Finch (Kindred #6)

by Scarlett Finn

  Devon didn’t want to be drugged; she needed her wits about her. Thad had said they were going to be driving for a while, so there might be more chances to talk to him later. For now, she let her head fall back so she could look into the sky out her side window… God knew when she might next see it after Thad delivered her to her destination.

  TWO

  She hoped for a long drive, maybe one that would take days or take them back over the border into the States. Devon got neither wish. Being spoiled by Zave recently meant she’d gotten used to getting what she wanted and being treated like a princess. Another fantasy shattered.

  It was dark by the time Thad pulled off the main road. They were in a city, she didn’t know which one, as she’d been drifting in and out of reality throughout the trip. The heat was tough to bear, and the air conditioning could only do so much when she wasn’t hydrated.

  Driving through the streets, she tried to pinpoint landmarks but had never been to Mexico before… Well, not out in the open while conscious. Thinking that they were going to stop somewhere for food or maybe to rest, she tried to think about how to approach breaking through to him when they pulled into the parking lot of a decent-looking hotel.

  “This place is nice,” she said and stretched. “Can we afford it?” Given that he’d thrown their only source of income out of the window a few hundred miles ago.

  “We’re not paying for it,” he said, retrieving his gun, and horror made her eyes grow when she saw the silencer he pulled from the same door well. He screwed it onto the front of his weapon, then snagged her wrists. “Come out this side.”

  Bruised by the brake and steering wheel, she couldn’t say no when he dragged her across the front of the vehicle and out onto the asphalt at the driver’s side. “Wait,” she begged, trying to pull away when he started toward a side door. “Are you saying your contact is in there? That this is it?”

  The hotel was a nice spot to spend some time if, while she was here, she would spend the night trying to get through to the doctor. It wasn’t such a great prospect if this was where she was going to be handed over to his contacts. The caliber of this hotel was high enough that it could hold a buyer, the sort of buyer who would’ve taken her home if Zave hadn’t been at the auction to purchase her.

  “Please,” she said.

  The side door had been propped open an inch, and when they got to it, he yanked her in front of him and stuck the gun into her ribs. “You’re not going to make a fucking sound when we go up these stairs or in the service elevator. If you do, I’ll put a bullet in you… and this gun is registered to Brodie McCormack, so you don’t want me to do that.”

  Devon didn’t think Brodie would be dumb enough to leave a weapon at a crime scene or that he would register a murder weapon in his own name and address. But that didn’t stop someone else from doing it for him. Pushing her forward, he kept her going up a set of metal stairs and then to a huge service elevator door.

  Nudging her forward, she took the hint and pressed the button to call it. “Why him and not Zave?”

  “Murdering the new wife, if we set it up that way, we’d make it look a helluva lot more kinky than a corpse in an elevator. And your new cousin-in-law has left a trail of dead bodies across the globe. That kind of attention would take down the great Raven… you don’t want to be responsible for that, do you?”

  The elevator doors opened and he pushed her inside, stabbing a button with the barrel of his gun before sticking it into her kidney. “You hate them so much, but they taught you a lot,” she hissed over her shoulder.

  His medical degree might be useful to the Kindred, but Thad had failed to see just how much the Kindred had given him. “It’s because of what they taught me that Synonymous want me.”

  “That and the medical degree,” she said. If he was being used by one group, it made no sense why he’d switch allegiance to another who planned to use him too.

  The elevator opened and they went through another door, this time coming out in a sleek, carpeted corridor. “I know you hate me, Von, and I don’t care. But take this as a warning from a friend,” he said, shoving her up to a white door. After knocking, he turned to paste his back against the wall beside it. “Don’t piss these people off.”

  The door opened, and she was examined by the tall, lean guy in its space. Drawing back, she wanted to flee because she’d never been so consumed by such a sinister scowl. The narrow icicle-blue eyes pierced through her skin to squeeze her organs like he had the power to freeze her from the inside out.

  “Well, shit, quack, you actually fucking did it,” the guy said, and when he smiled, she didn’t know what to think.

  Glimpsing the scar on his neck and the angle of his nose, this guy had seen some kind of war, professional or… personal. Thad moved to her back and pushed her again. “Out the way.”

  The guy did as told and held the door to sweep an arm in a gesture indicating they should enter. This was a suite because the large living space had couches around a table, a TV area, and a separate dining room. It was larger than any hotel room she’d ever been in.

  “Damn, I wish I’d been there,” the guy said, closing the door and passing them after Thad stopped them on the edge of the living room. “What was his face like? Bet he was shocked. Ha! That fucker!” Going to the TV area to the right of the space, he dropped onto a couch and grabbed a beer bottle to take a slug of liquid. “The amazing fucking Raven McCormack pissed on by one of his own. Wish I’d been there to piss on him too… How’d Zara look? Did you hurt her?”

