Chapter 21 #3
Rivers of blood leaked from his face and onto the streets as the first man calmly took his gun and wiped it clean, pausing to stop and look up at the corner where the camera recording was located.
It was like he knew it was there the whole time.
A sinister grin stretched across his face as he raised the gun once more, firing a final shot to shut the camera off and hide his disappearance into The Shadows of the downtown London street.
The video ended with a yawning silence as we all stared at the news just revealed.
Kellan was the first to break the silence as he stood and walked over to the other intel he brought with him today.
“I have been trying to trace him. The man is good. Too good for someone who’s supposedly been dead for years.
Not quite on my level, but then again, nobody is.
He disappears, only to reappear in places like he can become visible and invisible at will, almost as if he was trained. Like he is—or was a…”
“Shadow,” was my steely interruption. “Almost like he was trained to be a Shadow.”
“Yes…but that would be impossible since only one inducted Shadow is alive at any time within The Guilda. That would make him a name risen from the dead.”
Cameron snapped his head up, eyes glinting with a dangerous edge. “Almost like The Guilda is calling in all the old names and favours of families we all wish to forget. It is almost like they are preparing for—”
“War,” the three of us voiced at once.
“And ensuring their side is scaled in favour to win,” I continued, glaring at the face of a man who had haunted my nightmares for nearly two decades on the screen. The face of a man who should not be standing among the living, in the streets of London, looking like he had not a care in the world.
Cillian DuPont.
A name seared into my mind. The last shadow to walk the halls of The Guilda Sanguis Venenati until he met an untimely end, now coming back to haunt us from shadows even I can’t comprehend.
“He should be dead and buried six feet under.”
Cameron grimaced, no doubt remembering all the ways the man who loved to torture inflicted pain.
Looking over at me and then returning to Kellan, he continued, “If DuPont has been mysteriously found his way topside again, nothing will be safe, even lines drawn by The Guilda’s new head or the secrets we’ve managed to wipe from existence. ”
A sharp ringing startled us from the silence we had lapsed into after Kellan confirmed some of my worst fears…the return of the DuPont Shadow, who should have been rotting in the ground, yet clearly was still haunting the streets of Lenochka's hometown across the pond.
The bastard was fucking brutal. The worst initiate to successfully come out of The Guilda.
His infamy had preceded us, Alistair being old enough—barely—to remember how demented he had been while training the new recruits.
Brought to heel by me, or so I had thought, until the grainy black-and-white security footage showed his meeting.
“Bonjour, bonjour les connards. Oui!1” Smooth, sensual French slid down the line as Kellan answered the ringing from one of the satellite phones we had hotwired and installed down here. “Chère soeur!2 Achilleus, Athena!”
Rapid French reeled on in the background, while the distinct deep timber of native Greek filtered over the man's words. “Oui, oui! Video dial me in, you shits…”
Kellan tapped away silently on his keyboard, working to bring the video feed up as he muttered indistinct curse words while he configured the firewalls and security features to allow the monitor to add the newcomers in.
Newcomers who I hoped would know if this video we intercepted was legit and not tampered with.
“Bonjour, mon ami!3 Kellan, Cameron…” Heavily accented English flowed through the speakers as his video image appeared before us—the palest grey eyes framed by icy blond hair, greeting us with a coy smile lining his lips.
One that was at odds with the tight, pinched expression at the corner of his eyes.
A smile that faded as his gaze collided with mine, twisting into a grimace that made him appear older than his twenty-two years. “Aleksandr, plaisir.4”
His next words were interrupted by his mirror, his sister, appearing next to him. Twin braids of ice blond hair wound around her head in the likeness of a crown. Fitting for the Trois Rois Bandits5 Mafia Princess, and the lone DuPont princess.
“Ah, le prince returns…needing our help this time.” Cheekiness enthused her words and lit a dangerous spark in her eyes, igniting a winter storm. “Cher frère, les connards6 speak English, no? Why do they appear lost for words?”
The final member's video image appeared.
A sense of relief flowed through me as the one true sociopath I knew appeared on screen.
Midnight coloured hair, deathly black eyes and tanned skin that spoke of days spent torturing people in the sun on his castle among the isles of Greece.
