The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  The redhead wavers on his knees for a moment before the crater carved into his right temple begins to pump and spurt and ooze. He lilts to the side without ceremony just a few feet away from Charlie and I’m reminded how quickly a life can end. We’ve got to stay calm if we want to get Charlie out of here quick enough to keep him alive – all of us, including Aiden.

  The other caged redhead is screaming. “What have you done?” He continues on in Russian and Erik responds by lifting his weapon – not at him, but at the black bag on the ground. I grab Aiden by the back of the coat and by the arm to stop him from lurching forward and reaching for the gun at his belt. Aiden rears up and when his gaze turns falls on me and sees me, for what is probably the first time, I sense a threat. He’s going to kill me.

  “Gavriil, are you finished?” Erik roars into the calm.

  The man on the ground – Gavriil – says nothing, but his broad chest heaves as he looks down at his knees. His eyes are closed and he speaks English with a thick accent, and slowly. “You punish us for the sins of our fathers.”

  “No. You murdered three of my men against direct orders to stand down so I am going to kill you and give your sister to the brother that kills Babic. If Babic wins then I’ll sell her to the highest bidder, though I truly hope he doesn’t. Babic needs to learn his lesson after letting you escape on his watch.”

  One of the men – a shorter man, but meaty and layered with heavy artillery – steps forward and cracks his knuckles. He glances at me, then at each of my brothers. Trying to size us up. Wondering which of us killed Spade, and will become his opponent.

  “So now you will watch them fight and after, I’ll tear all of your fucking families apart!” Erik roars. His hair shoots away from his face and he is glaring at Gavriil in a way that makes me wonder if he’s even here today for us, or the drugs. He’s unraveling and I know, without knowing what they are, that the rifts between those two men run deep. But that isn’t what concerns me.

  I’m more preoccupied by the fact that Gavriil is ignoring Erik just like Erik is ignoring the rest of us. Instead, his hot powder blue gaze is trained on Aiden in a way that is steadfast and resolute, as if in his mind he’s decided something of grave importance and Aiden is staring back with a knowing that says that whatever it is Gavriil has decided, Aiden has decided something too.

  “So which one of you was it?” Erik says. “Don’t be shy. Come on!”

  That’s my motherfucking cue. I take a step forward to kill another Russian, but as I do, Aiden’s arm rips free of mine and he shoves me so hard I lose my balance. I stagger back while he moves forward as if he’s been waiting for this moment all night.

  “This isn’t his fight,” I say, surging forward against Dixon’s outstretched arm. He catches me and shoves me back.

  “It is now,” he hisses.

  Aiden shrugs out of his jacket and when it hits the ground, the weapons lining it clatter against one another. The Russian he’s up against kicks aside the mutilated arm of the Mexican man they tortured. They’ve had weeks to work on him and it shows. Now he’s missing a hand and a foot and the bloody stumps have been seared shut to keep him just alive enough. Sick bastards.

  The ring hasn’t been drawn tonight and this pit was never meant for fights to the death and this isn’t Aiden’s fight but he’s moving like he’s got everything on the line even though he has nothing and cares for nothing and never thought of Charlie as a brother. What moves him now? I don’t know but I’m one-part guilty, three-parts grateful as he rolls his shoulders back and glares across the fighting pit at Babic.

  Erik is grinning as the dust settles and decisions are made by a few men in the room. I’m not one of them. “Excellent,” he says, stepping out of the circle so that the duffel bag, the mutilated Mexican, and the brain-dead redhead rest on his right, Charlie on his left. What are you fools waiting for?”

  Stowing his gun behind his back, he claps his hands twice. But as Aiden takes two steps towards the fighter, bullets pierce the front of the barn and hail down on us as swift as a summer rain.

  Aiden

  The first shot skims the top of my right thigh. It burns but isn’t the reason I drop into a crouch. The fighter is still coming at me. He tries to kick me while I’m down, ignoring the gunfire shredding the front wall to splinters. The other Russians have unloaded their cannons and duck behind the crude bar and any structural beams they can find, returning fire.

