Thirty-Six
Sam tightened her hands on the wheel of the Caprice. Her palms were slicked over with sweat and it was a miracle she’d been able to steer at all. As she braked at the gate, she scrubbed her fingers furiously down the short length of her skirt, releasing a deep, tense breath through her teeth.
“You’re gonna have to calm down,” Jasmine said in the passenger seat, but her voice trembled.
Sam glanced over and saw the woman had her hands knotted together in her lap, eyes white-rimmed and liquid in the dash lights. “That was convincing,” Sam said with a snort. Apparently, the nerves were making her snappish.
“Well, I’m not an actress,” Jasmine defended.
Sam snorted. “I’m a damn professor.”
They shared a moment of doomed silence.
“We’re gonna blow this,” Jasmine said.
“No we’re not. Hush,” Sam said. She couldn’t contemplate failure because she held the superstitious belief that doing so would then cause failure. And not to be melodramatic, but failure wasn’t an option in this scenario. Sometimes, old idioms were true.
Sam took one last deep breath and said, “Here we go. You ready?”
Jasmine echoed her shivery exhale. “Yeah.”
Sam buzzed her window down, leaned out, and pressed the call button on the intercom box.
“Yeah?” a heavy male voice asked from the speaker.
Sam marshalled her meager acting skills and put on her best flirty girl voice. “Your entertainment for the night’s here, baby.” She cringed inwardly, but pasted a wide smile to her face in case the camera could see her.
“Yeah?” the voice repeated, this time with considerably more interest. “You must be new. What’s your name, baby girl?”
Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. “Uh…Honey,” she said, scrambling. “And my friend…” Shit, Jazz already had sort of a hooker name. “Lavender,” she said, and then closed her eyes, bit her lip in total shame and regret.
“Lavender?” Jazz hissed.
But the guy on the intercom laughed. “Honey and Lavender, huh? Come on in, ladies. We’ve been waiting.”
There was an electronic droning sound and then the gate unlocked with a loud clang ahead of them, slowly slid back on its wheels.
Sam rolled the window up. “Sorry.” She glanced over at Jazz and took another of oh-so-many deep breaths. “Alright, Lavender, you ready?”
Jazz shook her head, but said, “Yeah, let’s go get our boy.”
The driveway was wide, but flanked by stone walls crawling with ivy. Sam felt them closing in as their headlights skimmed a path down to the house; felt the gate closing behind them, sealing them off from the world. Fox had bragged about being able to scale the wrought iron fence around this place, and maybe he could, if what Aidan had said of the Englishman was true – but no way was she going to be able to climb over, should things go south. Especially not in these damn stilettos.
The driveway ended in a circle around a multi-tiered fountain at the front of the mansion. A mansion that was tastefully illuminated with landscape lighting and carriage sconces on either side of the massive double doors at the top of a steep stone staircase.
“Jesus,” Jasmine said as they parked behind an Escalade. “Beauty and the fucking Beast around here.”
“Us being the beauties, I take it,” Sam said, grimly. “You’ve got your gun?”
“Yep.”
Last chance to turn back, a small voice whispered in her head. She whispered back, Not a chance. And climbed out of the car.
Her heels clipped across the stone pavers and though she shivered in the cold, she didn’t pull the halves of her jacket together. If it could even be called a jacket. Aidan and Carter in tow to ensure “authenticity,” she and Jasmine had pawed through the Goodwill racks in search of proper call girl getups. Sam had finally settled on a clinging black minidress with a faux fur duster over top. She’d found spike-heeled boots and costume chandelier earrings. She’d troweled on the eye makeup and doused herself in perfume.
Jasmine, she had a feeling, had pulled her own skirt and top from her personal closet, and hadn’t needed to go shopping at all. Whatever. Not judging.
The red blinking eyes of cameras followed their ascent to the top of the stairs. The door opened before they could knock, Sam’s freshly manicured hand hovering above the panel.
The man who awaited them was nearly as broad as he was tall, his head shaved, his features small and piggish.
Sam swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “Hey there.”
Jasmine, more practiced, popped a hip and gave him a slow grin. “Howdy.”
He looked between them, inspecting them bottom to top, from heels to hair styles. He grinned and stepped back. “Come in.”
