Chapter Forty-Two
Matteo
“He’s not here.” Luc’s quiet voice crackles through the phone speaker. He has taken a team to Dave’s apartment and is updating me in real time through his phone. I hang up, lungs burning with each breath.
With the information Erin left me, it was easy to find out who sent the message.
She would have eventually found the traitor herself, but she didn’t dig further.
Probably because she didn’t want to alert me by triggering another trap.
Because she believed that I was involved.
Because she still didn’t trust me. I push the thoughts down before they destroy me completely.
Dave was careful to send the message from a burner phone but the fucker was dumb enough to use the club’s guest + I found out he was also the one authorizing shipments to go through our port, using my name.
I’m gonna rip his limbs out one by one when we find him.
But he’s not there. And he left his phone at home, I have no way of tracing him.
It was him. He is involved in Manticore. And I let him near Erin.
I. Can’t. Fucking. Breathe.
I slam my fists on the wood of the conference table.
I have been locked in this room for almost twenty-four hours and every passing second is driving me further down the dark path of insanity.
Our men are combing through the city to find a clue, any clue.
Luc is directing field operations while D oversees tactics.
And me? I’m the useless asshole steadily unraveling in his office.
Suddenly my phone chimes. I look down, hoping that it is Luc telling me he found that fucker hidden under the sofa after all.
What flashes on my screen makes my heart stop. Then it starts to beat again, wild and erratic.
Authorized access to vault #6452.
Identity, Skye-Alias verified
Signal route, Encrypted ping sent to Bastion-Core
Code- 404—Knife Not Found
I nearly drop to my knees. My smart, beautiful, brave Erin… She’s found a way to send me a signal. Which will enable me to get a location. My heart is beating so fast my vision blurs for a beat. I turn to my computer to track the signal’s source while I hit the group call button on my phone.
“We have a location, she sent a signal.”
Not even twenty minutes later, D, Luc, me and forty of our best soldiers converge at a red-brick warehouse. It looks abandoned. But there are fresh tire marks on the dust covering the entrance. My heart kicks in my chest, but this time I feel purpose flooding my bloodstream.
She has to be here. Alive.
I signal our men that I’m going in first. I try the pedestrian entrance.
It creaks faintly but it opens. I step inside, eyes sweeping the surface, noting, mapping, planning.
That’s what I do, that’s who I am. I hadn’t gone to the tactical floor of The Bastion to change into more practical clothes, but I ditched the suit jacket and slipped on a pair of soft-soled tactical boots on the ride here.
Now they help me move soundlessly around the large area and through the dark corridor.
I strain my ears, gripping my gun harder in my hands.
There is a faint voice coming from the end of the corridor and I creep closer.
Then there is a sharp crack, as if… I grit my teeth.
I need to stay in control, I remind myself.
The corridor opens into a large storage area and now I see them.
A man is standing with his back to me and he is gesturing wildly with a gun in his hand.
My blood runs cold when I see her. Erin is slumped on a chair, her head is hanging, chin resting on her chest. She doesn’t move. Either she is unconscious or… No .
“I can’t believe it, you must be lying!” the man shouts.
I instantly recognize his voice. Adam Rourke.
“Answer me, you lying bitch!” He slaps her again, sending her head flying back.
She doesn’t make a sound. But when her head swivels back to the front, I am relieved to see that her eyes are open. She is alive!
Then she sees me. She looks right at me through the strands of her hair hiding her face from him. For a beat our eyes are locked. And the world fucking stops.
She looks back at Rourke before he can sense anything going on and starts to laugh, rough and demented. “I’ll tell you the truth,” she grits out through her bloody lips, “…Geryon,” she adds with another crazed laugh, and my blood turns to ice in my veins.
No fucking way .
“Come closer,” she goes on, “and I’ll tell you.” The last part is a mere whisper, as if her voice is failing.
I inch closer, ever so slowly, heart pounding. I want to launch myself at that fucker and kill him with my bare hands. But he’s too close to her, I can’t risk Erin’s life. Another step forward. Another inch.
Rourke is leaning forward to hear what she has to say, and all my muscles coil, ready to pounce.
He is on her now, so close that their cheeks are touching. Suddenly she lifts her leg and kicks him so hard between his legs that he staggers back while her chair topples over and she falls backward. Her head hits the concrete floor with a sickening thud, and that’s when I attack.
A fraction of a second later, Rourke is lying on the floor with a broken wrist, a disjointed knee and a broken nose. The next second, I am kneeling by Erin.
