by Lexi Blake
Rage swamped through him. It took everything he had not to jump on her and finish what he’d started all those years before. But Owen and Tucker needed him. Hell, Sasha needed him. He would beat the holy shit out of Sasha later, but Sasha needed him now.
Emily reached behind her and pulled a small pistol out. “I do. They’ll tell everyone if we leave them alive.”
“No, if we leave them alive, they’ll get us the information we need to buy our freedom,” Dante explained. “I’ve been watching the German. He’s made contact with a few people over the Dark Web and concluded that he knows where the secrets are kept at Kronberg.”
“Why would we give you anything?” Owen asked.
“We won’t,” Sasha snarled. “I won’t give him anything but a bullet.”
“Ah, but our Miss Emily has information that Robert would do anything for,” Dante crooned.
Emily held the gun like she knew what she was doing. “God, I never thought that asshole would be my only bargaining chip.”
“What are you talking about?” He needed to figure out how to get that gun out of Dante’s hand.
“I lied about your brother. He’s alive. So is your mother. McDonald hid all evidence of them, but I know the truth. If you want to ever see them again, you’ll get us the data from Kronberg,” Emily explained.
She was a liar. She was probably lying now, but he needed to get them out of this room. He was fast. He could get to his room and his SIG and be on them again. Ariel and Ezra and Peter had taken the car. What was the plan here? Run through the streets of Munich? This wasn’t a video game where all they had to do was evade the cops until the stars on the screen disappeared.
Levi. That would be Dante’s play. He would find Levi and Levi would give them cover because he wanted that intel, too.
They might be pulling one last heist, but he wasn’t going to give up the data. He wasn’t going to believe his viperous ex-wife.
Not that he would let her know that. “Of course. I want to know where my brother and mother are.”
Tucker looked at him and seemed to understand the play. “Yeah, we’ll get it.”
“I’m going to leave now.” Owen kept his hands up. “I’m not calling anyone or getting a gun. I’m going to find Rebecca. She’s downstairs and I won’t have you shoot her. I’m going to get my girlfriend and you’re going to let me.”
“You’ll stay right where you are,” Dante said.
“I can’t let you run around down there without securing her. If she comes around a corner, you could kill her.” It was obvious Owen was trying to keep his cool.
“Or I can prove to all of you that I mean business.” Dante pulled his hand up and the world seemed to go into slow motion.
Robert heard himself shout, felt Tucker start to move beside him.
Owen. Dante was going to shoot Owen. He’d always hated Owen, likely because Owen had a place among them and he’d been on the outside. Owen had found some happiness that Dante’s dark soul never would.
Owen was going to die.
And then Sasha was there, throwing himself in front of Owen, taking the bullet meant for him.
Bright blood bloomed across Sasha’s chest as Owen’s arms went around him.
“Prost,” Dante spat in Romanian. “You are such a fool. I’ll be in touch. Don’t follow me or you’ll end up like your brother there.”
Emily went first and then Dante, running out the door and toward the stairs. Owen eased Sasha to the floor and Tucker sprang into action, but there was already blood seeping from Sasha’s lips.
“It’s bad,” Tucker said. “We need an ambulance.”
Sasha shook his head. “No. Too late.”
“I’ve got to go find Rebecca.” Owen looked tortured. “I have to get my gun first.”
Robert nodded. “Grab one for me and I’ll go with you. And I’ll call.”
Sasha reached out and grabbed his hand. “Robert, I’m sorry. I only wanted…I wanted a life. I thought…I betrayed you. Please forgive…”
Owen ran from the room, but he couldn’t leave Sasha yet. He dropped to one knee. In the end, they were all just doing what they could to survive. They’d been placed in Hell and had to figure out how to escape the maze of pain and loss and emptiness. “I forgive you…brother.”
They’d been forged in fire. Sasha had done something terrible, but Robert couldn’t withhold those words from him.
He had to choose who he would be.
“But there will be no forgiveness for Dante.” Or his ex-wife. None.