~*~
“Where the hell is Ian?” Aidan hissed under his breath. “He said he was going in with us.”
“This is why we shoulda made that tosser ride with us,” Fox said. “If he doesn’t show, we move in without him. He’d only get in the way, besides.”
“Would I?” the man’s accent floated out of the darkness, and Aidan jumped. Inwardly. At least, he hoped it was only inward.
A thin shadow stepped out of the trees and moved toward them, seeming like nothing more than a trick of the imagination. Then a face suddenly appeared; Ian was drawing his ski mask up, revealing the narrow white jaw and high British cheekbones that made him look feminine in daylight…downright ghoulish now.
“Jesus,” Carter said. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to know that most of the manpower is currently housed in the outbuildings. They’ll come running to the main house once someone sounds the alarm, but it should be easy enough getting in, at first.”
Fox snorted.
“You armed?” Aidan asked.
“Of course.” Ian almost sounded offended. “You just worry about you, darling. I’ve got myself all covered.”
~*~
Something Aidan had told her cycled through her head as she crossed the threshold: Pay attention. Be aware. Keep your head on a swivel and don’t get so spooked you don’t pay attention to what’s around you. She latched onto those words, remembered the earnest look in his eyes, and did her best to block out her terror.
A stone-floored entrance hall flanked by mirrors. Open floorplan feeding into a massive formal sitting room. White furniture, roaring fire in the marble fireplace. She counted three other men, lounging on the white leather, drinks in hand. They all perked up as she and Jazz entered. The light in their eyes was nothing like the bright spark of interest she got from Aidan; it was flat and mindless with lust. A dozen mental pictures flicked through her mind, nightmares, all of them.
She had to focus.
Several case openings allowed an exit from the sitting room. One led down a hallway, she could tell, another fed into what looked like a dining room, a long glass table reflecting orbs of light from the overhead fixtures.
To the right, an opening led into a slate-floored sunroom. No doors, only windows. But through the sunroom was a restroom…right across from the mud room. And there was an exterior door there, if Fox’s recon work had been accurate. That was her goal: the mud room door. She had no idea how the boys were going to get across the lawn without being seen, but she didn’t have to know. All she had to do was get to that door.
Without being raped first.
No big.
Beside her, Jasmine stepped boldly forward, her walk a rolling, hip-popping gait that dripped pure sex. The woman cast a fast look over her shoulder at Sam, her blue eyes intense, frightening. She nodded, ever so slightly. She was going to be the distraction, she’d decided, while Sam went for the door. Putting herself in the line of fire.
Sam wanted to hug her. Instead, she nodded back.
Jazz put on a bright smile and said, “So fellas, I’ve just been awful lonely, and I’m wondering if a couple of you might wanna keep me company.” She strode into the center of the room and posed like a showpiece.
Sam spun to face the man who’d let them in the house. Her fake sultry smile hurt her face, the muscles around her mouth not used to that sort of expression. “One quick thing,” she said, trying to bat her lashes at him. “Can I use the restroom real quick?” When he frowned, she scrambled to improvise. “You see, I was a little…overexcited about coming to meet you boys tonight” – oh barf – “and I had a little teensy sip of vodka to settle my nerves” – she was talking like her sister, which meant she was going to have a serious discussion with Erin about life choices in the near future– “and now I, well, you know.” She forced a high pitched giggle. “Let me just nip in and out and I’ll be all ready for you guys.” Oh, major fucking barf.
But he bought it.
“Sure, yeah.” His eyes raked over her, lingering on her cleavage. “Right through there.”
Worried for Jasmine, she skirted around the corner, the casement, and into the sunroom. The room was cold and dark, the windows gleaming with moonlight. Beyond, she could already see a fresh blanket of white frost across the grass.
She searched through the glass as she walked, looking for signs of approaching bikers. They’d be in all black, and so she saw nothing, and kept moving. Clip-clip-clip across the slate.
The mud room stank of old cigar smoke, and on the bench beneath the hanging jackets, she spotted lots of empty cups and beer bottles, a few crushed-out cigarette butts. This must be where the goons came to smoke and piss out into the bushes.
The door had a large glass pane in its center, but an impressive sequence of locks. Locks designed to keep people out. She was able to throw all of them from the inside with a release of a chain and a turn of a few bolts.
