The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  I prowl around the car slowly, feeling the air move through the damp spots on my shirt and pants and all the places where bullets ripped through my clothing. I’ve got blood on me and remember for the first time in a while that I’ve got a hole in my left leg and right shoulder. Doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. Only she does. I curl my right hand into a fist and catch it with my left, then crush my elbow through the passenger window. Alina screams as I reach in through the broken glass, knuckles and arms shredding themselves on the shards. I reach the lock at the same time the driver’s side door opens.

  She sprints into the night like I knew she would and she isn’t quicker than I am, even with two bullets lodged somewhere in my muscles. She hasn’t even hit the line of the yard before my arms wrap around her and I pull her against my body, back flush with my chest. She screams and I clap a hand over her mouth, while her boots kick uselessly against the wall of night.

  I drag her towards the warm orange glow of the porch, and then inside the house. She’s light in my arms and it would take a lot more than this resistance to pry her from me. Maybe the end of the world. Or for her to ask. My room is the safest in the house, so that’s where I take her. The last place I want her. I release her as I pull the door shut behind me and she bounds out of my arms. I see why. She’s got my HK45 trapped in her trembling left hand. Her eyes are sharp but her lips are turning blue. Her shoulders curl inwards, she sways on her feet and she staggers back and forth a few inches at a time, unable to maintain her footing.

  “Move out of the way.” Her voice is hoarse and when she coughs her whole body shakes. She’s about to drop the gun, so she lifts her left hand up to meet her right. Even then, she doesn’t manage to hold it steady. “Move!” I don’t. She doesn’t come any closer either but closes one eye and tries to center on my chest. “Bajalsta,” she says.

  “I don’t know what means.”

  “Please,” she begs. Tears pool in the bags beneath her eyes, but even they aren’t enough to move me. “Get out of my way. Let…let me pass.”

  I take a step towards her and as I do, slowly remove the sling I’m wearing. “You’re going to have to pull the trigger.” I set the sling and the guns hanging off of it on top of the chest of drawers to my left.

  “I will! I will do it,” she says, each word a gasp. She isn’t getting enough air and though she wasn’t shot, she’s shivering like she’s been wounded. I don’t understand. She is fine. There’s nothing wrong with her.

  She whispers a name then, and wipes her face on the inside of her arm. “Moy boch...moy brat…Timur.” Her brother. Her brother’s blood coats her face and the exposed bit of her chest. She licks her lips. I wonder if she tastes him. I wonder if he is the source of her pain. I wonder if that is the human response because there is no one for whom I would weep.

  I shuffle a few inches closer and she shrieks, “I will shoot you!”

  “Then do it.” I take a large step, she shouts, and I realize that this is the first conversation we’ve ever had as the sound of the gun goes off between us.

  Sara

  I’m grateful there’s so much to concentrate on because that focus the only thing that keeps me alert, and from screaming. Inside, my heart beats quickly. I’m terrified. I’ve only ever seen wounds like this in the ER where I’ve had unlimited equipment at my disposal and trained doctors to guide me. Here, in this basement I’ve got limited supplies and am meant to be everything from triage nurse to plastic surgeon.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Does that hurt?”

  Charlie’s on Percocet, but he’s still awake enough to both see and feel as I stab the massive needle into the wound on his face. This is about the twelfth time I’ve injected the local anesthetic. He glances at me, but his lids are drooping. I’ve got him hooked up to an IV and a blood bag. A negative. His blood type. They all know their blood types and they’ve got a fridge full of bags for emergencies. Now I understand why I’ve never been in their basement before. I probably would have run out of here screaming bloody murder on my first visit if I’d ever thought any of this was needed.

  The cot Charlie’s on is hospital-grade. There’s another empty one beside it though Clifton preferred to sit on the high stool, closer to Charlie. His pant leg is cut open to the groin and he’s got a compress against his thigh. The bullet’s lodged in there deep and from what I gathered, it fractured against his bone which means I’ll have to spend who knows how long digging out the pieces. I refuse to look up at him or I’ll get distracted. There’s enough pressure as is with Dixon, Knox and Mer all watching me.

  “Charlie, can you hear me?” I whisper when he doesn’t respond.

