Chapter 62
SIXTY-TWO
SILAS
We basically crawled on our hands and knees up a steep embankment on the most remote side of the property.
As fucking deep as you could get in these woods.
We’d swung a mile out before we made our way up the backside of the land that most would consider untraversable.
Cliffs and boulders and a crush of impenetrable woods that crowded out the heavens above.
Trevan, Phoenix, and Cash were at my side.
Everyone had been divided into groups of four that would steal in at different points. Strategically to take out the guards, their circuits and schedules another element that Cash had mapped out.
Keeping crouched, we made it to the top of the ridge, and it brought us to the boundary we were looking for.
The chain-link fence with the top fortified by razor wire.
Now electrified after Cash and his crew had broken in and rescued Elena.
Something I’d wanted to be the one to do, but now, I somehow understood that I hadn’t been ready.
Unprepared for what really had been waiting for us or the way my path was going to veer.
Guess I’d become a new believer in fate.
I peered through the pitchy bleakness, the bare outline of my brothers’ faces staring back.
The poison in the darkness was so thick I could taste it.
A vileness creeping through that permanently lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck.
Cash tipped his chin, and he quickly worked with the wiring, killing the electricity running to the fence.
The low hum it’d been emitting fell into silence.
The second it had, I sent the prepared text that went to the lead of each team.
Me
Go
And that’s what we fucking did.
Cash yanked wire cutters from the back of his jeans and snipped through the links in a blink, shoving them wide enough that we could slip through.
We crouched low as we ran through the forest that was every bit as thick here as it’d been creeping up the side of the mountain.
Weapons in hand, we hurtled through the foliage and underbrush.
Boots quiet on the soft, squishy earth.
Breaths held and silent as ghosts.
My spirit moaned. The old thirst for vengeance completely replaced by a brand-new need.
The anguished need to set her free.
Desperation streaked through my being. A pervasive urge to find her safe and whole and unharmed.
All I could see in the back of my mind was the shape of that unknown body mangled on the ground.
This woman who had changed every fucking thing.
Finally, we came to a halt at the edge of the thicket, still cloaked beneath the overabundant branches.
The air left me on a violent wheeze as the vast expanse of grass and the fortress from where Kent reigned beyond it came into view.
We faced one side of the enormous outpost. It was constructed of metal, Kent’s operation run under the facade of a logging company, and on this side, there was a row of semi-trucks lined up like they were waiting on their next haul.
Hazy lights glowed back through the fog, and a baleful stillness echoed through the mist.
Too still.
Too quiet.
I shared a glance with my closest men.
Kent and his ring were waiting for us.
We knew it.
So there was only one fucking thing we could do.
I gave the cue and we ran, ducking through the shadows in an attempt to remain unseen.
In the distance, a gunshot rang out.
No question, one of our other teams had been discovered.
And that was it.
It was instant bedlam.
Blinding lights flicked on to blind our eyes right as a barrage of bullets started to fly.
Two men came rushing around the side of the building. Phoenix had guns in both hands, and he started running toward them like the madman he was, unloading on both motherfuckers with a roar.
They stumbled back, piles of trash that dropped to the ground, while Cash took out three men who came from the other side.
Trevan gave me a look. Our job to stay stealth so we could get inside the building.
Knowing that’s where Kent would be. Where Brinley would be.
Shots suddenly pelted the ground right at my side, darts that impaled the earth.
“Sniper on the roof,” I shouted, and I dropped into a roll, flinging myself under one of the truck trailers.
Concealed and on my back, I eased out enough so I could take a shot at the sniper who was frantically looking over the side for his next target.
He should have known the target was him.
I pulled the trigger, and his body spasmed as he was struck in the neck.
He toppled off the roof, asshole doing two flips as he plunged to the ground.
Body a mangled bow when he hit the cement beneath.
Shots were being fired everywhere.
Shouts and screams and commands echoing through the air.
Dread twisted through me. Fear that any one of my men might be among the anguished moans.
Trevan was tucked low, his back pressed to a shadowy side of the truck I was underneath.
“You good?” he wheezed.
“Yeah. We need to get inside that building.”
“Count of three, and I cover you,” he said.
He didn’t give me a chance to reject it. He simply pushed his hand low, ticking off his fingers.
One.
Two.
Three.