Her hand was on the knob when a ghostly face appeared on the other side of the glass.
She stifled a scream and recognized Aidan.
He pressed a gloved hand to the pane and spoke through it. “Check for an alarm.” With his other hand, he pointed upward. He was nothing save a face, all the rest of him black-wrapped.
Heart thundering, she glanced up and saw two plastic rectangles: the sensor and its mated half. Shit.
“There is one,” she said. “What should I do?”
Three more dark shapes crowded in behind him: Carter, Ian, and Fox. He shook his head. “You’re gonna have to trip it, and we’re gonna have to move fast.”
Fox’s voice floated through the door. “It’ll only be the motion detector, love, but they’ll hear it.”
Right. So. Move fast.
She twisted the knob and yanked the door open, a blast of frigid air pouring in around the boys as they hustled past her into the house. As predicted, the motion detector gave an electronic chime of alert, but no major alarms went off.
“Where’s Jazz?” Carter asked.
“Down the hall, in the sitting room. She was distracting them.”
He growled something unintelligible.
Sam glanced out the open door, the cold air stinging her face, and thought she might be sick as she thought about fleeing. That was the plan, sure, but the idea of running away as Aidan was running in, saving herself, when –
His hands locked on her wrists and he turned her to face him, his dark eyes shining in the moonlight. “Sam,” he said, like he knew what she’d been thinking. “Go. Like we talked about. Go now.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered. “But I know. I’m going.” Her eyes stung. “God, Aidan, be careful. Please.”
“I will.” He kissed her, then shoved her out the door.
She went three steps before she realized the shoes had to go. She stepped out of them, snatched them up, and fled, light-footed across the grass, gritting her teeth against the cold sting of the frost against her bare soles.
They had talked this moment to death, and now she was glad for it. Most of Ellison’s property was crowded with trees, but a single wedge of lawn provided access to the pool, pool house, guest cottage, and a section of fence that wasn’t crawling with ivy. The cameras would catch her, undoubtedly, but with the boys inside making a big commotion, what kind of threat was she?
Still. Fast applied here too.
She sprinted, sucking cold air down into her lungs, her coat flapping wildly around her like a cape. Despite the landscape lighting at the foot of each building, and around the pool, this patch of grass was dark, and her imagination conjured countless terrors.
Lights came on in the guest house.
She kept running.
“Hey!” someone shouted.
She kept running.
The fence reared up, closer than she’d thought, and she found the place where Fox had blow-torched a gap. She turned sideways, leapt through it, and landed with a gasp in the leaf litter of the woods beyond.
She was off the property.
But that didn’t mean she was safe.
Sam scrambled to her feet, dragged in a deep breath…
And was promptly lifted right off her feet, a pair of arms like steel bands closing around her and swinging her up off the ground.
Before she could scream, a warm, familiar voice spoke in her ear. “Hey, it’s me.”
Mercy.
“Jesus,” she hissed, and he set her down. She whirled to face him, so relieved, so thankful, so pissed off that he’d scared her like that.
Ava’s husband loomed colossal above her, another man beside him nearly as tall. His brother, Colin, had to be. It was dark, but the moon glimmered down the steel handles of the sledgehammers they carried.
“Aidan and the guys inside?” Mercy asked.
“I just left him,” she said, nodding, trying to catch her breath. A runner she was not. She clutched at her side. “Ava told you?”
“Yeah.”
“My God, I’m glad to see you guys.”
Fast gleam of white as he grinned. “And we brought the whole crew.”
That was when she heard the crunching of footfalls in the leaves. Lots of footfalls.
Mercy turned and pointed up the hill with his hammer. “Sam, run up there. Littlejohn’s waiting at the top of the rise. Stay with him, and if shit goes too south, y’all run like hell for the truck, okay?”
“Be safe,” she countered, “okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, chuckling darkly.
She ran up the hill to Littlejohn.
~*~
There was a hallway, Greg had told them, that ran a wide loop around the first floor of the mansion. The door to the basement was on the far side from the sunroom, beside the entrance to the kitchen. The door looked like it opened into a closet, he’d said, but if you walked all the way in, you found the inner door. It required a key card to gain access – a card Greg himself hadn’t been in possession of. Which meant they were going to have to snag a card off one of Ellison’s men.
