Chapter 20
Saint
dance with the devil - breaking benjamin
I burst out of Rex’s car, spotting my people scattered across the front lawn of Indie’s mom’s house.
Eyes cast downward.
When we tried to call Dawson back, it went to voicemail. When I tried Indie, it went to voicemail.
We missed Dawson’s calls and texts by an hour; it then took almost two to get here with traffic. And going by the fact that no one can look me in the fucking eye, I know I’m about to become apocalyptic, can feel it surging beneath my skin.
Both my hands smack the doorframe with the force of a hurricane, the wood splintering as it makes impact with the wall.
The last time I walked through these doors, my stomach was twisted with nerves, knowing something wasn’t right. And then I lost her for six whole years.
Why the fuck do I have that same darkening dread building up again, tenfold.
Despite my dramatic entrance, and the certainty my eyes look like the antichrist’s, my voice comes out with a haunting calmness. “Where. The fuck. Is she?”
Dawson slowly meets my gaze from his seat, a vicious cut and bruise already forming over his forehead and eye, the skin around it swollen as his bloodshot eyes meet mine. “Morgan took her.”
I blink.
“They left in a blacked-out van.”
Then blink again.
My eyebrow begins to twitch.
“He’s been working with them,” he adds.
The hooks on my jaw threaten to crack, my glare looking over the destruction of a home I know so well. My voice drops to a depth I’d yet to discover. “Don’t leave a fucking word out.”
When he gets to the part on how everything was clear until they found a beaten Morgan on the roof, the rest starts to bleed into white noise.
How many of them are fucking part of this?
How the fuck did we miss him being a part of their organisation?
The guy looks like he asks for permission to take a piss.
Right before I spiral and make the house look like a tornado rammed through it, Grace opens her eyes from the couch, pulling off the oxygen mask. Her voice is rough and hoarse when she whispers, “Where is my daughter?”
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It’s not my place to tell her what her daughter does, nor do I intend to. I somehow need to convince her to leave here and head to the Pit with Ultio. And none of that can be done without outing something.
Grace comes to more, leaning up on the couch with the help of our medic Kyle. Her eyes widen when my father walks in. “Malcolm?”
Dad gives her a tight smile. “Hello, Grace. It’s been a while.”
Her gaze goes from him, to me, to Rex and Dawson. All of us with bulletproof vests and guns showing. Dawson’s typing on a laptop as his phone lies crushed beside him, and Rex with two guns in his holster.
Her hand whips to her head. “Oh my God. Oh my—”
“Easy, Grace,” Dad says, kneeling down in front of her.
“I’ll grab some water,” Rex adds, disappearing into the kitchen.
She frantically shakes her head, squeezing her bruised eyes closed as she pants. “Morgan. Barry. They came here with some…men.”
“Take it easy, Mrs Kent. Just breathe,” I say, walking over to sit on a dining chair, spinning it around to straddle backwards. She’s on the verge of a panic attack, and when Rex hands her the glass, she sips it with shaky hands, Rex taking it back from her and leaning against the doorframe.
My eyes focus on Dawson, watching his fingers frantically fly over the keys as Dad takes her trembling hand, clasping his other on top of it. “Do you remember what happened, Grace?”
I watch as her watery eyes blink frantically, settling on closing them as she pinches the bridge of her nose.
“M-Morgan turned up here. I wasn’t expecting him,” she rasps, and Rex hands her the water again.
She clutches the glass as it sloshes around.
“He wanted me to call Indie. I thought it was strange how forceful he was being, told him I’d do it once I knew she’d be finished work.
He got really mad, then…Barry came in out of nowhere with a group of men, all with masks. The rest is…fuzzy.”
I turn back to Dawson whilst my dad tries to reassure Grace, keeping my voice low. “Did you get the registration?”
He turns his laptop to me. “I’m on it, got a partial image from the street cameras a mile down. Regina’s clearing up; she’s going to send it through email in a few minutes, and I’ll track it from there.”
I nod, staring back down at my still blood-soaked hands. There’s a hint of my own tremor in them, and I clasp them together to keep them from unleashing my fury.
“I tried, Saint. I really fucking tried,” he whispers, and I drag my gaze from the wall to him.
I want to be fucking enraged at Dawson. Hell, I want to add to the fractured cheek he likely has. But this would be a very different fucking conversation if she’d managed to leave under his care.
I know he would have done what he could, it just doesn’t take the edge off it like I want it to.
I love him like a brother, the same way I do with Rex. But Indie is my entire reason for living, the fire behind this whole God damn fight I’m putting up against the Omnia.
If she gets hurt, whoever’s been on the path of involvement gets my wrath regardless of their intentions.
Instead of allowing my hand to pummel through his face, I clasp his shoulder, a knowing look passing between us. “Just help me get her back. No matter what it fucking takes us.”
