Chapter 23
Saint
I grab the balaclava and stuff it into my pocket, tighten my bulletproof vest and slam the armoury door shut in my room, and secure the strap of the rifle round my back.
Both my palms press against the cool surface of the door, and I let my head dip between my shoulder blades.
Indie’s been gone for almost twenty hours.
Twenty.
Fucking.
Hours.
She could be hurt, she could have been fucking raped, she could be…
She could be fucking dead.
My fists pummel into the door, punches rapidly smashing through the wood until it cracks in two and my next blow has me elbow deep in a hole I’ve made.
I yank it back out, knuckles split and bloody and covered in splinters, battling to get my laboured breathing under control as my shoulders heave.
I can’t keep fucking losing my shit, letting my mind spiral into those thoughts.
But this is my reality.
I’d be a fool if I thought they weren’t trying to break her, to torture her. Hand her over to me in pieces. I just need her to stay strong until I get there.
Until I rip every single one of them that’s laid a finger on her skull from its spine. I won’t stop until I’m baptised in their blood for what they’ve done.
I will be the demonic force the rapture has left behind for them to meet their fate.
“Boss.”
My chin grazes over my shoulder padding as I angle my head, Dawson’s voice filling the room. “We’re ready when you are. But—”
“What?” I snap roughly. I’m in no fucking mood for anyone’s excuses today. I’m hearing none of them.
The silence fills the room like a dark ink bleeding through every crevice. The hackles on my back instantly rise. “Your phone keeps ringing.”
I turn around to look at him, holding out my cell in his hands. “It’s rung three times now, unknown number.”
I walk over to him, taking it as I see the screen light up with the missed calls, one after the other with a minute in between each. It vibrates again in my hand. My thumb slowly slides up the screen, hitting the loudspeaker button.
I’m met with silence, but the heavy breathing from the recipient gives them away. “Saint?”
My earlier plea to myself to not lose my shit goes out the fucking window. “Unless you’re calling me before you put a bullet in your own head, I’m not sure why else you’d think I’d want to hear your voice,” I bite out, hand tightening so hard my fingertips bleach white with my grip on the phone.
“I-I have an offer to make you,” Louisa says, and I don’t miss the unusual tremor in her voice.
That woman never stuttered a day in her life.
Hopefully it’s because she knows I’m not the one to fucking play around with.
I look up at Dawson, and he reads my thoughts immediately, rushing out the room to grab what he needs.
I need to keep her talking.
Grabbing a cigarette from my packet, I think about lighting it, then opt to slide it behind my ear. I can’t keep my hands still enough, so leave them fisted at my sides. “Making bids on your own flesh and blood. You really are a soul-sucking cunt, aren’t you?”
“Listen to me,” she growls. It’s the kind that has a ferocity behind it, that I know she’s baring her teeth down the phone.
Good.
I want this bitch riled up; I want her so fucking mad she does something stupid. Like, slam into the end of a knife by her own free will.
“You hand yourself into the manor, we’ll release Indie.”
I chuckle at her. As if it was that fucking simple. “What happened to wanting Gina with me?”
“Indie admitted everything.”
The blow her statement hits me with has me paralyzed. Why the fuck would she admit that?
She’s in there by herself. Unless she thinks she still has the tracker, but I doubt it.
Did she do it out of fear? Did they do something to force her?
God dammit!
“What makes you think she’s telling the truth?” I ask, keeping my voice calm and controlled. It’s a struggle, but when I’m talking to someone who might hold the key to what I need, I can be partially obedient.
Louisa stays quiet for a second. The sound of a door closing over sounds in the background. “She killed my husband in front of me. That was all the proof I needed.”
The first smirk I’ve had since this whole ordeal graces my face, and I bet it could rival them all.
My fucking girl.
She’s fighting.
“I would offer condolences, but you reap what you sow, Louisa. Karma always comes back to bite you in the ass. Yours just happens to be in the form of Indie.”
“My sister—”
I bark a laugh. “Some fucking audacity still addressing her as family. You mean nothing to her. I’m sure she’s already told you that by now.”
My jaw grinds, and I place the cell on the desk in front of me, before I crack it and lose all my communication with her.
Dawson arrives right on time, laptop in hand with Regina by his side. He slides a cable into my phone on the desk, taking a seat, and he quietly taps on the laptop keys.
Louisa scoffs down the phone. “Please. If you think I’m beside myself over that comment, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Regina flinches, glaring down at the phone, and then to me. She’s only heard of what we’ve told her about Louisa. Now, she’s getting a front-row seat to her true evilness.
I shake my head, pressing a finger against my lips.
I don’t know what fucking sorcery Dawson needs to pull, but the longer I keep her on the line, the better our chances are for confirming where Louisa is, and if she’s with Indie.
Cracking my knuckles, I watch him as he gets to work. “Underestimating your sister will be the biggest mistake any of you ever make. You should be fearing for your fucking life. I’m sure she took it easy on Barry.”
Louisa clears her throat. “Killing people when she’s in our holding doesn’t help her case, Saint. I can’t control what will happen to her if she keeps it up.”
Dawson snaps his eyes up at me, and the same thought passes between us. “So you’re with her?”
There’s a pause.
“I know where she is. I’m the one who spoke to her before she decided to act like an animal.”
My laugh is nothing short of evil. “Bet that was a real eye opener for you. Two siblings working against each other.”