The least of their worries considering they couldn’t go any deeper into the house without revealing themselves. Better to go in guns blazing than risk starting a firefight.
They paused in the sunroom, and Fox’s blue eyes gleamed with a preternatural light in the incoming fall of moonglow. He looked at each of them in turn.
“No hesitating,” he whispered. “You kill, and you kill quick. I don’t wanna see no shots in the legs or arms, yeah? Center of mass, or in the head, boyos. Let’s get this done.”
Aidan pulled in a deep breath, held it…and felt something dark and sinister lock into place inside him. Every house raid he’d ever conducted had been accompanied by shakes, chills, quick bursts of nausea.
Not this time. In this moment, a solid ball of hate coalesced in his belly. His hands were steady as he double-checked the silencer on his gun one last time. “Yeah,” he told Fox. “We’re ready.” He had no doubts about his performance, no matter what was about to unfold.
Killing made him sick? Was watching the people he loved put in the crosshairs somehow less sickening?
No. Not at all.
Fox pulled at the Velcro straps of his vest and nodded. “Okay. Move.”
With quick, fleet-footed steps like police ghosting up to a scene, they slid through the sunroom and out into a lounge area tricked out in white on white, a fire crackling. There were four men, and all of them were greatly distracted by Jasmine, who stood in the center of the room, her jacket in a puddle at her feet, as she reached to untie the neck of her halter top.
She heard them come in – a little twitch of her shoulders to show she was startled – but she didn’t turn toward them, didn’t betray them. Good girl.
Aidan was on the left, so he aimed at the man on the far left, and dropped him with one shot.
Low gasps of sound, as the silencers did their work.
One of the men managed to turn toward them, eyes wide with shock, but Fox put him down before he could reach for his own weapon.
Jasmine snatched up her jacket and rushed toward them, her expression wild with fright. “God.”
“Go.” Carter caught her quickly around the waist, kissed her forehead, and shoved her toward the sunroom. “Follow Sam, go!” he hissed, and she went, high heels louder than their gunfire had been.
“Kitchen,” Fox said, striding across the room. “I see it.” He leaned toward one of the fallen bodies without breaking stride and swiped the ID card from his jacket pocket.
As they walked, Aidan registered a loud thump from the floor above them. “We’re gonna have company in a minute.”
“Then hurry.”
Greg – bless his stupid, mildly-evil dead heart – had told them the truth. They found the closet, and the door within it. Fox slid the card through, and the lock flashed a green light and beeped. Disengaged.
“Thank fuck,” Carter muttered.
The door swung inward, and cold, damp air rushed toward them. A steep set of concrete stairs led downward, bare bulbs in cages providing overhead illumination.
“Shit, it’s like out of a movie,” Fox muttered.
Before they could head down, Aidan heard the sounds of pursuit: thundering footsteps, alarmed shouts. The bodies had been found, obviously.
Aidan started to turn back the way they’d come, and Fox laid a hand on his shoulder. “Go get your mate.” His face was absolute granite. “I’ve got this.”
“Charlie–” Aidan started.
“Go!”
Shit…but he couldn’t argue. “You heard him,” Ian snapped, and he plunged down the stairs, the other two chasing at his heels.
They encountered a man halfway down, another black-dressed goon. “What the–”
Aidan shot him in the face, felt the hot splash of blood on his own. The man fell backward and slid down the stairs, thump-thump-thump, his head sounding like a hollow melon as it struck each tread.
He slumped at a sick angle when they hit the bottom. Aidan leapt over him, and found himself in the middle of a nightmare.
Cells. Like prison cells, with iron bars, overhead tube lights, stainless toilets and rock-hard cots. Three of them, stretched out before him. And in the first…
“Oh shit,” he whispered, surging forward, wrapping his hands around the bars. “Tango? Kev!”
His best friend looked small and frail, crumpled in a heap against the far right wall of his cell. His clothes were filthy and torn, his jeans hanging off his bony hips. His hair lay flat, dingy as straw on top of his head. And his face had been beaten badly…so badly. He would have been unrecognizable if not for the tattoos on his hands, and Aidan’s innate sense that this was one of his favorite people in the world.
