“My God, is that who I think it is?” I asked.
Shadow nodded. “It’s Lucien.”
They both looked to be in Shadow’s study.
“Play the video,” Shadow said.
The sound quality was a little sketchy, but I was still able to make out what they were saying.
“What do you want from me, fearless leader,” Lucien sneered. “I’m quite busy. My football club is in the midst of contending for the European Championship and there’s much money to be made.”
“What will it take for you to give me your loyalty?” Shadow asked.
Lucien laughed. “Are you trying to buy me out?”
“Yes. Is that such a surprise?”
Lucien shook his head. “No I suppose not. The saying ‘every man has his price’ has truth to it.”
“So what’s your price?”
“Power and respect, of course. I want to have a bigger piece of the Midnight Society pie. I want my words during council meetings to double the weight of any others.”
Shadow paused for a moment before walking over to a decanter. He poured drinks into two glasses. “Fine.”
“That’s it? You agree to my terms, just like that?”
Shadow shrugged. “I’m tired of bickering with you during every meeting. I also understand when to give the dog a bone.”
“I’m no bloody dog.”
“Figure of speech you numbskull,” Shadow said. “I do agree, you provide great value to the Midnight Society. During council meetings, I will endorse your recommendations if you stop arguing with me on mine. I’ll start by approving your proposal for a privatized global energy conglomerate, as unethical as it is.”
“There’s a lot of money in it.”
“That, I don’t disagree,” Shadow said as he walked over and handed Lucien the drink, who took a healthy sip. “In the meantime, I need you to support my initiative.”
Lucien swallowed the remainder of the contents and then set the glass down. “Oh, and what would that be?”
“Your death.”
Shadow said those words with a complete lack of emotion.
It gave me chills. This was the same man whom I shared a bed with over the past couple of weeks?
“I beg your pardon?”
“You just drank poison. It’s not going to be pretty.”
Lucien immediately rose from his seat and made a move to attack Shadow. “What did you do? I’m a member of this council. What did you…” He began choking on his words.
Shadow brushed him aside as if he were nothing more than an insignificant insect. Lucien collapsed to the floor, hands around his throat, gasping for air.
Meanwhile Shadow looked on with cold, emotionless eyes.
That was when the the video ended, leaving me deeply disturbed. I was assaulted with chills, the feeling of icicles stabbing my entire body.
“Shadow…” I began as I took a step back away from the laptop.
“Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are,” he said. “I don’t remember any of that.”
I turned to face him. “Is the video authentic? Could it have been forged?”
He frowned. “I had one of my contacts investigate it. They put their best video analysts on it, assessing every damn pixel. The video is real. The person in that video is me.”
I was stunned.
“So what does this mean?”
“It means I’m responsible for Lucien’s death and I don’t remember any of it.” He folded his arms across his chest. “One of the reasons I sent you away was because I feared my mind was no longer my own. I didn’t know what fucked up shit Calisto put in inside my head and to what extent the control of her manipulation was.” He pointed at the laptop. “Now I know. As long as I’m around, I’m dangerous. I could very well be the one who’s been leaking information to Calisto, and I wouldn’t even know it.”
“And that’s why you’re sealing yourself in there?” I asked, gesturing towards the panic room.
He nodded. “I can’t lead these people with the time bomb that’s ticking away inside my head. Now that I’m locked away in here, I need you to set the password on the outside, one that I won’t be able to guess.”
“So the plan is for me to imprison you inside your wardrobe. Great. What next?” I asked. “The deadline for Lincoln’s big rescue is approaching and we don’t have a leader or a solid plan.”
Shadow rubbed his jaw. “Well, I’ve been thinking…” his voice trailed off.
“What?” I asked. “You have this look in your eye that tells me I’m not going to like this.”
“I need you to lead the rescue mission.”
What? Was Shadow out of his fucking mind?
“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Aria, at this point, I don’t trust myself. If there is another mole, I can’t trust anyone else either. You’re all I have at this point.”
I was bombarded with self-doubts as the pressure of Shadow’s request buried me like a cement coffin.
“I can’t pull this off, Shadow. There’s just no way. You’re asking me to outsmart Calisto.”
Shadow nodded. “Yes, I am. And yes you can.”
I could tell this was going to be a tough sell. “She pulled the wool over your eyes since you were ten. She outwitted the entire Midnight Society, a group of the world’s most powerful people. What makes you think I’ll fare any better?”
“That’s because we’re all idiots,” Shadow smirked. “You’re not. Now please, take the reins of whatever’s left of the Midnight Society and save Lincoln. Devise a plan, and make sure you keep it to yourself, up until the night of the breakout. You can coordinate everyone from here. Reiko will provide you with both eyes and ears to all the players involved.”
I bit my lip, and finally nodded.
“That a girl.”
“Shadow, what are you going to do to Lincoln when you see him, now that you know what happened between us?”
Shadow frowned. “Best you go, Aria. You have a lot of planning to do.”
“Okay,” I replied, knowing full well he wasn’t going to answer my question.