  I grab the fighter’s leg as it comes towards my left side and revolve him around my torso so he fits over my body like a backpack. He’s dead in seconds as the shots intended for me find his body. I drop the weight. Diving left, I flatten myself to the ground as two Russians fall. Spanish words penetrate the seconds it takes for the machine guns outside to reload. The diversion the Mexicans had been looking for. No wonder they didn’t come for us. For them, it wasn’t about the drugs, but retaliation.

  I’m deaf from the sounds of shooting and adrenaline keeps my heartbeat hard and heavy. Faster than usual. Charlie is close to me and I stretch forward until I can close my hand around his boot. I should move – pull him towards me – but my gaze searches past him. At the sight of the bag, my fingers twitch. She’s behind the stainless steel bucket for now and Charlie’s out in the open. The odds of her survival are greater than his. I know this. But I still don’t move.

  “Aiden!” Knox’s voice reaches me through the chaos and I grab Charlie and wrench his limp body along the ground.

  A bullet grazes my ear, but misses. So does the next. I keep Charlie flat, using my body as a shield against the gunfire, and push him towards the side door where Clifton stands with his twin Sig Sauers out, firing. Covering me. At the door, Knox puts away his Smith and Wesson and drags Charlie out into the dark.

  I turn from my brothers while Clifton’s voice chases me back into the light. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Ignoring him, I pull out my Ruger and point it at the Russian hiding behind a cluster of beams. He has the spot I want, so I shoot him and as he falls dead, I take it. The Russians are scrambling now, heading out of the back door. Erik’s helping two other Russians restrain Gavriil, because he had the same idea I did, only his restraints are physical and more effective. The veins in his neck are the same color as his hair as he plants his feet in the ground and screams her name. The one that haunts me like a shadow in the daylight.

  Bullets pound into the wooden post at my back. I wait for the sound of empty machine gun barrels clicking before soaring out into the open space. I reach the bag in eight steps and grab the rubber handle before dragging it and myself behind the bar. The bag is open, so I close it, but not before her eyes see me. A spike of cold stabs my lungs and I don’t breathe as I pull the zipper to cover her face, speckled not just in freckles but in blood. The blood makes me hungry to kill something, to bury my fingers in eye sockets and watch the jelly squirt up around my thumbs.

  I hack out my next breath because it doesn’t want to come. The next comes easier. It’s better when I don’t see her. Makes it easier to think. To ignore the weight of her petrified stare because I know she’s not just scared, but scared of me. I glance to my left and right. There are no easy exits from the bar with hellfire ripping through everything, including sound. The easiest way out would be through the back, but it’s occupied by Gavriil’s breadth.

  I hate the way he watches me. His eyes are orbs. He’s taken a bullet to the shoulder and another to the hip, but his lips are slack. Like he doesn’t notice the gunshot wounds, or the men holding him. He’s watching me like I’m worthy of something. I frown. Impossible for something worthless to be worthy of anything.

  “Alina,” he shouts over the chaos, then he says more words to her that I don’t know. With one last glance at me, he nods and lets the Russians holding him drag him backwards through the door.

  Another shout lights up the barn, this one more familiar. “Fuck you Aiden!” It’s Clifton’s voice. He sounds like
he’s in pain. I glance around the edge of the bar to see him firing automatic pistol machine guns in each hand. The returning fire lulls. I don’t waste the seconds. I hug the bag to my side, keeping it away from the incoming bullets. I reach Clifton before I’m hit in the calf. My left side twitches and I miss my next step, but keep upright and catch myself on the frame of the door at the same time a second bullet hits me in the shoulder. Clifton surges up against me, shoves his shoulder beneath my arm and kicks the shattered door closed.

  “You’re hit,” he says, breathing hard and pushing his blonde hair back. He’s got blood on his palm. I wonder from what.

  I glance down at his pants and see the shimmer of slick crimson against matte black. “You too.”

  “Only once though.” He stretches an arm forward. “Let me carry it.”

  I grab his throat and push him towards the tree line. “Keep moving.”