  It takes him a few moments, but eventually he nods.

  “Good. If you can’t feel this,” I say, pressing near the cut on his forehead with tweezers. “Then I’m going to start stitching you now.” He closes his eyes and tilts his face towards me and I know that’s all the consent he’s able to offer. I rip open a hospital-grade suture kit and stand up from the stool I’d been seated on. Then I get to stitching.

  “How many was it in total?” Dixon asks after what feels like eternities.

  “Twenty eight surface. Nine deep. I just hope it’ll be enough.” And that it’ll be clean. I glance down at Charlie on the bed and wince. He looks monstrous. Brad from plastics would have probably been able to do a better job. “He’ll probably need to go see a plastic surgeon,” I say quietly. “I did the best I could…”

  It’s Knox – not Dixon – who clamps a hand down on my shoulder, spinning me to face him. He wrenches me into a hug and whispers, “Thank you.”

  Mer stands slightly back and when her gaze hits mine she mouths the same. She wrings out her hands and the words come tumbling out of her. “I am so sorry I did this to Charlie, and to all of you. I deserve nothing but…”

  Knox stares at her looking stressed and torn and I know that he’ll say something, but not anything that will help her feel better. The look on her face is one of complete and total self-hatred. Only Aiden ever looks like that and it wounds me and I want to tell her it will be alright but the words on my lips and Knox’s are stalled when Dixon gives Mer a light slap.

  “Dixon,” I say at the same time Knox shouts, “Hey!”

  Dixon ignores us both. He grabs Mer’s chin, stares into her eyes and says hotly, “Don’t you ever apologize again for any of this. You are Knox’s partner, Charlie’s sister, Clifton’s sister, and Sara’s friend. You are my sister and each one of us would die on the cross for you a thousand times over, just like I know you’d do for them.”

  Tears fall from Mer’s eyes and she nods mutely, wiping the tears free with her sleeve. He releases her chin and grabs the back of her head, then pulls her into his chest. She releases a quiet sob and Clifton, Knox, and I go to them. We all hold one another for a while before a slight croaking wakes us.

  “Don’t…forget…me,” Charlie says and as the group of us breaks, we’re laughing. It’s a hysterical laughter to be sure, light and muffled and starved and desperate but also relieved. Relieved we’re all still alive and that we’re all together and as we go to Charlie’s side, he takes Mer’s hand. “Sis, stay with me?”

  “Forever,” she whispers. Knox kisses the side of her head and I am honored to watch Mer’s self-hatred release.

  I turn to Dixon. He’s watching me like I’m the messiah and all the angels. Catching my gaze, he clears his throat and looks at Clifton. “Is there anything I can do for Charlie while you’re working on Clifton?” Dixon asks. “Should I go pick up Brant?”

  I nod. “That would be great.” My voice comes off unsteady. I’m not used to seeing this group of hardasses so emotional. It moves me. Quickly, I speak through the desire to cry, “I’m sure Sherry’s at her wits end.” The reason Mer and I dropped Brant at Sherry’s was twofold: to make sure that Erik hadn’t dropped by, and to tell her not to make contact with him in person. “Sherry’s not good with kids.”
>
  The corner of Dixon’s mouth twitches. “So I gathered.” I hate the sight of that smile. It makes me want to smile too. It also makes me want to tell him that he’s forgiven. “I’ll go to yours first and pack up as much of your stuff as I can. You’ll need to stay here. While I’m gone maybe Mer, you can make up the guest bedroom?”

  Mer and I both agree. Dixon nods and as he turns to leave, Knox follows. “Four hands work faster than two.”

  “You don’t need to come with me, brother. Stay with Mer.”

  “The house is a fucking fortress and as much as it kills me to leave Plumeria and Sara and Clifton and Charlie here, I’m not letting you go by yourself. I’ll come along. We’ll be quick. By the time we get back, Sara will have finished cleaning up our brothers. We’re not doing her any favors by crowding the infirmary.”

  Dixon makes a face, then bows his head. “Brother,” is all he says.