Ian came to stand beside him, breath catching audibly. “Oh, Jesus…”
“Kev,” Aidan called again, and that was when he noticed there was someone in the next cell. Someone who was, best as he could tell, resting a tiny hand on Kev’s shoulder, through the bars. “Hey, who are you?” he called. Over his shoulder: “Carter, go back and try to find keys off that asshole I shot.”
“Got it.”
Aidan prowled down to the front of the next cell, and got a look at whoever was touching Kev.
It was a girl, a small, trembling, dark-haired girl who didn’t look like she was out of high school.
Aidan sighed and forced himself to calm. He could hear gunshots overhead, and he was panicking about Fox…but he had to be the good guy here. “Hey,” he said, softly. “Who are you?”
She lifted her chin in defiance, but said nothing.
He heard Carter coming up behind him, the rattle of keys the most beautiful sound in the world. “Sweetheart,” he said, even more gently. “My name’s Aidan, and I’m a Lean Dog, like Kev.” He was betting, given the way she crouched over him, that the two had shared personal details. “He’s my very best friend, and I’m here to take him home.”
“Aidan?” Her expression changed, stark fear bleeding through the defensive mask. “Oh God. Really? He said…” Tears filled her eyes and she pressed her lips together.
“Aidan?” Tango’s croaky, but unmistakable voice asked. “You’re there?”
“I’m here.” He took the keys from Carter and tried one, the next… “I’m here, I’m here.” Ah, that one worked. The door slid back on oiled rollers and Aidan charged into the cell.
Tried to. Ian crowded him, attempted to get in first. Aidan elbowed him roughly. “Stay back, asshole. He doesn’t need your shit right now.”
A long-fingered hand clamped on his arm and he shook it off. “Carter, if that English prick touches me again, shoot him.”
“I’d be glad to. But, dude, you need to hurry.”
He turned back to Tango, moved toward him once more. “We’re here to bust you out.” He’d meant it as a joke, but it fell flat, his smile unable to take hold as he drew close and got a good look at his friend.
“God, what’d they do to you?” he whispered.
Tango forced himself upright, teeth gritted, grunting with pain. Aidan knelt and helped him, arms looping around his ribcage.
Tango’s eyes glittered feverishly through swollen lids, but his gaze was nevertheless steady. “What’s going on?”
“Like I said. This is a rescue mission.”
“The club…?”
“Just me. And the kid. And Fox. You know how he is, crazy like a motherfucking fox, always looking for a good shootout.”
Tango groaned. “You shouldn’t have…gone against wishes…”
“Shut up,” Aidan said, gently. “You didn’t think I’d leave you here, did you? I’m trying to turn gay, remember?”
“So not funny.”
“Right. Come on, can you stand?”
Tango flung an arm across his shoulders, but his eyes snapped wide – as wide as was possible, given the swelling. “Whitney,” he gasped.
Aidan darted a glance to the girl, saw her staring at them with her lip caught between her teeth. “Is that you?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“I’m not leaving without her,” Tango said. “You get her out too, or you leave me here.”
“Leave the little bint,” Ian said, sharply.
Aidan frowned, but he wasn’t about to squabble over something as minor as one little chick. He jerked his head to Carter. “Get her.”
Then he took a firm hold of Tango. “We’re gonna stand up, alright?”
Tango nodded, and he tightened up in Aidan’s arms.
“One…two…three…”
Tango let out a strangled sound, but he managed to lock his knees and keep his feet.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Like hell, but there was no choice. Aidan began walking them slowly toward the door, knowing it was too slow, teeth grinding in anxiety. How were they ever going to flee like this? How could he get Tango through the hole in the fence? Up the hill? Shit, Carter would have to help carry him. That was if Fox wasn’t already dead and could provide cover.
Ian came around to Tango’s other side, drew the guy’s arm across his shoulder. When Aidan saw his expression, the absolute devastation of it, he felt a little guilty for what he’d said before. Ian Byron was a lot of things, but his feelings were genuine. This was as difficult for him as it was for any of them.
Carter had gotten the girl – Whitney’s – cell open and she rushed now toward Tango, face creased with worry.
“Oh, he’s hurt so bad,” she said, voice choked with tears. “He’ll be fine,” Aidan said, thinking that was probably a lie. But he didn’t have time for truths. “Lead the way up,” he said to Carter. “Let’s see if our fox is still alive up there.”
