We take out a few guards inside. The middle-aged woman behind the window in the wall screams.
“Touch anything and you die, too,” I growl, kicking in the door and getting into her small space. I spot the panic button and caress the side of her face with the gun. “Did you touch that?”
She shakes her head no. Violently no.
It wouldn’t have helped, but I like to feel obedience.
Everything is brown or beige tile. Is that calming to the nutjobs? Valerie would probably know. She has opinions on colors. She once told me to wear a blue tie—she said it was more executive than all black. I told her it was a long-standing tradition to wear all black in my “accounting firm”—black shirt, black jacket, black tie. She seemed surprised, but she wanted me to try the blue. “The brightness is going to look more modern to people. You’re setting a tone for your regime. You’re your own man.”
I think people responded well to the blue tie.
My main man Mercal crowds in, and we study the feeds, count the staff. Like taking candy from a baby.
But then, nobody is interested in breaking a person out of an institute for the criminally insane, not like with a real prison. A real prison is full of angry guys who can be useful to an organization. The criminally insane tend to be a bit more dubious.
I send one crew member to lock down the office wing.
“You got a list of names?” I ask the woman. “I’m looking for a Kiro Dragusha.”
“I don’t believe we have such a person.” She gets on her computer and with shaking fingers brings a spreadsheet up. Names, room numbers. “No Kiro.”
“How about a Keith. You got a Keith?” That was another name Kiro had. The name his adoptive parents gave him.
She stares at me. Deer in the headlights. After a prompt to the side of the head, she finds no Keiths.
I nod at Mercal, who takes her away.
No Kiro. No Keith. I figured he’d be under a different name, but it was worth a try. It’s okay. We know Kiro’s about 20. We know he’s been in one year. That’ll narrow it down, and I know a Dragusha when I see one.
I make the call, and fifteen more of my guys slip in. We’ve rehearsed this. It’s simple stuff—a violent takeover, four guys to a wing. Paint the walls with blood if we have to. I adjust my stocking mask.
“Fast and furious,” I tell my guys. “Ten minutes in and out. You call me when you find him.”
Killing Kiro is something I need to personally oversee and film, and I’m getting DNA. No fucking around.
We go in and disperse. My own team and I take the most likely floor—the top. We start by rounding up staff. That’s the key to this operation, controlling the staff. Taking the phones.
We put the three guys face down on the floor—we’re not expecting heroes, but you never know. We let the females sit against the wall.
I press my piece to an older nurse’s forehead. She has a polka-dot headband. “You in charge?”
She nods. She’s crying and shaking. Her powdered face is garish in the fluorescent lights.
“You should apply your makeup when you get here—not beforehand at home. It’s all about the lighting.” A little chitchat. Valerie would be proud. She looks at me with terror. “Are you hearing me?”
A hot younger nurse is fumbling with something. Mercal turns his piece on her. “That better not have been a phone.”
She opens her hands, wide green eyes. “I gave you my phone. It’s my…” She shows us her stethoscope. “Nervous habit.”
I turn back to the older nurse. “We’re looking for Kiro. He may be going by Keith. Got anyone like that?”
Her lips move. Trying to speak.
“No such person,” the hot young one says.
I turn my attention to her, because at least she can fucking talk. “What are you?”
“Attending nurse. This was my floor until a week or so—”
“You’re our tour guide now. We’ll meet each patient, and you’ll tell us how long they’ve been here.”
She gets up slow and sure. Her hair’s up in some kind of braided style. “Can you give me a clue? I want to help. I don’t want trouble.”
Something about her is off. She’s not fucked-up enough. She pretty much volunteered, didn’t she? You can’t trust a volunteer. I walk up to her, peer into her eyes. “You a cop?”
Her eyes widen. “Fuck no.”
Truth. Still, my gut says she’s hiding something. Valerie says to listen to my gut. Then again, if I kill this one, I have one of the guys as a tour guide—or the puddle of an old lady nurse. My gut doesn’t like that any better.
