Rhapsody (The Teplo Trilogy #2)

by Ayden K. Morgen

  "We're in," Jason responded.

  "Warner and his men have a five minute ETA," Davis said.

  Michael gritted his teeth, did a sweep and headed into the shadows of the tunnel to wait for back up to get there. He paused halfway down and listened as a scratching sound echoed from the other side of the door.

  He hurriedly ducked back out of the culvert and plastered himself against the side as the door creaked open.

  "Fuck," he mouthed as Elijah and the little redheaded bitch slipped out.

  The blond had a gas can in hand, pouring it out as he went.

  "How long?" the redhead asked, flicking a lighter on and off in her hand.

  Elijah looked at his watch. "Long enough," he grunted and tossed the gas can. "Now that Vetrov's son and his group of psychos are gone, we're in the clear. If they don't get busted, your cousin will kill them the moment their planes land. Torch the place and let's get the fuck outta here, babe."

  "Kincaid?" Jason's voice came through the earpiece.

  He couldn't afford a response as the crazy bitch smiled sweetly at Elijah and struck the lighter to the fluid. It went up with a soft whoosh.

  "It'll hit the chemicals in the tunnel in a couple of minutes, and that'll ignite the rest." Elijah laughed. "I love a good explosion. Too fucking bad we couldn't take care of Vetrov alongside the DEA agent and his bitch."

  "Kincaid?"

  He mouthed another curse as they started walking away, murmuring back and forth about Vetrov and how much Francisco hated the bastard, acting as if they didn't have a care in the world. That was alright though. Fuckers were about to have a care. A really big care.

  "Stairs," Jason muttered as he led Lillian into the storage room. It had taken Tristan weeks to get inside, and they'd left the door wide open for him and Lillian. He didn't believe for a minute that walking out would be as simple though. Whatever Vetrov had in store would be hell.

  And he'd brought Lillian in with him. He hadn't really had a choice. As loathe as he was to admit it, they needed her more right then than they'd needed her at any point in the past. He could guess how this was going to play out, and Tristan wasn't in any shape to get himself out under his own power.

  Lillian was going to have to help drag him out. And damn the bastard that put stairs here because if Tristan was in worse shape than they hoped, they were going to have hell getting him up them with her leg.

  She didn't complain as they started down though. In fact, she didn't utter a single word. She simply gritted her teeth, adjusted her grip on the Beretta in her hand, grabbed the railing with her other and made do with what she had, hobbling down like a champ.

  She was a little lioness off to fight for what was hers. Jason couldn't wait to officially welcome her to the family. There was no one he'd ever met as suited to his friend as the ballerina now walking along at his side.

  He motioned for her to stop as the stairs opened up into a cellar. The boards were gone, and the scent of gasoline hung heavier in the air. He and Lillian entered carefully. The room was empty, but a makeshift door had been cut into the cinderblock wall at the back of the basement. It stood open, granting access to the tunnels. The bastards had cut clean through to the city's drainage system. It opened up on the other side in a four-way where one tunnel ended and three others began. Industrial work lights hung overhead, illuminating the area, allowing Jason to see exactly how carefully Vetrov had hidden his little lab.

  Aside from the homeless and the sporadic work crews, no one ventured that far into the drainage tunnels, leaving Vetrov with the perfect set up. The lab wasn't in Teplo, though they were able to access it from the club. And all they had to do to hide it was push the door they'd created closed. If they did, no one would be the wiser. The tunnels led out far enough from the club where no one would have connected any activity on the surface to Teplo.

  They hadn't wired the lab to blow, either. The bastards had doused every inch of the place with gasoline and stacked a table full of volatile chemicals right in the middle. If the stuff in those bottles ignited, the resulting explosion would ravage the tunnels, the street above, and leave nothing but a hole where Teplo now sat. Lillian would be damn lucky if her house didn't go up, too.

  Fucking hell.

  "Tristan!" she cried.