  He angles his body to the side and opens up the basement door. As Knox follows Dixon up the stairs, I move towards the long stretch of stainless steel countertop. I grab several different types of tweezers and a scalpel and usher Clifton onto the remaining cot. He refuses Percocet, but takes the local anesthetic with a grimace. Soon, I’m rooting around in his leg like an archaeologist on an expedition. He twitches several times but doesn’t complain.

  While I work, Mer takes the now free stool Clifton vacated. She stares down at Charlie with pure love, and just a drop of horror. He’s sleeping now. The wound bisecting his face is severe, and watching her distracts me because it gets me thinking about all the ways I could have done better. Had my hands been shaking? Maybe I used too many stitches. Maybe I could have…

  “Mer,” Clifton says and I’m distracted. She looks up at him slowly, wide eyes glazed. “No one blames you.”

  She blinks softly and a tear rolls down her left cheek. “I know.”

  “We love you. Charlie still loves you.”

  She smiles weakly. “So much more than I deserve.”

  “No.” This time the voice is my own. “Exactly what you deserve.”

  “Thanks,” she says, and as a nearly silent afterthought, adds, “mi hermana…”

  My chest swells with warmth despite the overpowering scents of rubbing alcohol, iodine, and blood. Leaning over Charlie’s body, she grips his arm firmly and whispers in his ear. Charlie’s leg twitches and I wonder if, even in sleep, he hears her.

  I pull myself back to the present and bend over Clifton’s leg stretched out before me on the cot. “Everything okay?” I ask. I’m talking about the pain, but he doesn’t seem to notice me working on him. “Clifton?” His unfocused gaze shifts from the closed basement door to my face. His eyebrows are drawn together and the sternness of his expression doesn’t suit him. “It’s quiet.”

  “What is?”

  “Everything.” He cocks his head towards the door. “Knox and Dixon left, but I haven’t heard anything from Aiden. I don’t feel good leaving him alone with that girl.”

  “Who is she?” Mer whispers.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do.” Setting my tweezers down, I reach for the scalpel. One last piece of shrapnel is lodged right next to the bone that my tweezers are too bulky to reach. I glance up for a moment, distracted from the task by the sensation of Clifton’s clear gunmetal eyes watching me. “She’s Alina Popov.”

  “Who?”

  “A model.”

  Clifton clicks his tongue against his teeth and bumps his fist against the cot. “From your magazines?” I nod and he glances again at the door. It’s closed, and now that he mentioned it, the silence does seem oppressive. “I knew I recognized her face.”

  “Yeah she’s half-Russian, half-Tunisian and lives on the Echardt campus. Goes to the law university out there.” I blush a little bit, feeling like a stalker, and glance back to my equipment and Clifton’s exposed thigh and the task at hand. “She’s in all of the local gossip mags. She’s a saint, volunteers, is involved in all these education initiatives. Not to mention, everyone suspects she’s connected to the mafia so it gives her street cred…” Holy shit. My voice fades. “She’s with the mafia?” Clifton grimaces and his lack of answer is answer enough. I shake my head when he says nothing. “The magazines love her. Everybody loves her.”

  “How would Aiden know that? He’s not into any of the celebrity shit,” Mer murmurs.

  As I begin excavating the last shred of shrapnel, Clifton’s hands clench around the hospital bed. It isn’t because of the pain, that much I know, because his eyes aren’t focused on me, but on some point in the distance. He reaches up and ruffles his blonde hair forward. “Aiden knows a lot he doesn’t let on and he knows a lot more about Alina Popov and her family and the Russian mob in general that he isn’t sharing. What I want to know is who is she to him? I’ve never seen Aiden act like this before.”

  No one contradicts him. The little I know of Aiden – and it isn’t much – is that he hates people, places, and things. This family, these men, are maybe the only creatures in existence that he tolerates but I saw the way he was in the car, that panic in his eyes. It was enough for me to know for certain that he wouldn’t hurt Alina Popov, that he wanted her alive.

  “You finished?” Clifton says as I pull the last bit of metal free.

  I nod and drop the scalpel, the tweezers, and the last bullet shard into the metal tray beside me. “Now for the fun part.”

  “Let’s hold off. You have any more of those blood clot packet things?”

  I stand from where I’d been seated and go to the cabinet. There, I find the last of the packets. “Why don’t you want me to stitch you?”