“I’ll help. Just don’t hurt anyone.”
“Oh, we’re gonna hurt someone, sister. But if you play nice, we’ll keep the body count down. Now we’re going to start at the end of the hall, and you’re going to introduce me around.” I pull open a slim door. Storage closet. “Get the rest of the guests in here, Mercal.”
We start the tour—me and the hot one, flanked by two of my best. One of the guys cries out. Mercal. He’s playing games. A fucking psycho. Is this how people used to see me?
We head in the first room.
She says, “This is Wendell, he’s—”
“No oldsters,” I say. “Kiro is in his early twenties. He’s been in here for a year. Anyone who meets that criteria—”
“S-so you don’t want to meet the guys who have been here forever?”
I shove the barrel of my Glock to her throat. “Does the term ‘a year’ have meaning for you or not?”
She leads us down the hall. She waves at a door. “Ronald’s fifty years old.”
I look in. Old guy. I look back, catch her monitoring me. I shove her.
We pass another. “Pearson’s been in two years. He might be little old…”
I go in. Blond. Wiry. “Stop wasting my fucking time.”
We go on. She’s nervous. We pass another room. The hair color’s right. I can’t see his face. “Him?”
“He’s forty. Been in twenty years. But this next guy could be it—the next guy could be your Kiro for sure.” She speeds up, like she really wants us to come and see this next guy.
We follow her in, but the next guy is a redhead. Clearly not a Dragusha. Fuck. We keep going, checking the guys. Nobody fits the description. We head back, and that’s when I happen to look into the dark-haired guy’s room. All that dark hair. The large frame. I slow.
She gives me a panicked look.
I grab her hair, drag her into the room.
He’s a fucking Dragusha if I ever saw one.
Kiro Dragusha.
I jerk her and shove the gun into her eye. “You trying to fuck with us? This guy’s not forty.”
“He’s not your guy!”
I twist her arm and use the torque to slam her face into the wall. “Wrong answer. Get the cameras rolling and get a lock of his hair,” I call over my shoulder.
“Leave him!”
“Trussed up and drugged. Thank you, Fitcher, or whatever this place is.”
It’s right then that the nurse decides it’s a good time to raise holy hell, screaming like a banshee, calling out the number 34.
She’s going crazy. I cock my gun. I’m about to pop her when I hear the crash. I spin around to find myself face to face with Kiro, a pair of scissors flashing in his bloody hands. He’s breathing hard. Coming at me.
All three of my guys are down. I don’t look directly at them. I don’t need to. They’re lying wrong on the floor. Broken dolls.
The fucking nurse is screaming her head off. “No killing. No killing!”
I pull off my stocking mask and level my piece at him. “Stop right there.” A barrel in the face is enough for most guys. But this guy isn’t most guys. He’s drugged up, that’s clear. Unsteady on his feet.
But it’s more than that.
This guy isn’t quite human. What the fuck?
He’s bigger than his brothers. Panting, bloody. But it’s his eyes—somethi
ng more animal than human in his eyes.
I’ve seen all kinds of guys, seen them when they’re out of their minds with fear, with anger.
This guy is in a class all his own. Like words don’t get through, and in that moment that we’re facing off, I’m wishing I’d brought something bigger. More of a cannon. But this guy isn’t even seeing my gun. Like having a .45 against a bear who’s looking to fly at you. You’ll get a shot off, but will it matter?
“No more killing, 34,” she gasps from behind me.
Kiro’s gaze shifts. Words don’t get through—unless the hot nurse says them. But then she starts sobbing—maybe she’s seen the bodies.
My heart pounds. “Listen to the lady,” I say. “No killing.” Like I’m talking to the wind. This guy’s gone.
I manage to get off a shot as he lunges for me. Flies, like a fucking madman, going for my throat, fingers grabbing my face. I hit him, but he’s pure rage. Kiro doesn’t like his nurse being messed with.