  Jason swore and grabbed her arm as she started to move past him toward Tristan, who was on his back on the far side of the table. Even from a distance, he looked bad. Really bad. Blood oozed from cuts on his hands and his face. His clothes were grimy, soaked with blood and dirt. Fury roiled through Jason as he saw exactly how much damage the bastards had done to his friend. He was so battered, he was almost unrecognizable. Thank fuck Davis had an ambulance on the way because Tristan was going to need one. Desperately.

  "Wait a minute," he demanded as Lillian struggled to free herself from his grasp. His eyes roved around the makeshift lab and noticed no one. His hackles went up. He glanced back at the tables. "Kincaid?"

  No answer.

  "Kincaid?"

  Lillian tore free from his grasp and limped hurriedly toward Tristan. Jason couldn't contain the grimace as she threw herself to the cement beside him, heedless of her leg.

  "Tristan, baby," she whispered, reaching out for him.

  Jason followed, keeping his gun up to give her cover in case they weren't alone. He rather suspected they were though. None of Vetrov's people would risk getting caught in here with all those chemicals ready to explode. Tristan was a decoy exactly as Kincaid had feared, here to keep everyone occupied while they scurried off like rats.

  "He's breathing," Lillian said, brushing her hand in the air above his swollen face. "Thank you, God, he's breathing."

  "Don't try to move him," Jason warned, crouching beside her and grabbing for Tristan's wrist to get a pulse. It was weak, unsteady. His breaths came in abnormal gulps and watery exhalations. Jason's mouth compressed into a thin line when he saw the rip in Tristan's shirt where a knife had slipped between his ribs. "We're going to need that ambulance to move faster," he said into the earpiece connecting him to Davis and Kincaid.

  "How bad is he?" Davis asked.

  "Bad," he answered, beyond pissed off.

  "Five minutes," Davis responded. "Can you move him out?"

  "Oh my God," Lillian choked out. Tears streamed down her face as she hovered over Tristan, scared to even touch him. She pointed to his arm, her hands shaking visibly.

  Ah, fuck.

  "Lillian, look at me, darlin'," Jason coached as her eyes hovered on the jagged edges of the bone protruding from Tristan's arm in two different places. She blanched visibly, paling, but didn't look away from his mangled arm. "Look at me, Lillian."

  She whimpered, a pitiful, keening sound, but finally did as instructed and looked at him.

  "I need you to keep an eye out while I take care of him. Can you do that for me?" He talked to her like she was a child, but she was on the verge of cracking. He had to keep her calm or Tristan wasn't going to make it. If they tried to move him like this, he would bleed out or go into shock. "Lillian?"

  "Y-yeah." She swallowed hard and nodded. "I can do that."

  "Good." He handed her the gun she'd dropped and pulled her to her feet before stripping his belt off to use as a tourniquet and dropping to his knees. "Shoot anything that moves, darlin'."

  "Freeze, motherfuckers," Michael boomed, stepping out from his hiding place and leveling his gun at the duo as they started across the lot.

  They stopped walking and turned, matching looks of irritation on their faces.

  Elijah recovered first, grabbing for the gun tucked into his pants.

  "Don't even think about it, asshole," Michael warned, his finger on the trigger. "I will shoot you if you even look at me cross-eyed. Do you have any fucking idea how goddamn much you assholes annoy me?"

  "Riley's partner, I presume?" Elijah asked, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  "Something like that," he said, not really in the mood to go int
o specifics with the asshole about why he didn't have a partner and didn't want one, not even Riley.

  "You said he was alone," the redhead growled.

  "He was," Elijah retorted. "Don't know where this one came from."

  Michael grinned at his pissed off tone. "I came from the skies above, asshole. I want your weapons on the ground and you face down in the next two minutes or I start shooting."

  "You're a cop," the redhead said, rolling her eyes. "You aren't going to shoot anyone."

  Michael laughed. "Thanks to that big fucking behemoth you work with, I've spent all day popping Vicodin like it's going out of style. Drop the weapon and get the fuck on the ground before my patience runs out. And while you're at it, how about telling me what the hell you set on fire in there?"

  "Son of a bitch!" Jason cursed, causing Lillian to jump.

