he was pulled closer, his nape nuzzled.
Real stalked over and lifted Azrael up from the floor and into his arms. The boy wrapped his arms around the big soldier’s neck as he was carried out of the bunker.
“Let’s get these kids out of here,” Stone ordered into the quiet.
Nobody cared that Tanis had died the way he had. The only regret was that the kids in there had witnessed the brutality, but compared to what they had lived through, that might be mild.
The room broke out in noise as the boys whooped and cheered, banging on their cages. Stone grabbed the ring of keys on the wall and started unlocking cages.
“Fisher!”
He spun from Justice when Beck called his name and caught the teenager in his arms.
Crow pulled his phone out and pulled up a photo and started looking over the boys until he stopped at one unlocked cage.
“Steven?”
“Who are you?” the child asked.
“Your father sent me,” Crow murmured and the boy started crying loudly. When Crow tried to take Steven from the cage, the boy hung onto another boy inside.
“We can’t leave without Mikey!” Steven cried, and Crow assured the boy that they wouldn’t leave Mikey behind. Once Crow had both boys out of the cage, Mikey ran to him and hugged him tightly before Crow guided both boys out of the room.
Fisher swallowed around the lump in his throat and handed Beck off to one of the soldiers who were waiting.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Beck’s voice wobbled.
“Don’t worry,” Justice murmured and Fisher gave the teenager an encouraging nod.
CPS was on site to help with the situation.
Fisher turned and gazed up at Justice.
“It was a good day.”
“It was,” Justice agreed and drew him from the bunker.