It was a long, slow, painful trip up the stairs. Tango cursed and muttered, but he managed to make his feet cooperate. Ian pulled his weight – or Tango’s weight, as it were. When this was over, Aidan decided he owed the guy a thank you.
“One foot after the next,” the Englishman whispered to Tango. “That’s it, darling. Not much farther.”
They were two steps down from the top when Carter, ahead of them, said, “Oh my fucking God.”
A few lurching strides later, and Aidan was at the threshold.
“Shit,” he muttered. Because there were simply no other words.
The hallway was littered with bodies. All of them Ellison’s men. Fox stood, polishing the barrel of his gun on the hem of his shirt, expression almost bored.
“Fox,” Aidan said, stunned. “You’re not dead.”
“Dead?” the Englishman scoffed. “You thought I couldn’t handle this?”
“How many people did you just kill?” Carter asked.
“Eleven? Twelve? Dunno, you ladies ready?”
“Uh…yeah,” Aidan said.
The most dangerous man you’ll ever meet, Candy always described him. Clearly, that wasn’t an exaggeration.
“You okay?” Aidan asked in an undertone as Fox and Carter led them back down the hall.
Tango, shuffling and struggling to keep up, letting Aidan and Ian carry his weight, said, “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Jesus Christ, no he wasn’t.
“It’s okay,” Whitney soothed. “We’re leaving. It’s all over now.”
Aidan pushed all his questions aside in the interest of expediency; but when they got out, he was going to have some things to ask Miss Whitney.
They reached the sitting room after what felt like ten years.
Fox turned around and gave them an assessing glance. “Can he move any faster than that?”
“Probably not,” Aidan said through his teeth.
“We–” Fox started.
A man appeared in the sitting room, standing upright and holding an AK.
“Shit,” Aidan said, scrambling for his own gun.
Another man appeared, then another, then…
It was Ghost, and Walsh, and Mercy, and Candy, and Colin.
Holy…
“Kev,” Ghost said, voice booming, heavy with emotion. “You okay, son?”
“Yeah,” Tango lied.
“Is that…?”
“It’s me,” Ian said. “Wonderful to see you too, Mr. Teague,” he said in a mocking tone.
“Aidan?” Ghost asked.
“We’re good, Dad.”
“Good,” the president said. “’Cause we got hostiles pouring in. We’re gonna have to shoot our way out, boys. Guns at the ready.”
Mercy hefted his sledgehammer over his shoulder. “Bring ‘em on,” he said, grinning. “I need the exercise.”
Aidan swallowed, and realized there was a lump in his throat.
His father walked toward them.
“Dad–”
“Mags told me,” Ghost said, voice going soft as he stepped forward and closed in on them. He wore a ski cap, flak vest, and carried not only the AK but a sidearm as well, his body strapped with more weapons and magazines, in full-on soldier mode. He offered a lopsided smile full of emotion. “You didn’t think I’d come help my boys?”
Okay, not a good time to get emotional.
Ghost reached out and put one hand on Aidan’s shoulder, the other on Tango’s. “Let’s go home,” he whispered. Then, to Aidan, “You ready to kill some motherfuckers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He turned around, hands still in place, shouting toward the Lécuyer brothers. “Boys, you clear them a path, okay? We gotta get Kev away. And Mercy” – he grinned hugely – “don’t show any mercy, okay?”
“No, sir!” Mercy said, laughing. To Aidan: “Come on, brother. We got your back.”
~*~
It was frigid outside, and Aidan wished they’d thought to bring clothes for Tango. Not that there was time to worry about it. Whoever lived in the pool house had called in reinforcements and there were men streaming onto the property, firing wild into the night.
Aidan ducked his head low, tightened his grip on Tango, and followed his brother-in-law.
Mercy had his sledge in one hand, gun in the other, firing off shots as he led them…using the hammer when someone broke through the line and got too close.
One goon managed to break loose and set upon them. Mercy swung a wide arc and caved the bastard’s head in with the hammer, one deadly stroke from his massive arm.
“Oh,” Whitney said in front of them.
“Don’t look,” Aidan told her. “Just keep going.”
Colin was no slouch. He clipped a guy in the shoulder with his own hammer and then finished him off with a round from his .45.