  She spun in his direction, her heart hammering in her chest. "What's wrong?" Her eyes ran over Tristan's battered body, looking for any signs that he was getting worse. He was in such bad shape, she couldn't tell.

  "Kincaid just found Elijah and Mariah. We've got to go."

  She breathed a sigh of relief before the urgency of his tone dawned on her.

  "We have to go. Now," he said again. "They've set something on fire in the tunnel."

  He didn't have to tell her a third time.

  She hobbled toward Tristan as quickly as she could.

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you," the redhead said as Michael demanded that they drop their weapons and hit the ground. He wanted to shoot her on principal. She looked high as a kite, her eyes wide and dilated, her movements jerky and half-formed. She was getting on his nerves like a fucking junkie, too. "It's going to be really unsafe to be here in about two minutes."

  Yeah, he'd already figured as much. But hey, if all hell was going to break loose thanks to whatever bullshit they'd loaded the tunnel with, at least the waves would break on their asses, too.

  I Don't Give A Shit 101.

  Best class ever.

  "I'm getting bored with this shit," he muttered, steadying the gun on his cast. "Drop the goddamn weapons. And hit the ground. Now!"

  She huffed and pulled the gun on her hip from the holster. They didn't get much further before the ground shook beneath their feet, a distant boom sounding.

  Elijah grabbed for his Glock.

  Michael dove for cover, pulling the trigger.

  "What was that?" Lillian cried as a loud boom rang out, shaking the tunnel around them. Boxes and bottles rattled and fell to the floor, liquid pouring out as she fought to stay on her feet.

  Jason cursed loudly as he was thrown to the floor, his belt still in his hands. He dragged himself up to his knees before the shaking subsided and grabbed for Tristan, the belt forgotten. "Lillian, can you run?" he asked as a whooshing sound began from farther down the south tunnel, growing louder.

  "What?" She blinked as he hefted Tristan over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and staggered to his feet. Tristan didn't even move.

  "Run," Jason gritted out. "Now."

  Flames shot from the end of the south tunnel, rapidly igniting the gasoline spread across the floor.

  Lillian started limping as fast as she could go.

  They were halfway up the stairs when the gasoline spread across the basement floor caught with a crackling hiss.

  "Faster," Jason urged her as she dragged herself upward, not even daring to breathe.

  Another loud explosion sounded, closer than before, rocking the building.

  Her heart raced. Her breath came in sharp pants. The roar from below drowned out both sounds, pushing her as fast as possible up the stairs. Smoke poured into the club, billowing up the stairs and thickening the air around them. Her eyes and lungs burned, but she didn't care. All she could think about was Tristan, motionless over Jason's shoulder as he raced toward the exit at her side.

  The heat of the flames rushing toward them licked at her as she ran across the dance floor, her leg screaming in protest. The doors were close, so close she could smell sunshine and freshly mown grass beneath the overpowering stench of smoke and gasoline, but they weren't close enough.

  Flame licked higher, heat pulsating at her back in burning waves.

  Would she feel it when the fire caught up to them? Would dying hurt?

  Her leg wobbled beneath her, shards of pain slicing through the fear in her mind. The muscles stretched tight beneath her as she pushed her leg to the edge of collapse. Still, she kept moving, running as fast as she could. Like the ballerina she had been on stage, each step she took had purpose.

  The doors loomed directly ahead, but Jason was faltering, Tristan's dead weight slowing him down. She wasn't going to let Tristan die like this—buried in the rubble of Teplo—because of her. For the last year of her life, she'd felt helpless. She'd been caught in a nightmare she didn't want to live, unable to dance, to run, or to cross her legs and simply sit on the floor. She wasn't going to let it end like this, running away from something else she couldn't fight while he died.

  For once in a very long time, she was suddenly certain of who she was. Not a ballerina. Not an agent. But a woman in love. Madly, desperately, absolutely head over heels in love. She'd take whatever came her way, however it came, for the man she loved. And she would give up every bit of happiness in a heartbeat, anything it took, just so long as he survived. She didn't even have to think about her actions as a deafening roar sounded below.