A smile lit Sasha’s face, blood streaked and savage. “None, brother. Give him hell.” He coughed, a rattling sound that seemed to come from his chest. The hand in his weakened its grip. “Promise me.”
Oh, god. He knew what Sasha was asking. “I’ll do everything I can to find her.”
The child he thought might be his.
“It was worth it.” Sasha coughed again. “It was worth it because I can die with my brothers around me. I will see them all again and this time, they will welcome me home.”
“Rob, we have to go,” Owen was saying. He had two guns in his hand. “Sasha, I’m so sorry, brother.”
Sasha’s eyes went blank.
“It happened too fast.” Tucker was shaking. “There wasn’t anything I could do. It must have hit an artery.”
Robert let go of Sasha’s hand and stood up. He would mourn later. He took the gun from Owen’s hand. “Call Ezra, Tucker. Let’s go secure Rebecca and then I’m getting a permanent divorce.”
Owen nodded and they took off. They had work to do.
* * * *
Ariel held tight as Peter turned onto the street the club was on. German intelligence trained that man well.
“She knew Dante. Emily Seeger knew exactly who Dante was.” Ezra seemed to be processing the information they’d received from the security cameras.
“And Dante knew her.” Kim already had her Ruger out. “A plus B leads to one of us killing that asshole, but only after we torture him for information. And don’t you tell me we can’t, Ariel. You know what he did.”
Dante had been McDonald’s man on the inside. He’d pretended to be one of them and reported back to her. He’d been used to torture the others and they’d forgiven him because he’d been in the same position as the rest of them. They’d all been trying to survive and they’d bonded. But Dante’s betrayal was bone deep. “Oh, I’m not telling you to do anything. I’ll torture him myself if it helps the lads out. And you know what I’m going to do to Emily Seeger.”
“Sister, I will help you clean up when you’re done,” Kim promised. “And don’t worry about burying the body. We can do a lot with acid.”
“There’s a big shower unit at the club,” Peter offered helpfully. “Perfect for taking apart a body. And honestly, on the right night we won’t even have to close the club down. Everyone will assume it’s a very heavy scene playing out.”
“We need to talk to her, too,” Ezra pointed out. “She recruited for McDonald. She sent her own husband in. It makes me wonder if she didn’t send the whole team in. We need to ID these men and give their families some peace.”
Naturally Ezra picked this moment to become the bloody voice of reason.
She forced herself to calm down. Robert and the lads were likely all sitting around the breakfast table talking about what they needed to do today. They would be prepping for the briefing, and they wouldn’t have any idea that those two snakes were amongst them. Robert couldn’t know that the very woman who’d sent him to be tortured and twisted into a tool for McDonald’s use was probably sitting across from him batting her eyes his way.
“I’m going to kill her.” She couldn’t stop the words. She’d promised she wouldn’t use those skills again, but Emily Seeger deserved her avenging angel side.
“Of course you are,” Ezra replied. “But we need to know who else she worked with.”
“She didn’t know what she was walking into.” Kim unbuckled
her seat belt. They weren’t far now. “She had zero idea her husband was still alive. From what I could tell, she was angry and upset Dante was there. She thinks he’s going to blow her cover. He said something about playing it cool, called us all idiots.”
“Well, we kind of are,” Ezra admitted.
“How could you know?” Peter was completely cool under pressure. “The way McDonald used Dante, none of the men knew he was a plant. It would have been easy for him to blend in with the rest of the group because they accepted him. To the outside world, he was one of them.”
“She had him accompany the men on their robberies,” Solo pointed out. “He was there to keep them in line, but to our eyes he had the same warrants as the rest of them. You couldn’t possibly have guessed he wasn’t exactly who he seemed to be.”
Ariel’s mobile trilled and she reached for it. Another three minutes and they would be there, but it was Tucker calling and she could give him a heads-up. “It’s the lads.” She swiped across the screen to accept the call. “Tucker, I need you to listen to me and not give away what I’m saying.”