And then suddenly they were at the fence, the hole Fox had cut, and they were awkwardly pushing Tango through it.
“Go, go!” Colin shouted.
Aidan turned back and saw the two brothers fending off a pair of guards. “Merc,” he called.
“Take Kev,” the big man said. “Let my brother and me handle this.”
So they went. Aidan half-carried, half-dragged a semi-conscious Tango up the leaf-strewn hill, Ian and Whitney helping, the most unlikely duo of accomplices ever.
Gunshots echoed behind him. Shouts. The sharp crackle of fire.
And then the sweetest sound reached his ears.
“Aidan?” Sam’s voice called. “Aidan, baby, oh…”
They were at the hill. Littlejohn. Jazz. The waiting escape vehicles. And Sam. His gorgeous Sam.
“Baby,” she said, coming to him, touching his face and filling his field of vision with her perfect expression of concern. “God,” she said. And then she turned to Tango. “Kev, Jesus…”
Aidan tipped his head back, felt the hard press of his best friend’s arm across his shoulder, felt the cold prickle of icy air in his lungs, saw the stars reeling overhead as he fought to catch his balance.
“Thank you,” he said, not knowing who he was talking to. God, maybe. “Thank you. Thank God.”
~*~
“Well hell, it got stuck,” Mercy said, sounding incredulous. As Ghost watched, he braced a foot on the fallen henchman’s shoulder and gave the sledge a good yank; the hammer head came loose of the caved-in skull with a sticky sound.
Ghost’s stomach grabbed, but he smiled, too, turning away from his son-in-law to survey what was left of Ellison’s top of the line kitchen. Four dead here, and many more beyond, out on the lawn, by the pool, in other rooms.
Men had come pouring out of the pool and guest houses, when they realized what was going on, guns at the ready. At one point, two SUVs had pulled up out front with reinforcements, but the effort was wasted. The Lean Dogs mowed them all down.
The kitchen looked like a war zone now, smashed up by the hammers, sprayed with blood like an impressionist painter’s canvas.
“I think that’s the last of them,” Mercy said, coming around the wide marble island to join him.
Colin was breathing hard through his mouth, chest heaving – whether from exertion or disgust, Ghost didn’t know. He looked a little green and dazed as he gazed around at the carnage.
“Col, you alright?” Ghost asked, sharply.
The guy nodded, swallowed, and shook his head. “Yeah. Fine.”
Mercy rolled his eyes, but a little smile lurked at the corners of his lips. Proud big brother moment? Maybe.
Ghost unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Walsh, what’s the status upstairs?”
“Secure,” the VP answered. “But we got one live one, and he wants to talk to you.”
He sighed. “Yeah. On my way.” He gestured to Mercy as he left the room. “You two round up the others and start cleaning house. I want this place smoking in ten minutes, no more.”
A solid “yes, sir” from both of them.
As he crossed through the sitting room and hit the curved marble staircase – Harry falling into step behind him as sentry – he made a mental note to never decorate his evil bad guy lair in white. There was red everywhere. The copper tang of blood burned in his nose as he took a deep breath and climbed.
The upstairs was laid out like a hotel hallway, thick carpeting, potted plants, little window nooks that overlooked the grounds. Walsh waited for him in the open doorway of a bedroom that turned out to be an office. The man who wanted an audience was trussed up like a turkey on the rug in front of the desk, Fox’s gun trained on him. He was a plain-featured man, nothing distinct about him at all, not the slight build, nor the indistinct nose, nor the flat brown eyes.
Everyone else they’d killed tonight had been either a thug or a slack-jawed lackey kid. But this man was different.
‘Lemme guess,” Ghost said, “Bill?”
The man nodded and tipped his head back, revealing a trickle of blood on his chin, evidence of a split lip.
“Which one of my boys hit you?”
Bill darted a glance toward Fox.
“Hit him again, Foxy.”
Fox obliged, stepping behind him and kicking him in the kidneys. A hard kick, and from a motorcycle boot no less.
Bill grunted and arched away from the pain, breathing heavily through his nose. But he didn’t scream. When he’d subsided onto the carpet, Ghost crouched down in front of him.
“What’d you want to talk to me about?”
When the man opened his mouth, a loud gasp escaped his lips. He drew in a ragged breath and said, “Ellison knows this is happening. He’s been alerted.”
