Chapter 33
DEAN
The door to solitary burst open with a crack that sounded like bones snapping. Dean jerked upright, ready for the fight.
Light stabbed through the darkness, but so many people charged in at once that he only managed to get two knocked down before hands grabbed him.
The men were rough, gloved, and reeked of sweat.
They clipped shackles on his wrists and ankles, hauling him upright by the chains.
His boots scraped concrete as they released the chain from the wall and jerked him forward.
His knees buckled, but the bastards didn’t care.
“Move it,” one barked, as they pulled him out of the tiny cell. The dull lights hurt his eyes, and he blinked to try and see where they were taking him.
Every step jarred the cuffs against his raw skin. The hallway spun with noise…curses, radios squawking, a woman screaming somewhere far off. It was the typical heartbeat of the compound, thrumming through the floor and bouncing off the walls.
They dragged him up a stairwell, through a door, and into a wide room glowing under yellow lamps. The office.
Carlos waited there.
The fucker stood by the window, suit immaculate, cigar smoldering between his fingers. He was wearing dress pants, but his shirt hung open like he was trying out for a villain with a cape. Dean almost burst out laughing.
Carlos turned as Dean was shoved toward the chair at the center of the room. It was one of the metal ones from the torture room, a throne built for cruelty.
“Mercurio,” Carlos drawled, rolling the cigar between his fingers. “You look worse than the last time I saw you. Sit.”
Dean said nothing.
Carlos nodded at a guard. The man kicked the back of Dean’s knee, and he hit the chair hard. Chains snaked around his chest, locking his wrists to the shackles on his ankles. He winced as his shoulders screamed from the unnatural position.
“I always wondered what it would take to break you. Turns out, not much. A cell, a few nights alone, and look at you…pathetic,” Carlos drawled, as he slowly sauntered closer until he stood before Dean.
Dean’s lip lifted in a ghost of a grin. “You talk too much, old man. You always have, and worse, you still don’t get that no one gives a shit what you have to say.”
The backhand came fast, rings cutting skin. Dean’s head snapped sideways, ears ringing. Blood pooled in the corner of his mouth, the metallic taste familiar now. He remained still.
Carlos smiled faintly. “Always the fucking smart mouth.”
Carlos thought chains could break a man like him, but the truth was, the only thing left inside Dean was fire. And fire didn’t break. It burned.
Dean knew what he fought and would die for.
A beautiful wife that he loved with not just his heart, but his soul.
Children who were his life. Maeve’s forgiveness.
The team that had become family. They were the reason he was still breathing, even with every bone screaming in pain and his blood spilling across the floor.
The door opened again, and Keene strolled in like a man visiting an old friend, not a prison.
He wore a flowered Hawaiian shirt and khakis, a 9mm tucked in the belt.
He ignored Dean and wandered over to the far side of the room, reaching for a bowl of fruit on the desk.
Picking out a grape, he popped it into his mouth.
“Do you ever knock?” Carlos growled.
Keene shrugged, finally looking at Dean. “You were expecting me. Why would I knock?” He smirked, an arrogant gleam in his eyes. He pointed at Dean. “Are you really going to kill your son? I mean, I don’t care, but I thought you wanted him to be your right hand?”
Carlos shot him a glare. “He’s a traitor. Snuck his family and my prized possession outside of the walls. That’s why I needed the extra men. They are going to fetch me what is rightfully mine.”
Keene paused, the next grape halfway to his mouth. “Wait…he got his wife and kids out and he came back? Why?”
Dean could see out of the corner of his eye that his father was caught off guard by the question. He looked between Keene and Dean, then back again.
Dean’s eyes found Keene’s. “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t walked through that door. You’re a disgrace to the oath you took to protect every soldier that is serving under you.”
Keene laughed, clapping once. “That’s the spirit! I like him.” Keene grabbed a strawberry and bit into it. “Nothing like watching a dead man throw out threats.”
Carlos’s patience was running thin. Dean saw it in the twitch of his jaw, the way he gripped the cigar like he wanted to drive it through someone’s eye.
“Enough of this. Son, if you want to die a quick death, then tell me where she is,” Carlos negotiated. “Tell me where Isabella is hiding, and I’ll even promise to leave your family alone.”