  Reaching out, she pushed Jason as hard as she could, shoving him and Tristan through the doors.

  The building erupted around her, the heat flinging her off of her feet.

  "You sadistic little bitch," Michael grunted as the redhead aimed low and fired off a round. Luckily, the bullet went wide, slamming into the side of the building instead of his head. He barely managed to get his own gun up before returning fire.

  He didn't know where the hell Elijah was at, but S.P.D. converged on the warehouse like a SWAT team on a hostage situation. And Mariah kept fucking firing. She had him backed into a corner, nowhere left to go but down.

  Yeah, screw that. If he went down, he intended to take her with him. He'd never shot a woman before, but for her? Exception was his motherfucking middle name.

  "Lower your weapon," he panted as she slammed into the side of the building.

  Seattle cops drew their weapons all around the maze of police cars out front. They couldn't fucking shoot her without hitting him though. And wasn't that about a bitch? He would have told them to fire already, but tempting fate when death already stared him in the face wasn't a good idea.

  "Not happening," the redhead retorted, grimacing.

  "You really think you're going to kill me and walk away?" he laughed, not sure if she was too high to care or just ballsy as hell. "It doesn't work that way. Even your boyfriend knew that. He left your stupid ass here."

  She smiled at him, and Jesus Christ if that wasn't the creepiest smile he had ever seen in his life. Goosebumps broke out all up and down his arms. "He wouldn't leave me. You don't know anything about him," she mumbled, her finger twitching on the trigger. Her eyes were wild. Like she'd lost what little goddamned mind she had left. Fuck's sake, she probably had. Crazy bitch looked like she'd been mainlining crack. She smiled again, sending another round of goosebumps racing up and down his arms. "You're going to die."

  He didn't wait to hear the report of her gun before he squeezed the trigger.

  The first bullet slammed into the bitch's shoulder. The second into her chest. He watched as she fell toward the ground, that same smile on her face.

  He didn't even feel the bullet that ripped through him as she fell.

  Something was on fire. The stench of gasoline and smoke tickled at Tristan's nose, but he couldn't open his eyes. He wasn't sure where he was, but he wasn't on the floor anymore. He no longer hurt either. He felt as if he floated outside of his body, as if the pain came from somewhere far off. He knew that probably wasn't a good thing, but he couldn'
t scrape thought together well enough to figure out why. He couldn't figure out why he felt so warm either, like he always did when Lillian was near.

  She wasn't though.

  He'd sent her to Oregon with her father. She'd yelled at him, cried, and then left…because he'd lied to her.

  God, he wanted to see her. Just one more time to make things right.

  He tried to open his mouth to tell her, but words wouldn't form.

  For a brief instant, everything but the buzzing in his ears dropped away.

  It came back with a deafening roar as he smacked into the cement.

  Except it wasn't cement. He was lying on grass? Wood? He was outside?

  He couldn't tell.

  Someone screamed over and over. The air around him felt hot. Really fucking hot. The world shook and faded again, odd lights flashing briefly in the darkness before it all disappeared.

  When it went this time, there was only silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  Everything was dark, hot, confused. Tristan couldn't tell where he was at. He wasn't even sure who he was. He just hurt. Everywhere. Not little pains, but stabbing, ceaseless waves of agony crashing over him. His head, his chest, his arms and legs. Every inch of him hurt like hell.

  Voices shouted all around him. Sirens shrieked. It all sounded as if came from some great distance, muted by the war currently raging in his body. He tried to peel his eyes open to take stock, but they refused to budge. And, for some reason, he couldn't seem to catch a breath. He couldn't remember why, but his lungs burned like they were on fire.

  Fire.

  Lillian.

  The world swam into screaming focus, a muffled cry leaving his throat as the thought of his ballerina jerked him toward the surface and plunked him fully down into brutal, agonizing reality. And reality was chaos. Police cars and fire trucks were parked everywhere, blue and red lights circling like a little army of disco balls twirling beneath a cloudless blue and smoke-filled backdrop. People milled all around him, running, shouting, and screaming over one another.