“Right. Right. Where is he, then? Was that the best he’s got? The idiots he sent? The ones my crew painted across the walls?”
Bill closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
“You weren’t hoping to bargain for your life, were you, Bill?”
No answer, which meant yes.
“Tell me: when you were hurting my boy, did you get off on that? Did it give you pleasure to make him scream?”
Bill’s eyes came to his face, and something was glittering through the flat professional façade. Fear. Desperation. “I was doing my job. Don’t pretend you don’t know how it works.”
“Oh, I won’t. I got a guy downstairs with your job. And I know he likes it, the big sick fuck.” Ghost pulled his gun off his hip. “Just like I know I’m gonna enjoy this.”
He stood, and put a round through Bill the Torturer’s head.
“Rottie,” he said into his radio. “We got one more up here, then have the guys bring the kerosene in.”
“Got it,” the tracker said back.
He looked at the two English brothers before him. “I want every computer in his house. Every flash drive you can find.”
“Yeah,” Walsh said.
~*~
“You know,” Mercy said as he dragged one of the corpses across the tiled poolside toward the house, “that’s what sucks about being the big ones. You gotta do all the heavy lifting.”
Colin grunted beside him, equally burdened. “Yeah, that damn Fox. Little bastard,” he said, dryly. “Never has to do the dirty work.”
Mercy laughed. Both of them had been shocked and delighted by the destruction Walsh’s little brother had wrought before their arrival. You didn’t mess with Charlie Fox. You just didn’t.
They reached the door that led into the kitchen and paused to catch their breath. Mercy reached for the door handle and glanced over at his brother. He was tired, sure, like all of them, but he was holding up alright. And he’d thrown his whole weight into the swing of the hammer, when they’d entered the fray.
“Hey,” Mercy said, and the seriousness of his voice drew Colin’s gaze. “You did good tonight. I’m proud of you.”
Colin’s grin was more of a grimace. “Oh, you’re proud?”
Mercy shrugged. “That’s what big brothers do.” Before Colin could respond, he opened the door and said, “Come on. We gotta build this funeral pyre.”
~*~
They laid Kev out in the backseat of one of the trucks. By the time they’d settled him and covered him up with jackets, he’d passed out.
“Better for him to sleep,” Sam said, easing the truck door shut. “He probably ought to be drugged, truth be told.”
Aidan shook his head. “He doesn’t like to take anything like that. He used to be a heroin junkie.”
Sam looked at him, gleam of her eyes in the shadows evidencing surprise.
“He was?” Whitney asked. She was crouched on the ground beside the rear tire, leaning back against it, small and curled up like some kind of woodland creature.
“Yeah,” Aidan said, and then he did what he’d needed to do since all of this had started. He snatched Sam into his arms and crushed her against his chest, face buried in the loose pale waves of her hair. “Sam. Jesus.”
She hugged him back, her arms tight around his neck. She shivered.
The wind stirred around them, rustling leaves, tugging at their clothes. Jazz was sobbing quietly somewhere behind them, Carter murmuring to her. It was the adrenaline bleeding out, Aidan knew. He wanted to sob himself; but his eyes were dry, and his breathing came easy as he held his girl and inhaled the sweet floral scent of her shampoo.
“You told Ava,” he said after a while, pulling back a little.
It was hard to tell, but it looked like she blushed. There was no mistaking the firm tone of her voice, though. “It was the right thing to do. We needed backup.”
“We did?” He grinned.
“Yeah. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Kev was taken because of some decision your dad made. Your dad’s mess, not yours. You’re learning to clean up yours,” she added, softly, “it’s time he learned the same thing.”
No one had ever put it to him like that before. He kissed her, on impulse, because she was too right and too perfect, in that moment, dressed like a hooker in the woods.
A sound startled him, a sudden whoomp and a rush, like steam escaping a tight pot lid. An explosion, he realized.
He turned to look back down the hill, Sam clasped tight to his side. They’d set the house on fire. It was still contained inside, but he saw the bright tongues leap in the first floor windows.
He also saw his club, all his brothers, dark shapes walking across the lawn, moving toward them. He thought he could pick them out through general size and shape, but really he couldn’t. They were all the same, from this vantage point. Just his brothers. His family.