He hits me. I play dead, but he has me up. You don’t fool a killer like this. He has me by the neck. I’m clawing at his fingers, and right then my life flashes before my eyes. Spots form in my vision. I feel my legs start to go.
I think about that old bitch’s prophecy. The brothers together. He’s a fucking nuclear arsenal. I should’ve dynamited the whole place.
“No, 34! Don’t kill him.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ann
He’s choking the life out of the man. Right before my eyes.
“No!” I sob. I don’t know what I’m saying “no” to. The rubble. The smell of blood. The antiseptic. Donny. The kitten crying. The insomnia.
Patient 34 slams the man against the wall like a rag doll. The sound is sickening. The man slumps to the floor, out cold. Maybe dead.
Patient 34 turns to me then. I whimper and scramble sideways, but that just seems to draw him. In a fluid motion, he has my arm.
My mouth goes dry. His hair is wild, amber eyes fiery. I freeze, unable to move. His nostrils expand and contract, and I can feel him tremble—with murderous energy, I think. He’s scary, yeah. Like a beast of a warrior.
But the main word that comes to my mind is “majestic.”
There might be a little bit of awe as well.
He reaches up to my cheek. I jerk away, not wanting him to hurt me, but he tightens his hold on my arm. “Don’t be afraid, Ann.”
I reel at the force of my name on his lips. Again he reaches up his hand and lays gentle fingers on my face. Sticky. Blood. Am I bleeding? Is he going to kill me, too?
“Please let me go,” I whisper. “Please, 34.”
He doesn’t listen, or maybe he’s just beyond hearing. Wildly I look around at the dead and unconscious men. I’ve never seen anything like this. Not even in the war zones.
He seems mesmerized by my forehead. I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking in fear as he touches my hair. He holds me in place with a grip of stone. I try again to pull away.
“No.”
He touches my cheek, and I open my eyes. Emotions have a size, and this man’s anger is huge, like a force of its own. I can feel myself fraying—it’s the exhaustion, the fear, the kitten, the antiseptic. Tears roll down my cheeks.
“You want to get out,” I sob. “I know you do. This is your chance. Go.” I don’t give a fuck about my story anymore. I just want him to survive. I want him to be free.
“You’re hurt,” he pants.
“It’s just a cut. You won’t get another chance, 34!”
He won’t stop checking my head. I try to push him away—it’s like trying to push the wind away. He keeps touching me, fingers on my forehead and head like I’m an inanimate object, his to control.
“Th-they came up from the north stairwell. You can get out the other way.”
“Hurt,” he says.
“Listen to me, 34! There’s a back way out on the far side of the craft room. You know the craft room?”
He brushes the hair out of my eyes. My heart pounds. Savage Adonis.
“Go!”
He looks in the direction of the craft room, and I think he’s going for it. The wild boy, sensing freedom.
“You understand, right?”
He kneels and sweeps me up into his arms.
“No!” I cry as we bang out the door. “You can’t!”
But he can. He is. He’s tearing down the hall, down to the craft room, like I said.
Carrying me.
It’s here I realize that he’s not entirely steady. Is the adrenaline of the fight wearing off? There was a shot. Was he hit? His blue PJs have blood on them.
“Let me down,” I beg. “I’ll be fine.”
No answer. He takes another flight of stairs.
I struggle in his arms. He tightens his grip, face beautifully brutal, dark curls wild, eyes distant and feral.
We reach the emergency exit door. He kicks it open.
It falls out—face first.
It’s a cloudy morning, just past seven. The guard towers are eerily dark. Where are the guards? The spotlights are all off.
He stills, sucks in a breath. It comes to me that this is the first time he’s breathed outdoor air in months.
“You’re out now.” I push on his chest. He’s ignoring me, carrying me around to the front, to the parking lot and the gates.
I start to say something, but he seals my mouth with his hand. He’s panting, carrying me along the side of the facility.
Like being in the arms of King Kong.
We round a corner.
“Hey! Hey you!”