He swung out from behind the truck just as I rolled onto my feet, guns in both his hands firing in every direction while I kept low and ran for the side door.
It was the spot Cash had believed might be the easiest access point from the ground floor. He didn’t think we’d have the chance to make it to the roof and cut our way in the way he did when he came for Elena.
That position would only make us more vulnerable.
Movement suddenly whispered from my right, and I whirled.
A man dressed in all black emerged from the shadows.
Grin on his smug mouth as he lifted his gun like he thought he had me trapped.
Fucker didn’t have a chance before mine was going off.
The sneer on his face imploded, body blown back ten feet.
A gush of air rushed from my lungs, a fucking river of sweat pouring down my spine, my heart rate manic as I turned back to the door.
I crouched low as I pulled out the tools stuffed in my back pocket, my fingers adept as I quickly picked two locks.
I could feel the terror radiating out. The same sense I’d gotten all those years ago when I’d slipped into that vacant, decayed house.
The mayhem of that warm spirit calling out.
Brinley.
Brinley.
The last lock finally gave, and my lungs squeezed as I stood, body turned and ear pressed to the door like I might be able to hear any movement from within.
Anticipating a full ambush waiting on the other side.
I put my hand on the knob and slowly turned, and the door creaked as I carefully nudged it open.
Listening for any breath.
A heartbeat.
Only a buzz echoed in my ears, a whirring of stilled silence as I stepped inside while chaos continued to rage outside.
It was even darker here, and I cringed when the sole of my boot squeaked against the hard, slick floor.
The lights were cut, but I could ascertain the room was a storage area.
Boxes stacked high.
I knew this room, and I felt even more certain that Dereck had come through.
This matched the exact layout he’d given.
On the other side of it would be a hall.
A hall that would lead to the inner sanctum of the building where Kent spent most of his time.
His living space.
His office.
Farther down were dingy rooms where he kept his captives.
Where Elena had been held hostage.
Manipulated and trapped.
I carefully crept through the maze, my heart in my throat, my skin drenched by the fear and determination that seeped from my pores.
I fumbled my way along a wall, and I slid my palms over the surface until I finally found the door.
I paused, listened, felt.
Let the extra senses that had kept me alive for all these years bleed out.
A groan of something, a shift of feet.
Someone was there.
I tucked a gun into its holster and pulled my knife from its sleeve, and I locked the air in my lungs as I quietly unlatched the door and slipped out into the dusk of the hall.
A man was ten feet ahead and facing away.
I stole forward, and I had his chin in my hand and the knife dragging across his throat before he even knew I was there.
Blood spurted onto my arm, and I carefully laid his limp body on the ground before I stepped over the pile of garbage and continued to edge down what felt like an endless hall.
Footsteps contained. Blood pumping a rabid, ruthless beat.
Finally, I made it close to its end. Two armed men stood outside the door, one on his phone facing the wood and the other shifted toward me, though his head was angled, clearly trying to listen to the other’s conversation.
I slipped forward undetected, and he jolted when he finally noticed me a second before I drove the knife into his gut.
I jerked the blade to the side to spill him out.
The other dropped his phone and started to whirl, and I whipped the knife, slashing deep into his arm.
“Motherfucker, you’re dead,” he wheezed in shock, stumbling back.
“Nah,” I hissed, and I cocked my arm back and threw the knife before he found solid ground.
It flew, meeting its mark at the front of his neck.
He dropped like a boulder.
A decimated thud.
And I knew there was no longer any concealing my presence, so I grabbed both guns and kicked in the door they were guarding.
Ready to rush into the room in a blaze of glory, only I froze when I found the scene inside.
Heart dropping to the floor.
Brinley.
Bound and on her knees. A gag in her mouth. Beautiful hair tangled and matted with dirt and blood.
One eye black and swollen shut.
The other begged a desperate plea.
Dereck was on the other side of her.
In the same position.
His entire face was busted to shit. Gaping cuts on his lip, temple, and cheek.
A wound leaked from his side and soaked his clothes in blood.
But in his eyes?
In them was relief. His trust in me.
Except I wasn’t feeling so relieved when I found Kent Ellison casually standing over the top of them like a complete showdown wasn’t raging outside.
Hair styled and wearing a designer suit.
Smug smirk on his face like he’d already won.