A Night of Redemption (The Redemption Saga Book 5)

by Kristen Banet

  For a moment, he was proud of his brother, and even a bit jealous. Vinny commanded the loyalty from her that Axel never could. In the end, she was on a Castello’s leash.

  “She’s resilient, that’s for sure, sir.” Felix walked closer and pointed to a table. Axel looked over to see his father’s chess set, a game half played on it. It was set up exactly as it had been the night Vincent killed their father and then realized Axel had been using him. Mistakes. Axel was very good at manipulating people, but when they were those closest to him, he always made small mistakes that ruined it in the end. He was beginning to see his own weaknesses. “Shall we finish the game, sir?”

  “No, I never finish that game,” Axel answered. “White is in check and Black will get checkmate in two turns. There’s no hope. I leave it there to remind myself that I can never fall so far behind.”

  “And?”

  “And the only people who have a chance of taking me to that are coming here for me. We either win or we lose, but I have to do this now. I have no other options.” He didn’t say it out loud. He was doing this now so he was never at the point where he had no other option but to lose. At least if he dictated the field, forced their hands, he would have the advantage. “Give me a run down on my brother’s team again.”

  “Sir?”

  “I underestimated them for years. We’ve spent the last month making sure we know everything we can about them. Run me through it again.” He wanted to make sure everything was perfect.

  “Well, you know your brother, so I’ll skip him. His second in command officially is Elijah Grant.”

  Axel just listened after that. Elijah Grant, Zander Wade, Jasper Williams, and Quinn Judge. His brother’s little friends, who were playing games they probably didn’t understand. Their abilities, who they were. Young men, like his brother, all thinking they could take on the world.

  “There’s only one I think you should worry about,” Felix added as he finished.

  “Which?”

  “This…Quinn Judge.”

  “Oh yes, I remember that one.” Axel sighed. “The most powerful Magi in North America, and probably the world. I’ve had those rumors brought back to me. And I remember how his magic felt in Atlanta. You’re right. He’s the only one on that little team more powerful than me. He’s target number one. We need to take him out first. He has two animal bonds, wolves. Impressive, but…” He knew what to do to Magi with animals bonds. They were easily crippled.

  And with that, Axel collected himself and walked out of his suite with Felix. They had final preparations to make. With no idea when the enemy would show, they had to be prepared at all times.

  He couldn’t lose this time. He was throwing everything he had at them. He would come out on top, and then no one would be smart enough to stop him and there would be no team made for the job.

  29

  Sawyer

  “Is everyone ready?” Sawyer called out, looking over the team. Travis stood next to her, uncomfortably shifting around. He was about to do a very long range portal and she knew it was making him nervous. Anything could go wrong, but she trusted him with this. Even when he’d been high, he could take her across the continental United States without a problem. He could get them to Italy. She wasn’t worried.

  “Yes,” Quinn answered, standing behind the entire team. They had gotten Travis and Thompson, then come home immediately. If they moved fast enough, they could slam Axel before he had any idea it was coming. The longer they waited, the more prepared the man would get.

  “Thompson, are you sure you can stay here with Charlie for the evening?” Zander asked, and she waited patiently for the same answer Thompson had given for the last hour.

  “I can stay.”

  “I’ll be fine, young man. You go do this. End this.” Charlie crossed his arms, turning his gaze off Zander and onto her. “Finish this, Sawyer.”

  “I will,” she promised softly. Vincent coughed right after that, stepping forward. She let him take her place in front of the team.

  There really wasn’t much else for them to do. They had packed up everything they needed for a raid and an hour and a half long, very quiet walk. They weren’t going in with too many people. The IMPO office in Rome would meet them once they reached the edge of Axel’s current property. That office had no idea they were even on their way yet. They would get a call from Thompson when the team felt it was safe to let the world know what was about to happen. If the office had a leak, there wouldn’t be enough time for Axel to get the information that the team was there.

  “Travis, make the portal,” he ordered.

  Sawyer swallowed. This was the final mission. It was noon in New York. Sawyer considered the time. It would already be six in the evening in Italy and after sunset, which would have come much earlier thanks to it being the dead of winter. She pulled up her phone just to make sure, checking. Sure enough, the sun had set for Axel an hour before.

  Dawn in Italy would mark a new day for her, and it was so close. She would either be dead, and so would everyone on the team, or Axel would be.

  Less than twenty-four hours to go, and she found herself thinking about the wrong thing. What would come after this?

  The portal drew her attention and she took a deep breath, bracing for the sensation of crossing through it, holding Sombra’s leash to make sure she didn’t lose the cat in the dark.

  She went in before Vincent, first of the team. She had no idea what she would see on the other side. They had picked this location because no one had lived in it or checked on it in five years.

  She closed her eyes as she went through and exited the other side to smells and sounds that haunted her. She stepped further away from the portal, Sombra walking pressed to her thigh. As she opened her eyes, she found herself in a place she never thought she would see again. A living room where she once had experienced the happiest and worst memories of her life.