  He glares at me. Or maybe that’s surprise I see on his face. I don’t give a shit, but fall in line behind the others as we take off into the woods. Dixon and Knox carry Charlie. There’s a dull pain in my leg, beating like a heartbeat, but I don’t slow and I don’t drop the bag, just transfer it onto the other shoulder.

  Clifton keeps pace with me though his face twitches a couple times and once, he groans. A few minutes in, Knox pulls out a phone. He’s talking, but my focus on the tree line breaking up before us drowns out his words. The crunching leaves between my feet go quiet as they turn to gravel and then eventually crumbling asphalt. I feel shifting in the bag I carry, but ignore it.

  The thought of her awake makes me ravenous. I don’t want to see her face. Don’t want to watch her watch me. We move down the old country road, heading away from town. Headlights flash in the distance and as the car reaches us, it spins a full circle, peeling tar as it gains traction. The passenger door flies open.

  “Get in!” Mer is in the front seat. The back door opens and Sara’s got a box of medical supplies at her feet and gloves on. They look afraid. I don’t care. Instead, I throw open the trunk and the moment I toss the bag inside and climb in after it, Dixon’s Cadillac rockets down the street. I barely get the trunk shut.

  Behind the wheel, Mer curses. Sara shouts orders in medical terms I don’t understand. Gauze packets fly. Plastic rips. Charlie moans. I stare at the black bag beneath me.

  Everything is quiet.

  I see my right hand stretch towards the zipper like it’s alien. My hand and the zipper both. The air is cold against my skin and I get goosebumps. I shiver as my thumb presses against the metal clasp.

  The black window to my right reveals a nearly full moon and a starless sky. There’s smoke on the horizon. They burned the barn, probably with bodies inside. At least, that’s what I would have done. Bodies and corpses both. Seconds more and hers would have been among them. And that’s only if they hadn’t scavenged the place first and realized what they had.

  Now the bag is soaking wet between my legs and the tarpaulin is porous, and rough against my palms. She doesn’t move beneath it. How long did they have her underwater? I wasn’t gentle enough with her when I pulled her out of the building. Maybe this motionlessness is my fault. Fuck me. What if she’s hurt? What if she’s dead? And I’m sitting here with my fingers on the clasp, too fucking pathetic to know for certain. Holding my breath, I drag the zipper down.

  Fingers and a face. So goddamn beautiful.

  I inhale in a short burst, completely filling my lungs, then hold steady. She doesn’t move. Her glossy eyes are open and they’re wide and watching me. Red hair, dark like cherries, sticks to her skin. She’s pale. I wonder if it’s cold or fear. I reach for the ties on her wrists, but she flinches back, knocking her head against the floor of the trunk.

  She starts to breathe harder, nostrils flaring since she can’t breathe out of her mouth. It’s duct taped. The rest of her is bound in a series of intricate knots so that she’s fully submissive. I wonder what the other men did to her. How many of them raped her while Gavriil watched. The thought makes me want to go back to the barn and kill anything that breathes.

  Abruptly, I sit up. I brace one hand against the back of the seat, the other on the window. It’s cold underneath my palm and fog forms around my fingers so that when I lower them, I see them lingering there in relief. Alina releases a desperate moan in the back of her throat and tries to shuffle backwards, away from me though there’s nowhere for her to go. I grab the front of the bag and wrench it back to where it had been. I need to see for myself what they did to her.

  I pull out my knife and she stops resisting. She watches the path the blade takes to her skin and closes her eyes. A tear slides through her eyelashes over her cheeks back into her hairline. She thinks I’ll hurt her. Torture her, maybe. Why wouldn’t she when I’m nothing more and nothing less than monstrous?

  The cool balm of self-hatred blows through me as I touch her throat. She’s softer than anything I’ve felt before. And I’m disgusting. Fated. Diseased. Nothing that she needs right now or ever. I slice the rest of her bindings and as they drop free of her skin into the black bag cocooning her, I finally reach for her mouth.

  The duct tape leaves sticky residue on my fingers as I reveal her full lips. They’re pink and slightly enflamed. I trace their outline with my thumb and she jerks back. It amazes me that she doesn’t scream. Her mouth is soft and full, like I’ve reached into an expensive pillow and pulled out its insides. Her lips part underneath the pressure of my finger and warm breath spills out onto my palm. I wrench back.