“ Amore .” I gently cradle her head, assessing her state. Bruised face, split lips, one eye is swollen. Her torso seems unhurt, her wrists are zip tied to the chair and I pull out my knife to cut the ties. She is barely conscious and her eyes roam around for a beat before they focus on my face.
“You came,” she whispers and then her eyes close.
I pick her up in my arms knowing that I will never let her go.
I carry her to the exit, almost not noticing the chaos around us.
Dave is sprawled on the floor, dead. Rourke is being dragged away by our men.
I managed not to kill him although it had cost me. Later. Information first .
I carry Erin outside to the awaiting private ambulance and lay her inside on a gurney. Then I sit next to her head while a medical team takes her vitals. I can’t look away from her bruised face. She is still unconscious and she looks so fragile that my heart clenches painfully.
If a god can hear me, any god, I beseech you, don’t take her. Take me instead .
I have never been religious, but at this moment, I’m ready to kneel in front of any altar and surrender what’s left of my black soul to have her returned to me.
* * * *
Turns out Erin has a concussion. There’s no internal bruising or brain damage, thank fuck.
But she has been unconscious for two hours now and I have been banned from her room by the medical team because I was hovering .
Only their threat of not being able to properly care for her got me finally out of there.
Now I’m sitting in the hallway of our private clinic, face buried in my hands.
My eyes are burning from lack of sleep, my nerves are shot and now that I know that Erin is taken care of, I am getting restless.
Luc sits down next to me and offers me a cup of coffee.
I take it with a grateful nod. The taste is horrendous but the caffeine helps me clear my head.
We sit in silence until I put the cup down on the low table nearby.
“She’ll be okay, Teo.”
I nod again, but don’t reply. My hands are clasped so tight my knuckles are white. I know I need an outlet. Luc must sense my restlessness.
“Go, Teo, I’ll stay here with her. I’ll call when she wakes.”
I look at him for a beat. Then we stand and he gives me a one-shoulder hug and watches me stride out of the clinic.
Once at The Bastion, I immediately ride the elevator down to the second sub-level.
This level doesn’t officially exist. But this is the heart of the building.
This is the center of hell. This level also connects to a web of tunnels we use for moving our…
guests. Usually when we move them out, it’s to escort them to a crematorium we own.
I step into the cell where Rourke is cuffed to a metal chair.
He raises his face to meet my eyes. His nose is not bleeding anymore, but it is swollen and the skin around his eyes has turned purplish. Dark satisfaction coils in my gut.
When I’m finished, even his own mother won’t be able to recognize him.
* * * *
Four hours later, I step out of my bloody clothes and let them fall to the floor.
A cleaning team will take care of them, along with our guest .
Or what’s left of him. I walk to the shower head at the far wall and turn on the stream, letting the lukewarm water wash away most of the blood.
I’ll go up to the penthouse to properly clean up and get dressed, then I’ll go back to the clinic. To her.
The door behind me creaks, and I turn my head to see who joined the party. Too late obviously. D is standing in the doorway, taking in the bloody heap lying on the floor. After I sawed the man’s arms and legs off, he wouldn’t stay on the chair anymore and slumped on the floor. Rude .
For hours I had questioned him, alternating between fire, tools and threats until I was sure there was nothing else I could get out of him.
Nor any other limb I could cut off, for that matter, except for his tongue.
So I cut that off too and watched him slowly choke on his blood until his heart gave out.
People never realize how much of a challenge it is to keep the perfect balance between inciting the subject to talk and keeping them alive, all the while leaving enough body parts and skin to burn, shred or cut off to keep things interesting and motivating.
I pride myself on being good at my job, undoubtedly the best on this side of the continent.
“Did he talk?” D asks in a low voice, unbothered by the gore littering the floor.
“Yep, got some big names we might want to check out.”
“And their leader?”
I turn off the shower and take a clean towel from the wall rack. “Nothing, says he doesn’t know.”
“You believe him?”
“Yeah. Said he was contacted by phone. Male voice, no noticeable accent and according to him, no one he has ever met in person. Then it was email exchanges and messages through burner phones. I’ll check everything out once I’m back at the office, but I don’t have high hopes there.”
“Fuck.” D’s frustrated growl reverberates on the concrete walls.
I don’t reply as I drop the dirty towel on the floor and sling a clean one around my waist and walk toward the door.
We ride the elevator up in silence, D probably planning the next steps ahead, while my mind is circling back to the clinic.
I feel refreshed and clearheaded again now that I have let the darkness come out to play, giving it an outlet.
I still feel it inside me, but it is currently curled up like a satisfied cat, licking its claws and purring in contentment.
Now my mind and body only crave one thing—to be near my ghost, smell her scent, feel her soft skin against mine, wrap her in my arms to never let go.