His jaw flexes, and his gaze travels back to the laptop screen, a curt dip of his head following.
Dad gets up from the floor, moving to sit beside Grace; she doesn’t seem on the verge of passing out any longer, but I can tell the last few hours are weighing heavy on her. “I’m going to tell you this straight, Grace. Because you deserve to know.”
My shoulders tense.
What is he fucking doing?
I’m ready to tell him to shut the fuck up, but he’s out with the words before I can figure a discrete way to do it.
“The men who assaulted Indie and Regina all those years ago, they’re people my company have been looking for, for a very long time.
They’re extremely dangerous, and we know Barry is a part of it. They’ve taken Indie.”
Silence falls over the entire room. Tension so thick, everyone waits on bated breath for her answer. And it comes in a burst of panic.
“Oh My. My God. Oh, dear God. Barry? Where is Indie? What about Louisa? Is she safe? How the hell have they got Indie?!”
Dad takes her hand again, tone as smooth as water. “Don’t worry about Louisa, she’s been fine this far, and we’ve already got it handled. We’re planning to get her to safety, the same place we’ll all be going. We’ll get you checked out by a doctor there, and you’ll be safe.”
Got to give it to the old man, he knows his way around words.
Thank fuck he didn’t out Indie, or our intentions on what we’re going to do to her sister.
Grace looks around the room, like she’s really taking us in for the first time. “What about Indie? What if they’re—”
I cut in, seeing the tears well in her eyes, and feeling fury rise in mine.
I know exactly what she’s thinking, and I haven’t dared fucking let my mind wander there.
“Indie’s already been staying at the Pit with Regina.
These people, they’ve been trying to find her and Regina for a while.
We’ve planned for this, and I’ll do everything I can to get her back unharmed.
We’re already working on it. You have my word. ”
She wipes her tear-streaked face. “Why do they want my daughter?”
I glance up at my dad as he answers, “The girls found out about their secret.”
Thankfully, she doesn’t exactly ask what that secret is. I don’t have that kind of creativity to weave up a lie and downplay the severity of the situation. It’s reserved for the bloodshed.
I feel like I could explode over the actual reality at any second.
“Is-Is this why you left, before?” she asks, looking at me and then to my dad, and I nod.
“It is.”
She twists her wedding band around with her thumb, staring down at it.
When she glances at my dad, recognition passes over her eyes. “Does this have anything to do with what my husband was helping you with?”
My brows bunch up.
I wasn’t aware Indie’s father had filled her in on that part, or his involvement. Harris Kent and my dad bonded on the first day we began our integration into the area.
Both similar careers, both with children they would protect with their lives.
When I say my dad has expert skills in networking, the connections he made through Indie’s dad to add to the operation we have here just proves it all.
He was the one who helped my father link up with other veterans and get them on board with his goal. Dad’s never mentioned whether Harris knew how deep it ran; I don’t think it would have mattered.
My dad subtly nods in response, rising as he takes her hand and helps her off the sofa. “Why don’t you and I go sit in the car, and I’ll fill you in with everything. Regina is already settled into where we’re going, and you can call her if you need to once we chat. These guys need to get to work.”
She sniffs, wiping her eyes. “O-Okay.”
I give my dad a knowing look, which he returns, a silent agreement to keep both of Grace’s daughters’ secrets safe.
Rex helps my dad get Grace out to the car, and when I look down at Dawson, his fingers are flying over the keys of his laptop. He glances up when he feels my stare. “Indie took one of their old trackers they used during marks with her. Regina’s searching for it now.”
My body reacts before my mind can catch up. My ass is glued to the seat beside him as we watch a map loading, mirroring Regina’s screen from the Pit.
My neck prickles watching the page buffer. If that device was in my hands, the screen would have detached from its base with how long it’s taking.
I know she’s at the manor; it’s the only viable place they’d take her. They have enough security and private land that they wouldn’t be disturbed, and would be able to see us coming from a fucking mile off.
But when the page finally loads, my heart stops.
Time stops.
My lungs feel like a fucking knife’s gone through it.
And for the first time in my life, I’m wrong.
My instincts are so fucking wrong.
The flashbacks of the night that haunts the very depths of my soul blaze violently behind my eyes.
Except this time, it’s not the past.
It’s in real time.
We’re not in our early twenties.
She doesn’t get away.
I don’t get there in time.
She ends up with the same fate as my mother.
Abused.
Dead.
Body discarded like the heart that once beat inside it doesn’t fucking belong to me.
Before I know it, the once intact dining table no longer stands on its four legs.
Glass smashes, someone roars my name, and I’m tackled to the ground with hundreds of pounds of weight crunching my body into the hardwood floor.
The tracker’s not at the manor.
It’s not even at Conrad’s.
She’s not anywhere fucking near Kingstone.
It’s in the middle of the fucking ocean.