“No. You have to listen to me, Ari. Sasha’s dead. Dante killed him. Dante betrayed us all and he’s got Emily with him.”
Her heart was suddenly in her throat. “Are they in the house? Where’s Rob?”
Peter sped up and Ezra and Kim were suddenly looking her way.
“Rob and Owen are going after them,” Tucker said. “We don’t know where Rebecca is. I’m following. I just wanted you to know what’s happening. There wasn’t anything I could do to save Sasha. I’m so sorry.”
Panic started to rush through her system. “Dante has a gun?”
“Everyone has a gun,” Tucker replied. “We don’t know where he is. He’s somewhere in the club. I’ve got to go. I have to help the others.”
“We’re almost there,” she promised before the line went dead.
“Stay calm, Ari. He doesn’t need you to panic. He needs you calm,” Kim said. “I don’t know the layout of the club.”
“You’ll come with me,” Ezra commanded in a tone that brooked no disobedience. “You’ll watch my six, and I swear to god if you go rogue on me you won’t like the consequences.”
“When you get inside, there’s a panic switch behind the counter that puts the whole club in lockdown,” Peter explained. “Hit it and they won’t be able to get out until you put the code in. The code is on the back of the book lying on the table. It’s the registry number of the book. I’m going to stay with the car and guard them from getting away through the back. I’m out of practice.”
She wasn’t so sure about that, but she definitely didn’t want them fleeing by hot wiring the van. She checked the magazine on the weapon Peter had left for her under the seat. “Don’t risk yourself. He’s already proven he’ll kill. And we know where they’ll go.”
“Straight to Levi,” Ezra said under his breath. “They’ll run home. But not if I get to them first.”
“He’s got a tracker, but he’ll cut it out.” It was exactly what she would do in the same situation.
“If he gets away, we might still have a chance if I can get online fast enough.” Ezra’s jaw tightened as Peter pulled into the driveway. Tall hedges granted the drive and the backyard plenty of privacy. The alley was used only by people on the street, so they had a chance to come out of this without involving the police. The walls of the club were soundproofed, and they were likely about to test how well that worked.
Peter put the van in park and they were out in a heartbeat.
Ariel held her weapon at her side, following Ezra and Kim. “I’ll go in the back. You two take the front. They could come at us either way and one of us needs to put the club in lockdown.”
Ezra nodded and he and Kim peeled away, going around to the front of the building.
It was eerily quiet, the morning only disrupted by the sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance. Her heart thundered in her chest. Rob was in there and he was vulnerable. Had he been forced to watch Sasha die?
She had to stop panicking. Kim was right. Rob needed her calm. She moved quietly toward the house. The backyard was an oasis of green that wound around to the front of the building. There was a fence, but massive shrubs turned the place into a private playground complete with a hot tub and small gazebo. The stairs leading up to the door were roughly twenty feet away. She started to move toward the door when Rebecca walked around the back of the house.
Rebecca had a bottle of water in her hand and she sighed as though relieved when she saw Ariel. “Thank god, you’re back. It’s bad upstairs. Something’s going on with the guys. I decided to get some air because they have some serious stuff to work out.”
She started to walk by the gazebo when a dark shadow peeled away and Ariel brought her gun up. “Rebecca!”
Dante was faster. He had his gun to the back of Rebecca’s head and was using her as a shield before Ariel could get a shot off. “Don’t even try, Ariel. I’ve got this right at the base of her skull and I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Set that gun down now.”
If he killed Rebecca, he was dead. They were at a standoff. “I can’t do that. If I put the gun down, you’ll kill me or her. That’s not acceptable.”
“Or I could kill you.” Emily stepped out of the gazebo. “I would love to do that.”
Oh, she’d picked the wrong direction to go in. Tucker had just called. They were still in the club, looking for these two, and if Ezra did what he was supposed to do, they would all be locked in and she would be out here. “Dante, you don’t want to do this.”