I had one day left to engineer an escape plan for Lincoln.
Fuck me.
Yet, despite all our efforts to save him, I couldn’t help but think that bringing Lincoln back to the Midnight Society was no different than leading him into the mouth of a lion.
“Don’t forget to set the password,” Shadow said, tilting his head towards the control panel on the outside.
I did as he requested.
“Thanks,” he said when I was done.
“Are you going to be okay in there?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine. In the meantime, you have a lot of work ahead of you.”
“No kidding,” I muttered. “All thanks to you.”
I tried to smile and make brevity of the situation, but it was difficult.
“You’ll succeed,” Shadow said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
I silently disagreed.
Just before leaving Shadow’s room, I turned around and glanced at him once more. He had a wicked grin on his face—one filled with vicious malice—and it scared the shit out of me. Though he was looking at me, I could tell he was lost in a mist of dark, unsettling thoughts.
I couldn’t help but wonder what monsters were buried deep within the soul of my lover.
Chapter Fourteen
Lincoln
“For once in your miserable life, tell me the truth. Is that baby mine?” I asked.
She reached for a bottle of chilled white wine, resting in a bucket of ice.
“I don’t know about you, Lincoln, but I need a drink,” she said brushing up against my shoulder.
I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and just fucking squeeze the life out of her. I would take so much pleasure in that.
But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Not now, while there was life inside her.
My hands were shac
kled in heavy chains once more, now bolted to the limo floor. Our ride was making haste towards the direction of my ultimate fate as a prisoner of the mad dragon, Yuen Xi.
Buchanan sat across from me, white knuckled fists clutching the shotgun. From the flicker in his eyes I knew he desired to cave my skull in. All he needed was a reason.
I watched as Calisto popped the cork of the wine bottle and poured a healthy serving into a fishbowl glass.
“Want some?” she asked.
“You shouldn’t be drinking,” I said. “It’s not good for the pregnancy.”
“Like you care,” she said as she held the glass firmly in her hand.
“If it’s my child, then I care,” I replied. “Now tell me the truth. Is it my baby?”
She set the glass down on the side table and rested a warm hand on my thigh. She began rubbing it back and forth with sensual strokes.
I was repulsed by her touch.
“Do you want to feel my belly?” she asked. “The baby just started kicking the other day.”
“I hope it kicks a hole right through your stomach, you wench,” I replied.
Calisto laughed. “I can tell you would have been a good father,” she said. “But alas, because of all your past transgressions we’ll have to hand you over to Yuen Xi. Lord only knows what he’s going to do with you. It’s sad you won’t even get a chance to see your child.”
“So it is my kid?” I asked once again.
“Yes you fuckwit, it’s your baby,” Calisto said.
“I thought you were on the pill,” I said, “And I’m sure I’m not the only cock you allowed within that shapeless chasm of yours. Of all the men you’ve fucked over the past few months, how do you know that I’m the lucky one?”
Calisto laughed. “You were the only one who fucked me during the conception date. You’re also the only man I allowed to fuck me without a condom. As for the pill, sometimes I forget. It happens.”
I shook my head. “I can’t trust your lies. That baby could be someone else’s.”
“Once the baby comes, I’ll send you the DNA results. I saved some of your semen from our last sexcapade a couple of days ago. It was very satisfying, thank you. Being pregnant has made me hornier.”
“Well, you can go right on ahead and fuck yourself then. That might help with your urges.”
“What kind of man talk’s to his baby’s mother like that?” she asked.
“What kind of woman condemns her baby’s father to die?”
“You don’t know for a fact that Yuen Xi will kill you.”
I shot her a look. “Please. Does the sun set at night?”
She brushed her hair back and smiled. “You’re right. He’ll probably torture you first and then kill you in the most brutal, horrific way possible. It’s a sad story, I know.”
I frowned at the thought of having my head served on a silver platter to Yuen Xi, the scourge of Asia and Genghis Kahn reincarnated.
Meanwhile my unborn child, if he or she is even my child, will end up being raised by their psychotic bitch of a mother, Calisto, whose soul was as rotten as a hobo’s teeth.
Though I didn’t fear death, there was still much I needed to accomplish in this life. For starters, I needed to make amends with Shadow for what I’ve done. I didn’t want to die knowing that he hated my guts. And there was still the matter of this baby. Oh lord, what to do? What to do?
Calisto suddenly shoved her cell phone camera into my face.
“Say something,” she said.
I looked at her, bewildered. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.
She readjusted the position of the phone.
“I’m documenting the final hours of our future baby’s father. I thought it’d be appropriate that our child had something to remember you by.”
“You’re insane.”
She made a ‘tsking’ sound with her tongue clicking against her teeth. “Now, now. You don’t want little Maximus to grow up thinking his father hated his mother, do you?”
“The baby’s a boy?”
She shrugged. “No clue. Maxine if our baby comes out without a pair.”
I stared at the lens of the camera on her cell phone.