  And she couldn’t help but think about what would come next. As she stood in the very place where another chapter of her life ended, she couldn’t help but think.

  She took the leash off Sombra and let the feline roam, checking the other rooms and hallways to make sure they were alone. Sawyer already knew they were, but the cat needed the reassurance.

  Sawyer wandered into the kitchen. The house had been cleaned and repaired since her last memories of it. She found the wall. No longer was there cracked plaster. No longer was there a puddle of blood on the floor where he’d been.

  It was like it had never happened.

  And standing there, she considered a future, and something worse. Now, in this place, she realized the worst thing she could have.

  She knew the team was through the portal. She could feel the disappearance of Travis’ magic, meaning the portal was gone as well. But she kept staring at the wall.

  “Sawyer?” Vincent called out softly.

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Right here,” she whispered. “I lost him right here.”

  He only nodded, walking closer. None of the team had followed him. She could feel them waiting in the next room.

  “Vincent…what are we doing tomorrow?” she asked softly. “When this is all said and done?”

  “I…I was thinking I would talk to Thompson…” She could hear the unsure way he said the words.

  “As I stand here, I can only think one thing,” she admitted. “How much I don’t want to do this.”

  The look on his face was what she’d expected. Shocked, confused. She could relate and knew the next question coming.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Henry wouldn’t have wanted me to have to do this,” she answered. “He thought I was so good.”

  “You are.”

  “Then why am I here to kill someone?” She knew the answer. She was just leading Vincent through her thoughts. “I’m here because the WMC ordered me to be. They could have sent us to recapture him. They could have had us lead another team to do it. They could have done anyt
hing, but they sent me here to kill a man.”

  “He’s already sentenced to death,” Vincent reminded her.

  “He is, but they would have held a real execution, allowing him one of two options. To fall on his own sword or to be beheaded. Honorable…it would have been honorable. This is dirty. We both know it. I knew the WMC would ask me one day to be an assassin, and I’m so good at it. But I don’t like the job.” She took a deep breath. It was easier away from this place to cover it all up and pretend she could shoulder the task of killing time and time again. For the greater good, they would always probably say. The Druid was mad. Axel was a danger.

  But it was still the only thing they would ever use her for.

  And standing there, she wanted more. She wanted to be something else. She wanted to be something Henry looked up to. She wanted to be the Sawyer he saw.

  “Are you having cold feet?” he asked softly.

  “I’m thinking maybe I don’t want to work for people who ask me to kill people for them. And I don’t care if it’s for personal gain or the concept of the greater good. Because in the end, it’s still just killing people, isn’t it?” She couldn’t stand there, where Henry died, and say she could do it. She couldn’t say she could kill another person. It all felt wrong suddenly. How was she supposed to move forward? When was it time to stop? When did the ends stop justifying the means?

  Her hands were shaking as she braced them on the wall, tears in her eyes. Here, she could no longer lie to herself and say this was simple. That she had to do this to protect everyone.

  No, the only thing she found in this place was suffering and regret.

  Because no amount of violence and pain, no amount of killing was ever good enough. Not for Axel. Not for the WMC. All it ever did was weigh on her soul and break her. All it did was add another scar that she had to live with.

  Because no amount of killing was ever enough, and in the end, it didn’t help her truly protect anyone. In the end, she still lost this boy. In the end, she still lost Midnight.

  In the end, it could still break her and lose the team.

  “I can’t do this,” she admitted.

  “Then I will.”

  The words shocked her enough to push off the wall. She spun to see the darker version of Axel’s eyes. Vincent…

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I was never going to let you take this on yourself,” he explained. “I just want you to make it through this. He’s mine to deal with. Not yours.”

  She couldn’t open her mouth to explain how much that meant to her. She also couldn’t open her mouth to explain how much she disagreed with his logic. A man should never kill his own brother.

  “No,” Elijah’s clear tone rang out. “I knew there was something going on with you, Vin. Now I know. You aren’t doing this either. Neither of you are killing him.” The cowboy walked into the room, the team following.

  She caught a glimpse of her jaguar in the shadows beyond the room, watching with bright gold eyes. Something akin to acceptance flowed through the bond. They would hunt, they would capture, and they would let others take the kill.

  “Then who will?” Vincent demanded, turning to glare at Elijah.

  “We’ll give him the choice. Sawyer, you just said it. If this was done right, he would have been taken in front of the WMC. He would have been given a sword, while another waited on the side. He would either fall on his sword or the impartial Magi would behead him. The executioner would just finish the task, but it would give the Magi a chance to do it himself. We’ll give Axel his.” Elijah took a deep breath. “There’s no way to avoid killing him tonight. We’ll either succeed or we’ll die trying, but we can make sure it’s done in a way that doesn’t…make us feel less than ourselves at the end. We can do this together.”

  “Who would be the one beheading him?” she asked softly.

  “Me.” Elijah said it with a confidence that rocked her a little. “I have the strongest swing. It doesn’t have to be gruesome. It’ll be quick and it’ll be over.”