“I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time,” Dante replied. He had an arm around Rebecca’s throat. “Break free, that is. The fact that this bitch walked in and screwed up everything just facilitated my jailbreak.”
“I didn’t screw anything up.” Emily’s arms were shaky. She wasn’t used to holding a gun for so long.
Luckily Ariel was. “I think Rob would argue with you.”
“Russ was a bright-eyed idealist.” Emily was moving slowly, following Dante as he crept toward the path that led to the driveway. “He found out what I was doing and he was going to turn me in. Luckily, the senator had people to help with that. And then the senator was happy because he had ten new men to hand over to his daughter.”
It made her sick to her stomach to have to deal with this woman. “You were a nurse.”
“Do you know what they pay nurses?” She shook her head. “Look, I didn’t understand what I was getting into and then I had no way out. No one was happier than I was when that bitch died. I didn’t walk in here thinking my husband was alive. I hoped he was dead. Now I have to run.”
“I told you, we have a place to go and now we have someone the boss wants. Get a move on. We need to take the van.” Dante kept his back to the house. “Rebecca, if you try anything, I’ll put a bullet in your brain and still use your body as a shield. Do you understand me? If you stay calm, you’ll survive this. I need you to get Levi to take me in.”
Her stomach knotted, but she could see the logic there.
Rebecca simply nodded.
Dante was too big and Rebecca had only started self-defense training. “Stay calm, Rebecca. I’ll find a way to get you out of this even if they take you to Levi. You do everything they tell you to.”
She glanced back toward Emily and saw Robert standing in the window. A look of horror crossed his face as he realized what was happening right in front of him. Owen joined him and immediately lifted his gun to take off the back of Dante’s head.
The windows were bulletproof. Peter had told them when they’d taken a tour the first day. Robert yelled something and Owen’s face fell. He turned and started running, likely toward the back door.
It was only mere seconds later that she could hear Owen pounding on the door that would have led him outside.
They couldn’t get through. They’d misjudged the timing and now they were trapped until Ezra could get the code
in and release the lockdown.
She had to do something. God, it was so different when she cared about the people around her.
Emily started at the sound of the door. “They’re coming.”
Dante laughed. “The dumb bastards put the club in lockdown. Good-bye, Ari. You weren’t as smart as you thought you were.”
“No, she’s not.” Emily looked behind her and Robert was trying to break the window. Dante disappeared with Rebecca. When Emily looked back, she had a smirk on her face. “Not at all.”
Emily pulled the trigger. Ariel moved to her left, hitting the ground and rolling. She heard the windows shake with the force of Robert hitting them, trying to find a way to get to her. She twisted and came up to her knees and fired on pure instinct.
Emily looked down at her chest where the bullet had lodged. The gun in her hand fell to the ground and she dropped.
Ariel couldn’t think about it. She moved. Dante was still alive and he had Rebecca. She ran, praying Ezra was getting the doors opened again. She hit the pavement that marked the driveway and stopped. Peter was in the van. He sat in the front seat, his hands on the wheel. Rebecca was slumped on the seat beside Dante. He’d knocked her out and had a new victim. His gun was to the back of Peter’s head.
“I’m out of practice,” Peter said, his voice shaking. “Tell Tag I’m sorry. I really just wanted to show people around my country.”
“Drive or you won’t see another day,” Dante said as the door closed.
Peter put the van in reverse and it moved, jerking out of the driveway.
She didn’t have a car to follow them with. She couldn’t fire at the van or they might lose Rebecca and Peter. She was fucking helpless.
“Rebecca!” Owen screamed his love’s name as he sprinted past Ariel. He ran down the street, chasing after a car he would never catch.
“Ariel.” Robert was breathless as he spun her around. “Ariel, are you hit?”
They all came out of the house now, but she was numb.
She’d lost Rebecca. She’d lost Peter. She hadn’t seen through Dante’s lies.
Tucker ran after Owen, but it wouldn’t matter. Owen wouldn’t catch them. Owen would keep running, keep trying until Tucker had to pick him up.