Dean met his gaze. “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t hand her to you.”
“Why are you so fucking stubborn?” Carlos raged, punching Dean across the face, repeatedly, until the world suddenly exploded. For a brief moment, Dean wondered if the sound was something inside his head, but the windows shattering inward told him otherwise.
He turned his head away from the raining debris. Another deep, thunderous crack tore through the air and hit somewhere above them. The whole building shook, and small particles of ceiling sprinkled down on them.
“What the fuck is happening?” Carlos yelled, but Dean could only smile as a flash turned the window white.
They watched as a heartbeat later, Keene’s helicopter exploded, disintegrating into fire, on the far roof.
The shockwave punched through the building.
Lights exploded and pictures fell from the walls, smoke poured in, and Carlos turned his shocked stare on him.
“Fucking Christ!” Keene stood staring at the burning wreckage, like he couldn’t believe what was happening.
Carlos spun toward the window. “What have you done?”
Dean began to laugh as gunfire erupted outside. Shouts in English and Spanish overlapped in chaos. The compound was under siege. The office door opened, and four guards ran in, out of breath.
“Senor, Alvarez is attacking and there are…” He paused and looked at Keene. “American soldiers. They have already killed dozens. What do you want us to do?”
Carlos glared at Keene. “Who the fuck is out there?”
“I don’t know. I brought six of my most loyal with me. They’re all loyal me and the orders I give.”
Dean yanked at his chains, metal screaming. That got both of their attention. “You…you did this,” Carlos growled. Dean smirked, not saying a word.
One of the guards hesitated, gun half-raised, eyes darting between Carlos and Keene, sweat rolling down his temple.
“Don’t just stand there!” Keene roared. “Get—”
The guard turned on him. One shot. Clean. Keene staggered back, clutching his leg, a howl tearing out of him as blood spread across his pant leg.
Carlos’s response was instant. He drew, fired twice.
The guard dropped to the floor, eyes sightless.
Dean looked at the young man’s body, his whole life cut short, and hated that there were always casualties that should never happen.
He hadn’t deserved to die for doing one decent thing in a pit full of monsters.
The noise seemed to be coming from every direction.
It was so loud that Dean couldn’t hear what Carlos was yelling, but Carlos dropped down on his knees and covered his head as a loud whistling sound announced the RPG a second before it hit.
The impact shook floor like an earthquake.
Dean closed his eyes and fought off the demons of his past that were threatening to take over.
The rhythm of the helicopter blades, the cars blowing up, buildings crumbling all around them, his best friend dying in his arms. Tears stung his eyes as he warred with the memories.
Dean rocked the chair from side to side, yelling as he fell on his side and onto his arm. Fuck.
Smoke rolled through the open doorway. Somewhere downstairs, the distinct sound of a grenade went off, and the floor trembled. He would recognize that deep boom anywhere.
Carlos moved to the desk, using it as a barricade, barking orders into a radio. Dean glared at the coward. His empire was crumbling in real time, and Dean savored every second.
Keene managed to tourniquet his leg with his belt and crawled toward the open office door, dragging his wounded leg. “You son of a bitch, you’ll regret this,” he threatened, as he got close.
“Regret’s not really my thing,” Dean smirked.
Outside, the world howled with everything from machine guns to the sound of the compound’s walls crumbling.
Carlos pulled his gun and pointed it at Dean. “I should’ve killed you years ago. I should’ve sent a team to slit your throat as you slept.”
“You’re right, you probably should have.”
Carlos pulled the trigger, but the bullet missed, flying past Dean as the room shook. The ceiling above them cracked, dust falling like ash. Somewhere close, another explosion bloomed.
Dean locked eyes with the man who dared call himself family. “You missed old man. Even fate thinks you’re an asshole.” He cackled, letting the manic inside of him loose. “You hear that?”
Carlos frowned as he tried to aim again, but a much closer explosion had him looking toward the sound.
Dean’s grin turned evil. “That’s the sound of your death as the kingdom you built is destroyed piece by piece. I did that. You killed my mother, you tried to break me, but you failed. Now it is your own creation that has destroyed you.”
Another blast shook the walls.
“Those blasts could kill us both, you idiot,” Carlos yelled.