  “I don’t want any of you-”

  “Let us help carry the weight,” Zander cut in. “Please, just this once.”

  She swallowed, leaning back on the wall. “You have,” she whispered.

  “So now we have a plan. The Rome office will capture and detain everyone they can. Our objective is to corner and secure Axel, then go through with an execution. The right way. The honorable way. Let’s show everyone that this never had to be a knife in the dark.” Elijah looked between them. “And it doesn’t need to make you hate yourselves in the end.”

  “Why?” Vincent demanded. “Why does he deserve to have this choice anyway?” She heard a dangerous anger in those words.

  “He deserves it because we’re good men who will offer it to him. Because we’re better than him and the WMC.” Jasper’s words rang clear. “And we’ll always be better than them.”

  She covered her face. In this place, they were deciding how to avenge Henry and so many others. And they were going to give him the option to fall on his own sword.

  Vincent leaned on the wall next to her.

  “I’m leaving the IMPO,” she finally said. “When this is over, I’m not going to work for people who ask me to kill for them.”

  “What will you do?” he asked. “What will I do?” She knew her decision was leaving him alone with people none of them could tolerate anymore.

  “I don’t know. There was a time when I helped people. In New York, those kids in that gym. Maybe I could find a way to do it legally.” Something about that rang so good and true to her in that place. Help people before they found themselves in her place, or Henry’s. Help people find their loved ones, like Zander and Jasper had searched for her for years.

  Just helping people.

  That sounded good. She had liked that part of the IMPO. Texas and those kids. She had helped them. She could keep doing that, but not as long as the WMC had their way. If she worked for them, she would never help anyone, just kill off the enemies of her government.

  “Can I help?”

  She looked up at him and nodded. “Yeah. I think that would be good for us.”

  “Me too,” he agreed. “Because you’re right. You’re all right. The WMC is just another group that lives like Axel, but they lie to themselves and everyone else about it. He at least admits he does everything for personal power. And they’re not good for us. Not even for me.”

  “Why did you want to stay after all of this to begin with?” Zander asked, obviously confused by the internal battle going on in their leader.

  “I like the game,” he murmured. “I genuinely like the game. I like finding a puzzle of a case and trying to work it out. The IMPO turned into my dream job, and even though it hurt all of you, I thought it would continue to work for me. That I could survive it like I survived growing up in the Castello family.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said, a small smile breaking out. “We can start some…private investigation firm. How does that sound? All the leg work, all the investigatory work. We could be great, you and I.”

  “We could be,” he agreed softly. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk about it.”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll hold you to that.” She elbowed him.

  Here, where Henry died, they talked about their future, and for a moment, with a fight looming on them, she felt like it was right.

  “Let’s get moving,” Elijah said, breaking them out of it. “It’s time.”

  She nodded. Touching the wall one more time, she silently told Henry goodbye and began to walk away. She stopped, realizing one more thing needed to happen.

  “Wait,” she ordered them as they also began to leave. She reached into her bag and found the one thing she never wanted to see again. Her mask.

  What had those boys said? One day she might need it? She wondered if they were right or wrong. What if their skill wasn’t accurate?

  Now, standing in this place, she had one more goodbye to say.


  “What are you doing?” Quinn asked. They were all watching her.

  She gripped both sides of it.

  “Saying goodbye,” she explained. Then, with all the strength she could muster, she snapped the mask in half, unleashing a wave of magic. Broken enchantments, releasing whatever magic that had been stored in the object to make it the perfect mask to hide one’s identity.

  She handed one half of the mask to Quinn. “Destroy that.”

  He took it and nodded. “Once we get outside,” he promised.

  She slid the other half in her bag.

  Whether she needed it or not, she would no longer be Shadow. She was leaving that persona to rest just like Henry. Tonight, Axel only had one woman to fear. Her.

  Finally, she began to walk back out of the home where her entire heart had been shattered. Thanks to the men around her, thanks to Charlie, and Liam, and those kids in New York, those pieces had been put back together.

  So while she walked, she didn’t feel haunted.

  She felt hopeful.

  30

  Quinn

  Quinn sent his boys out to get the lay of the land as they walked. They were in for a trek, the team. The twenty minute drive on country roads? They had talked it out, realizing it would be an hour and a half walk. He was fine with it, understanding the team wanted to come in without anyone knowing, but he was also concerned about them being tired on arrival. Or something finding them before they wanted to be found.

  So he sent the wolves out, to stop that from happening to them.

  “This is going to take forever,” Zander complained, obviously trying to lighten the mood by not taking the mission seriously.

  “Yeah,” Sawyer agreed, not really taking the bait.

  Quinn half-smiled. He was happy that she’d decided to leave the IMPO with the team, and convinced Vincent in the process. She seemed clearer than she had in a long time. Focused, but not a victim of tunnel-vision, rage, or sadness. There was a confidence in her stride that he felt like had been missing for too long, buried under the weight she always carried.