“Never listen to your mother,” I said. “She’s a demon straight out of the ninth circle of hell.”
Calisto genuinely seemed disappointed by my words. “Lincoln, can’t we just have a loving family moment together? Look, why don’t you rub my belly? It’ll help us bond.”
Buchanan pointed the shotgun right in my face.
“Rub her belly, asshole,” he stated.
Could this get any more awkward?
I exhaled as I allowed my fingertips to slowly come to a rest on top of her round belly. I felt nothing but cotton fabric.
“It’s better to feel her right against the skin,” she said as she lifted up the bottom of her shirt, revealing her bare stomach. I could see traces of a thin line, drawing form her naval down to her groin. She definitely wasn’t faking her pregnancy.
“Go on, touch,” she whispered in a loving voice.
For a split second, I forgot that she was sacrificing me to a warlord, and thought about potentially being a dad.
She grabbed my shackled wrist and guided my hand to her womb.
“Sometimes it takes a while for the baby to do anything. Most days, he’s just sleeping.” Her voice was as light as silk.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself to feel the warmth of her belly, the vessel that was protecting our child.
And then I felt the baby move. My heart surged to the back of my throat. “I felt him,” I whispered. “I felt him move.”
I opened my eyes and noticed that Calisto was smiling at me. “I know you did, silly. I know you did.”
I was dumbfounded. I was going to be a father.
“You know what’s great, Lincoln?” she asked.
“What?”
“Tossing this little abomination in the trash can the second she’s born.” Her laugh that followed after was one straight out of a nightmare.
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered. “It’s a baby, Calisto. Your baby.”
She leaned back in her seat and reached for the glass of wine again, which Buchanan gave to her.
“You dumb fuck,” she said. She took the glass and splashed it right into my face. Oddly enough, I was relieved that instead of drinking the wine, it was being used to humiliate me. “I was joking. Do you think I’d ever harm my child? Hell, Lincoln, I’m going to raise our child alone. Trust me when I say that he or she will grow up with enough sparks in her blood to ignite the world on fire. She’ll be molded into the perfect man or woman, in my image.”
Suddenly the car rolled to a stop.
“We’re here,” Calisto said as she waited for Buchanan to exit the vehicle first. He opened the door for her and she stepped out, leaving my hands still chained to the limo floor.
The door closed behind them. I heard the sounds of chatter from the outside, some of it in English, but most in Mandarin.
Unsuspecting to all parties I understood the Asian dialect.
“He is the one who killed Yuen Xi’s daughter?”
“Yes,” Calisto answered in Mandarin. “You tell Yuen Xi that I’m willing to sacrifice Lincoln Richard’s, the father of my own baby, to make things right between the Revenants and his organization. It’s a high price to pay for peace but for the betterment of both organizations, one that I’m willing to pay.”
I hated her.
And to think, there was a time where I wanted nothing more than to have her in my arms.
Suddenly the limo door opened again. Buchanan’s beefy arm reached through and grabbed me by the collar.
“Time’s up, boy,” he said. “Are you ready to say goodbye to this shit show you’ve called a life?”
I thought of the baby in Calisto’s belly.
No. No, I was not.
Chapter Fifteen
Aria
It was time. Tonight, I
was either going to orchestrate one of the most brilliant breakouts in history or I was going to condemn all those under my command to die a horrible, horrible death.
No pressure. No damned pressure at all.
“What was the plan again?” Cairo asked as he looked at me with skepticism on his face.
“I didn’t tell it to you yet,” I replied.
“Great. So when do we get to know?”
I thought about it for a moment. “It’ll be a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of plan. I’ll give you instructions as you’re going through the motions.”
“Jesus Christ,” Beau said as he leaned back in his chair and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “This has to be a joke.”
His brother, Braydon, a massive hulk of eye-candy whom I had the pleasure of meeting only minutes ago, also decided to voice his displeasure. “Seriously, I’ve seen football teams in the Football Lingerie League more organized than this. It’s that bad.”
It was Isadora who hushed them all.
“We live with what we have,” she said. “I put my trust into Aria. If Shadow acknowledges that she should be the one leading this rescue mission, then so be it.”
Thank you.
“Besides, if it’s our time to die, then who are we to oppose?” she added.
Damn it, you weren’t helping Isadora.
I had spent the better part of the afternoon going over everything again—geographical maps, sections of the power grid, escape routes, and the million other variables that could affect our success. I had drafted up three contingency plans per scenario, hoping that I’d never have to use them.
But what if I missed something? What if there was a critical key element that I overlooked, one that spelt doom for us all?
They doubted my leadership capabilities and I couldn’t blame them.
Damn you Shadow for putting me in this position.
“Look, I think this will work,” I said. “You just have to trust me and follow my instructions. We should all make it out in one piece.” It was my pathetic attempt at an uplifting, spirit-rousing speech.
“Easy for you to say, darling,” Beau sighed. “You’re not the one going out into the field, headfirst into the danger zone.”
Revenant: The Midnight Society Book Three Page 10