  There’s a throbbing in my gut that hadn’t been there before and a pain below that. I glance down and see the bulge, feel the heavy head of my dick crushed by my belt. Fuck. I want to cut the thing off because there’s nowhere for me to move that she won’t see it. I look down at her, waiting for the scream, her struggle. I’m left waiting. Her brown and blue gaze switches across my chest, moving lower and lower.

  She inhales. I inhale her perfume and the erection gets harder. She keeps her hands clasped between her breasts and I don’t move. The car carries on and there are city lights flashing through the tinted glass but everything feels like it’s at a distance. There’s just me and her and my fucking hard-on between us. After a while, she starts shaking. Not knowing what else to do, I reach into the bag and pull her legs free. She’s wearing jeans, boots and a black long-sleeve shirt that clings to her skin. It’s all soaked and soaking the car around her, seeping into my clothes and pants at the knees. I have nothing to give her.

  “Sara,” I grunt. The cab quiets except for the sound of Alina’s chattering teeth. This is the first time I’ve ever said Sara’s name. The first time I’ve acknowledged her existence.

  She leans over the back seat and looks down. “Sh…” She looks at me. “Who is this?”

  “Irrelevant.”

  “Well is she good or bad?” The simple question startles me and I glance at Sara’s face for a moment. She pulls back as if that’s too much and Dixon hugs closer to her side. He stares at me with menace and warning. Clifton’s staring too. So is Knox. So is Mer from the rearview mirror.

  “Good.” Purely good.

  Sara blinks, then shakes her head and leans closer. “Other than the hypothermia that’s about to set in, what are her other injuries? Knox,” she shouts, “crank the heat all the way up.”

  Hot air blasts from the vents and I sit away from her, giving Sara the space to lean over the back of the seat. As she does, I murmur, “You hurt her and I take it out on you ten times.”

  “Hey!” Dixon roars and the whole car swerves.

  There’s scrambling, shouting, moaning, until Sara says shrilly, “I’m not hurting anyone so there’s no issue here. I just need to know where else she’s hurt because if she isn’t, I have to help Clifton and Charlie.”

  I glance down at Alina, but she doesn’t give me any sort of answer, or even any indication she’s heard me. She just blinks slower and slower. Her gaze never leaves m
y face. “I don’t know.”

  “Ask her,” Sara orders but I don’t and she turns back to the others while Alina and I watch one another in silence. Soon the car makes a left and begins to slow.

  Sara is one of the first out of the car. She’s got her hand pressed to a piece of white plastic against Charlie’s ripped open face. I glare at her through the open back door.

  “Help her.” My voice isn’t up for discussion.

  Sara holds up a blood-soaked hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but Charlie takes priority. If she isn’t bleeding then you just need to get her inside and get her warm.” Her voice fades along with the others’ until the front door shuts and Alina and I are alone.

  The sounds of chaos subside until there’s just silence. I can’t hear her breath, but I can see it cloud in the darkness. Grunting, I throw open the trunk. A burst of frigid air claims the last of the warmth, but as I reach for Alina to carry her out of the car, her right leg bucks and she kicks me in the center of my chest with enough force to surprise me.

  Those seconds give her the time she needs to scramble out of the opened trunk. Her feet hit the ground and she takes off running. I follow but I’m half a hair behind and I don’t see what she’s doing until she’s done it. She sprints around the car, throws herself onto the driver’s seat, presses a button and locks all the doors. The trunk closes itself and I’m left standing at the window, inches from her but separated by glass, fuming.

  I can see everything. Her panic. Her fear. Her wet hair dragging around her shoulders as she ducks beneath the steering wheel. Her shaking fists punching the admin console once, twice, a third time before it pops free. She rips on the wires and tries to fuse them together. It won’t work though. This car, like all the others we own, lock up the second the console is opened. The ignition turns and she presses her foot on the gas, but the wheel remains fixed. The ignition roars but she can’t move. She starts to cry. The sight of her tears moves me to homicide.