Achilleus Katsaros was a sight for sore eyes and wounded pride.
The infamous King of the Ellinikí Greek Mafia and current placeholder of the Ellsworth’s seat in the London Outfit took his seat lackadaisically, his shark-like grin not attempting to hide the threat he posed to anyone who naively refused to look past his godlike looks and learned charm.
His chest was bare, inked with the dragon of his family crest and a warning in the crude, scarred drawing of the Evil Eye peeking out from within its razor-sharp teeth.
It was the violent claw-like scratches down his pectoral muscles, left arm, and side though that explained his delayed presence and the sole reason a soft chuckle escaped my lips…
“Yia sas7, Aleksandr.” He nodded in greeting, his blank features and hooded eyes carrying a slight crinkle at the corners that highlighted the few claw marks dripping blood down his face.
Violence becomes him, I thought as I clocked the particularly painful looking one cutting down through his forehead until ending under his soulless eye, as well as the busted nose and lip that still did not prevent that chilling grin.
Scanning each of the five gathered here, I confirmed a nightmare I never thought I would greet again. Achilleus pressed his lips into a thin line; a flash of hesitation and worry crossed his aristocratic features as he scanned the two French heirs in our midst.
“Kalispera8, Leonas, Céline. May peace find you tonight…after the news, I must confirm for you.”
“Dragon King, long time no see. Sorry, this is what brings your godlike face back to me.”
“Cameron.” Humour overtook Achilleus' demeanour as a deep, throaty laugh left him. The DuPont siblings halted it as they asked where his mafia princess—the mercenary sister he had–was. “Kellan, good to see you both. Athena is…indisposed…with business within Nex Furia, but I didn't want you all to have to wait for what we’ve learned. The news I’m about to break.”
“Fuck…”
“Goddamn, don't you dare say it, Krastaros! Merde! No!” Everyone whipped around to stare in horror as the colour leeched from Leonas' face, his skin going a macabre grey as his sister dragged him into her embrace. “Please. Merde! You lie! He's dead…no, no, no, NO!”
Achilleus sat silent, a minuscule tilt of his chin the only hint that our deepest worry had just been confirmed, in the form of Cillian DuPont officially back from the dead. I feared for what he would do to his children—his heirs now that he would return to claim the seat that was rightfully his.
“It is not only the long dead Shadow that the Triple Nine Affiliate has had reports of Aleksandr…but both the Wriedt and Dragomir lines are stirring again. I fear for what this means for your close friend, Rowan, as it's his blood that abandoned him when The Guilda cast him out all those years ago. It’s also worrisome since you are still unwed. News of your assumed choice in bride has already reached my ears. I expect you’ll bring her for a formal introduction soon.
The woman must be absolutely delightful to have tamed you… ”
“Da, she has not yet accepted her role in the upcoming political war the Iron Throne will wage when I come of age.”
An ominous howl echoed from somewhere on Achilleus' property.
It was followed by tortured screams, ones that had a haunted edge as they grew louder as if their owner was getting closer to where Achilleus was.
A devilish smile lit his face, one even I would pause at, as an evil glint flared to life in his eyes—one that reminded me of the unholy terrors father used to warn my brother, Dimitri, and me of while tucking us in at night.
A flash of fiery red appeared in the mirror behind Achilleus just brief enough for each of us to clock her identity.
Achilleus stood adjusting himself in his slacks as I found myself wishing I had looked away as his obvious desire for his fiery captive was shown.
His deeply inked and bleeding chest flashed across the screen as he slid a silent warning look to all of us.
Keep quiet about this, it said—the ‘or else’ irrelevant since we all knew who that vibrant mane belonged to and the destruction his infatuation with the Irish bird would cause.
I nodded, acquiescing since I had enough to deal with at the moment, and he had never been more than a very helpful ally. Choked laughter left Céline and Cameron, as they belatedly realized who the woman he was keeping hidden on his island was.
“Poor innocent bitch, goddamn Achilleus.” Snorting, Céline’s cat-like eyes clocked Cameron’s laughter, mischief dancing between them even while half a world away.