A few men are coming at us with military-style weaponry.
These are not institute guys.
I feel 34 stiffen.
“Stop! On the ground! Both of you!”
He crouches behind a car and sets me carefully on the pavement. “34!”
Again he touches my hair, my cheek. I feel strangely like a doll he’s decided to care for. And then I see he’s bleeding from the shoulder.
I gasp.
In flash he’s gone.
“There he is!”
A shot goes off. There are more shots. I crouch, terrified. I hear a smack, a groan, a sickening crunch.
I hug my knees to my chest as the sounds spin on, then I crawl to the side of the car. What I should really do is pull out my phone and get some footage. I was getting footage when they first attacked. When they first sat us in the hall. The guys almost caught me, but I made up that thing about my stethoscope.
Now I just want to survive.
I inch out in time to see Patient 34 shaking a man by the neck a few times before he whips the man’s face into the side of the shiny black SUV. The man crumples to the ground next to two other bodies.
And 34 stands over them, hands dripping with blood. I suck in a breath.
He killed the armed men with his bare hands.
And then he turns to me. Our gazes lock. A bolt of fear goes through me.
He’s a force of nature. Pure aliveness. Pure power. He’s the most ferociously hot thing I’ve ever seen. The most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen.
Barely human.
Savage Adonis.
Is he even seeing me? Or is he seeing prey? Heat goes into his eyes as he stalks toward me. There’s a strange inevitability to everything now, as if he’s been coming for me forever.
I’m trembling deeply. All the death. I can’t handle any more death, any more horror. Strong arms lift me. The earth tilts.
“I’ll protect you, Nurse Ann.” He carries me back to where the bodies are.
“Y-you killed them.”
He settles me gently into the front seat of the SUV. Says nothing.
“What are you doing?”
He pulls out the seatbelt and puts the buckle in my hand, like he wants me to finish buckling it.
“You’re wounded. You need medical attention,” I say.
He grabs my face. “Seatbelt.” He slams my door and starts around the front of the
car, sticking out a hand to support himself on the hood as he rounds the front. He gets in and starts the thing up. Did he take the keys off the guys he killed or were they in here?
“You can drive?”
“I’ve driven.” He studies the dashboard, fits his hand uncertainly over the shifter. Then he shifts to drive and pulls out with a lurch.
“Jesus!” I scream.
He races out, crashing the gate. He’s going fast. He’s shit at driving.
“Get on the right side of the road! Jesus, 34!”
He looks at me uncertainly.
I gesture frantically. “Stay on this side of the line! You see it? See the line?”
He jerks the vehicle into the proper lane. He drives like a newbie, pressing the gas in pulses.
“Driven isn’t the same as can drive,” I say.
He doesn’t answer. He’s swaying in his seat. He swerves. I scream and grab the wheel. That jerks him back to attention.
“You’re going to pass out and kill us! Come on! Let me drive.”
He pushes my hand off. He’s pale. Is he losing blood? Is it the drugs?
“You’re half passed out!” He doesn’t even have his seatbelt on.
He glowers at the road. It’s a two-lane nowhere highway. We pass a Pine Cone Motel billboard. Free WiFi. Spotlight beams shine up from below it. The ambient light kisses his full lips, his powerful cheekbones.
I grip the door handle and quietly unbuckle my seatbelt, hold it in place, ready to run.
“Buckle it.”
“No!”
He sucks in a breath. “…won’t get far.”
“I won’t get far dead!”
He doesn’t reply; he just tightens his grip on the wheel.
“Talk to me. Have you ever driven on a road before?”
“Cars at campsites.”
“You’re going to kill us. Do you even know traffic signals? Pull over.”
He barrels on. Too fast for me to jump out. Or should I try it?
“I’m not dying in a car, 34.”
He drives on, concentrating. I grip the handle, riding helplessly.
“You’re going to pass out.”
“I won’t.”
Savage Mafia Prince: a Dangerous Royals romance Page 9
