Chapter Twenty-Seven
R oughly an hour later, the teams of Genesis and Erebus converged on Jimmy Lincoln’s home.
It was daylight. And even though they preferred to work in the dark, they could do just as well and even better in the light of day. Yet, under the cover of darkness, jobs did come out much cleaner.
Crow went over the same wall he’d taken Angel and Rebel over. He snipped through the patched-up job they’d done on the barbed wire and leaped up to the edge. He checked the path below before dipping over the side.
When he landed, the impact sent pain jarring into his arm, but he shook it off.
He had been wounded much worse than the little scratch on his arm. Now, if he could get his head to stop aching and the nausea to subside, he’d be golden.
Wrath and Rogue moved, each right after the other over the wall, landing lightly.
“We’ll take the East side,” Wrath said and moved off with Rogue to disappear down the far side of the mansion.
Stone had stayed with the fully equipped SUV he’d driven down from Santa Barbara. It was parked a bit down the road.
Rip was on Crow’s six as he moved down the cobblestone pathway toward the back of the house.
And Winter? Who the fuck knew? Crow sure didn’t. When the SUV had parked, Winter told them that the cleaners found a silver bracelet.
“That’s Rebel’s,” Crow had said.
“It had a tracker in it,” Winter said. “That’s how they found your hotel.”
Well, fuck. Crow grimaced.
Winter disappeared out of the SUV, moving as quickly as liquid silver. The assassin blended like vapor into nearby foliage and was gone. Even in the light of day, Crow doubted anyone would see the assassin coming.
Crow stepped over a dead body and figured Winter had come this way.
Rip tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to an open door at the rear of the house. Crow quickened his pace and slipped through the open doorway.
Someone had cleared the entryway, probably Winter, and left three dead bodies. It made getting inside much easier.
Several minutes went by as Crow and Rip cleared the rooms adjacent to the entryway.
“All perps on the West side, bottom floor, have been neutralized,” Winter said via comms.
“We’ve almost got the East side cleared,” Wrath said.
“Copy,” Crow said, pressing the earpiece.
He went straight for the stairs and took them upward two at a time until he reached the second level.
Both he and Rip started checking rooms one by one. And after they cleared the second floor and the top floor, one thing was very apparent, the fucking place was empty.
“What the fuck happened?”
Stone grunted when Real growled the words over the phone.
“Crow killed a shit ton of Lincoln’s men, but they managed to get away with Rebel.”
“Is Crow hurt?”
“A shoulder wound,” Stone said and gazed around the foyer of Jimmy Lincoln’s Hollywood Hills home. “We hit the guy’s house this morning, but neither Rebel nor Lincoln were present.”
“So, he must have another residence,” Real said gruffly. “Put Crow on the phone.”
“He wants to talk to you.” Stone held out the cell phone to Crow.
“Yeah, boss?” Crow put the phone to his ear and walked several paces away.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
“Lincoln has several residences, one of them is not far from your location, but…” Real trailed off.
“He won’t be someplace that we can easily get to him,” Crow finished Real’s sentence.
“Exactly. Did you leave any of them alive?” Real asked.
Crow glanced around at several of Lincoln’s men sitting against one wall next to the pile of dead bodies.
The cleaners were coming, but they needed time since they were on another job across town.
“Yes, plenty alive,” Crow said.
“You know what to do.”
Real ended the call and Crow handed the phone back to Stone.
“What did he say?” Stone said.
“I get to be creative.”
Rip stepped outside while Crow worked.
It would do them no good if someone showed up while they were in the middle of getting information.
Something dark flashed in his peripheral and he squinted as he eased out the silencer tucked into his holster.
The dark figure spider-climbed up the side of a trellis and leaped lightly between the balcony and the upper level of the massive mansion before dipping over the side of the small patio wall.
For a moment, Rip thought that maybe Rebel had gotten away, but when another figure also dressed in all black followed the first, he knew it wasn’t him.
Rip’s heart just about pounded out of his fucking chest.
He knew one of the small figures as surely as he knew his own fucking name.
Tucking his gun away, Rip raced across the distance and climbed up the same trellis. He went over the side of the balcony and ducked inside.
It was fucking daylight. What the hell did Boston—and he was sure the other was Azrael—think they were doing there?
Rip still wore his mask and had half a mind to remove it, but some sixth sense had him dropped low. It was a good damned thing because a knife whizzed past his head. Rip rolled and came up on one knee, his weapon pulled.
The bigger of the two slender figures darted for the door. The smaller one fast on the first one’s heels.
Rip lunged across the distance and caught the smaller one around the waist.
Boston fought, slashing with the knife in his hand. The blade would have nicked Rip’s arm, but his reflexes kicked in. He spun Boston around and took him to the floor, clamping a hand around the wrist holding the blade.
“If you stab me, I’m going to be pissed,” Rip growled behind the mask.
But his voice was enough to stop Boston in his tracks. The boy stilled beneath his bigger body, chest heaving.
Rip tore off his own mask and then Boston’s and glared down into dark chocolate-colored eyes.
When the boy slowly smiled, Rip felt the impact like a punch to the gut.
Nope. Not happening.
A seventeen-year-old assassin was fucking off limits.
He’ll be eighteen in a few months.
Rip crushed that voice and rolled to his feet, yanking Boston upright.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
“The same as you. Trying to find Rebel,” Boston spat, shoving him hard.
Rip stepped a few feet away, glad for the separation.
“You’re not trained.”
“The fuck I’m not!” Boston scowled and marched up, getting in his face. “I have more real-life training in one hand than you have in your whole fucking body.”
The mention of the abuse Boston had suffered made Rip feel sick.
“Go back to Dave’s right the fuck now,” Rip said flatly.
“You’re not my boss,” Boston bit back.
“What’s going on…oh,” Azrael said, returning, but stopped in the doorway.
“What’s going on is you two are going home,” Rip said, glaring at Boston first and then the other.
“Sure thing,” Azrael said and jerked his head to Boston.
“What?” Boston hissed.
“Rebel’s not here anyway.”
Boston looked at Azrael for another minute and then before Rip’s eyes, Boston changed.
The teenager went from argumentative to compliant.
And Rip didn’t fucking trust that at all.
He was left gritting his teeth and clenching his fists when the pair dipped over the balcony and disappeared.
And all he wanted at that very moment was to follow Boston and make sure the boy got home safely.
But he had a job to do.
He didn’t have the time to babysit.
Making his way back to his post, he found Rogue.
“Where’d you go?” Rogue asked.
“To take a leak.”
Rip left it at that. If the boys went back to Dave’s and stayed there, then he wouldn’t need to relay that they’d been there.
If not?
Then he just might shackle Boston.