  “It’s not like that,” he says, glancing at Charlie after I do. “Aiden needs you more than I do.”

  “Aiden? But the girl seemed fine.”

  “Not her. Him. He’s been shot. I think a couple of times.”

  “What?” I say at the same time Mer says, “Fuck.” I continue. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

  To this, Clifton gives me a pointed look, but he doesn’t get the chance to respond when a popping sound, like a flare going off, reverberates through the whole house. Clifton launches off of the cot and onto the ground, leg crumbling slightly beneath his weight. He reaches the door and for the gun still strapped to his halter at the same time.

  “Fucking hell. If he hurt her I’m going to fucking kill him. Finally…” He says that last bit as a hiss, swallowed into his mouth so I’m sure I wasn’t meant to have heard him. I did though.

  I grip the handrail in a sweaty palm as I reach the stairs. I don’t want to, but I start up after him. Mer pulls out a weapon and the sound of her flicking off the safety behind me is the only sound she makes. I hold my gauze packets to my chest like a shield as I follow Clifton onto the ground floor, afraid of what I’ll see.

  Plumeria

  A fucking desmadre. That’s what this is and though I still feel responsible for it, I can also feel the weight of Dixon’s hand striking my cheek. I cling to that ephemeral pain and the memory of the words that accompanied it. I would die for each of these brutal bastards and Sara and I get the feeling that they’d all do the same for me. Hard to imagine that now though seeing Sara in front of me in the hall, her white skin smeared with red, tips of her hair dyed pink while Clifton bangs on the door in front of her, looking even worse for the wear.

  We’re clustered in the corner because even though everybody else lives down the hall to the right, Aiden had to choose the smallest room in the farthest recesses of the house. And now he’s got a girl in there. A pretty one too. Fuck, the damn near prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. I only got a glimpse of her, but she’s enough to turn a woman and she’s definitely turned Aiden…into something.

  I didn’t even realize what was happening – that the brute had brought home a reluctant guest – until I asked Knox where Aiden disappeared to while we carted Charlie into the house. I’d asked him if that was a good id
ea – leaving Aiden alone with someone who looks like that –but there hadn’t been time for Knox to respond as Sara issued orders left and right to help Clifton and Charlie. I didn’t think she had it in her, but adrenaline and the fact that she’s evidently very good at what she does must have erased any lingering hesitation she had. She’s a battlefield doctor, and easily the most useful person in the house.

  Clifton holds out his hand and Sara comes to a stop. He edges forward, the barrel of his Smith and Wesson pressed against his right cheek. His left hand reaches for the knob and I step in front of Sara with my Glock at the ready. I don’t know what we’re ready for. But we’re ready. Or something like it.

  “Aiden,” he says, knuckles rapping against the door for the second time. No one answers him, but through the walls I hear muffled murmuring. “Aiden, I’m coming in.”

  He gives no more warning than that, twists the brass handle and pushes the door open wide. I drop into a crouch and aim my gun for the body across the room, but his back is to us and he doesn’t turn around.

  “What did you do with the girl, Aiden?” Clifton says, cocking his gun’s hammer.

  “Fuck off,” Aiden grumbles. His head is bowed. He speaks again but this time not to us. “Open the door.” His tone is as hard as diamond and cruel, like it usually is. “Alina, open the fucking door.”

  His boot indents the wood when he kicks it and behind me Sara drops one of her gauze packets. She struggles to pick it up. Aiden’s got blood in his hair, blood on his torn shirt and on his pants. I can’t tell how much of it is his or if any of it is. He moves like he’s uninjured with ferocious, lethal gestures.

  “She alive?” Clifton lowers his gun and clips it to his belt, then limps across the room towards his brother.

  “Get out.”

  Clifton edges around the foot of the bed against Aiden’s direct order. I step inside the room, but only just. The lights are violent – bright white bulbs instead of a more forgiving orange – and though there’s a tab to lower the brightness when I reach for it, I see that it’s been taped in place. An involuntary shiver runs through me and rivals the warmth at my back. Sara is so close I can feel her breath on my shoulder. She releases a sharp little yelp and points at the floor.