“I don’t have time for your games, Saint.”
My hands slap the wooden desk at either side of the phone, rattling it and the laptop. “Well I do, Louisa. And you’re right, it is my fucking game you’re playing. You tell me where she is, and I might lessen the need to peel you out of your fucking skin and keep it as a trophy.”
Louisa laughs, but it’s weak.
I know I’ve got her.
“Threats won’t serve you well either,” she sneers.
“And why is that?”
She clears her throat, a crackle breaking through the speaker, and then her voice drops tauntingly low. “I think you know.”
My lids flutter closed.
The red mist soars behind my eyes. “You vicious little bitch. If you lay a single fucking hand on her.”
I can’t fucking believe I told Indie her sister might have been a product of Barry’s environment, that he had her under his control. This snake is shedding its skin in record time.
“It’s not me you need to worry about, Saint. I left Indie over an hour ago—”
I cut her off, dropping my voice to a dangerous level. “You knew, didn’t you?”
I need to distract her from her fumble. She said she left Indie an hour ago, meaning she’s held somewhere on land.
I’m met with a staggered silence before she answers, “Knew what?”
My gaze lifts to Regina, and then Dawson. If Indie was here, she’d beat my ass for potentially triggering Regina. But this parasite is in need of a few home truths. “You knew Conrad raped your sister. Yet, you still worked for him. Why?”
I don’t have siblings, and regardless, if I did…If I had the knowledge that they’d been sexually assaulted, harmed in any way…Me going on with my life as if nothing happened, going as far as conversing with them…There would be no amount of good deeds that would repent for that kind of sin.
When she doesn’t answer, I charge on, Dawson grabbing a pen and paper when I eye him, and then to what I need him to grab in front of my own computer.
“I met one of your other board members, lackeys, whatever you want to call them. Ah fuck, what’s his name again… Slimy bastard, high up in the police?”
Louisa’s voice is quiet, almost child-like. “Craig.”
“That’s it, Craig Patterson. He had something interesting to say when he was struggling to hold his kneecaps together by the holes in his hands.
Said Indie would have joined your society.
I didn’t catch the rest as, well, the selfish prick basically passed out on me, then I got bored and put a bullet in his head. Care to fill in the blanks?”
She still doesn’t answer.
This vow of silence she’s decided to take is gnawing on the lid of my fury.
“How about this,” I say. “You tell your handler I’ll bring myself in willingly, won’t even put up a fight, if you tell me what he meant by that, along with you giving me evidence Indie hasn’t come to any harm whatsoever.”
I don’t want a hair out of place, not even signs that a tear has fallen from her eyes.
Guess I’m setting them up for failure before they’ve even started.
Too bad that’s how I make my rules.
Only I win.
Louisa stutters, “I-I have no idea what he was talking about.”
The gravelly growl that rumbles in my throat has my knuckles turning white beside the phone. “Yes, you fucking do.”
There’s a sound of scuffling on the other end of the phone, broken voices as if someone’s taken the phone off her. And when his voice bleeds through my eardrums, blood seeps out the splits of my cracked fists.
Conrad spits his venom down the line. “You listen to me, Saint. You get yourself to the manor and see me. Alone. I’ll make sure this cargo with Indie on it turns around.
You have five hours. Each hour that goes by?
” He laughs. “Well, let’s just say I can’t promise anything, but I’ll be sure to send you the evidence of our little trip—”
“I can’t wait to get my fucking hands on you, Conrad.”
His manic laugh is all I’m left with when he abruptly ends the call, and I reach for it to throw it against the wall when Dawson snatches it before causing destruction. “No. Keep your head. They’re taunting you, and they’ll keep doing it. You know she isn’t on a fucking boat.”
My fisted hands press against each other, and I bring them to my lips whilst I vibrate with a fury I’ve never felt possible.
It’s soared over the heat from earlier, fuck, it’s worse than when I found him abusing her.
I scramble to pack it all together, invisible hands reaching for each burning particle that’s firing off me, sealing it in an iron box, padlocking it deep in my mind.
When I see any of those fuckers, that’s when I’ll let my rage run rampage, taking each and every one of them out as it scorches the ground beneath their feet.
Dawson slaps the laptop screen down, taking the cable from my cell. “They’re exactly where you thought they’d be, there in the home of the coast.”
I knew it, I fucking knew it.
They want me at the manor as a fucking decoy.
He’s given us a five-hour deadline, because he thinks we’ll be rushing there.
The coastal house. We could make it in two and a half if we speed.
And I’m in the mood for breaking limits and bones.
As I follow them both outside and into the bitter night, I lean against my SUV, watching the pockets of vehicles split up and disappear, swallowed by the darkness of the forest as they breach the gate. The red headlights shrink until they’re no longer visible.
I grab the cigarette from behind my ear, finally lighting it, and watch the smoke mix with the icy air. Each inhale of the toxic fumes does nothing to take the edge off my nerves, and when I close my eyes, all I see is her.
Her curious little hand held out for me to pass the smoke over.
That image of her curled up on my side after six years.
The feel of her in my hold when we watched the stars on her roof before this life wrecked her.
Fuck.
I can’t.
My mind can’t wander as if those are fading memories.
I will get her back.
I’ll hand over my life for hers. I’ll give it all up, just to let her be free from all this.
My phone vibrates against my thigh as I open the car door, and I dig it out to read a text.
Each line my eyes trace makes my brows knit further together.