  His glee left when he queried Swallow. “Didn’t touch her. I wouldn’t,” Thad said.

  So this guy was a Zara fan, too, maybe. Devon couldn’t tell. Maybe he wanted to hurt her himself. His frozen eyes dragged over her figure, and he put down his beer to rub his hands together. “ ‘Bout time you brought me something to do, I’m bored up here.” Leaning back, he opened his lap to her. “Come sit over here, little girl… You’re Rigor’s sister, right? God…” He grinned. “I love keeping it in the family.”

  “Cool your jets, Caine,” a dark voice rumbled from an open door through the space and she froze, her eyes fixed on that void, waiting for the speaker to make himself known. “Devon… welcome.”

  “She’s tired and hungry,” Thad said, but she noticed he didn’t take the gun from her back, so he couldn’t be that worried about her well-being.

  “I got you, little sister,” Caine said, grabbing his crotch to give it a shake. “I’ll fill her up.”

  “She’s a married woman,” Thad said. Again, he didn’t seem to be defending her. He seemed pissed by the confidence of the letch in the corner.

  That was when someone came through the door, just when she wasn’t expecting to see anyone. The older man had gray hair and lines on his face, but his body was tall and toned. He might be older, but he was no slouch.

  “He married her?” the man said, looking past her to the doctor behind. Thad must have nodded or something, she didn’t see it, but a smile split the older man’s face. “The fucking idiot!”

  He laughed, and she didn’t know what was so funny. Neither did Caine, but he was happy watching, saying nothing and not reacting. Thad didn’t laugh either, and she didn’t like having him behind her. It wasn’t just the weapon that made her uneasy, it was the barrier between her and the only exit she knew of.

  “Who are you?” she asked. The situation might be terrifying, but she didn’t appreciate this man having a laugh at Zave’s expense and she couldn’t stop that irritation from making it into her tone.

  “I wish you’d brought Zar,” Caine said, bending forward to grab the remote for the TV to turn it off. “This would blow her mind.”

  Thad gave her another nudge forward and around to an arm chair, pushing her into it. He looked at the gun in his hand like he didn’t know what to do with it now. Letting it fall to his side, he went toward the older man. “This is Frank Mitchell,” Thad said. “My father.”

  Maybe if Z
ara had been here, this would’ve meant something to her. Glancing at Caine, she saw his grin falter like he was disappointed that she didn’t have more of a reaction. “He’s the guy that ran CI when old man McCormack kicked it,” Caine said. “Mitchell mentored young Grant McCormack, Brodie’s big brother.” Brothers who couldn’t stand each other was what Thad had said to her in the Jeep. “Oh yeah, and he died nearly three years ago… looks good for a dead man, huh?” Caine sat back, satisfied he’d filled in some blanks, and he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “He’s not the only corpse we’ve got around here.”

  Devon fixated on the healthy, definitely alive man. “You… you died?” she asked.

  “It was necessary to fake my death,” Mitchell said. “My ward and I needed to leave our former selves behind to put her plan into action”

  If she was here to take a message back to the Kindred, as Thad had said she was, then Devon assumed she was here to get details. “What is your plan?”

  “We have had to alter it several times,” Frank said, going to the armchair at the head of the table, opposite hers. “The Kindred were more… persistent than we’d thought they would be.”

  “Have you known about this all along?” she asked, focusing her rage on Thad because he was the only one in the room that she had a past with, a relationship.

  “I didn’t know he was my father, but I confirmed it all, it’s true.”

  “His mother and I made an arrangement years ago,” Mitchell said, disregarding her anger. “I didn’t want a family. My career was the most important thing to me back then. His mother and I met and had our liaison after an event celebrating the birth of Grant Junior. The infant was born before Brodie or Xavier.”

  The infant was standing there beside his chair and at almost six foot, he wasn’t anyone’s baby now. “So that’s how he got you?” Devon asked Thad who wasn’t looking at her. “He came and announced himself as your father and you dropped everyone else?”

  “Thad was tired of watching the Kindred work in half-measures,” Mitchell interjected on his behalf. “He won’t have to worry about that with Synonymous.”

  Her fears of being put back in that metal box dwindled as she got to grips with this new agenda. “So you’re building some kind of anti-Kindred group?”

  “Their work is their own and as long as they leave us alone, we will leave them alone,” Mitchell said. “My colleagues have retrieved the Game Time devices planted by the Kindred last night. We will need those, and they won’t be returned.”

  “Is that the message you want me to deliver?” she asked, hoping they might cut her loose.

  Mitchell took his elbows to his knees. “Your brother helped to put us in a tough spot,” he said. “I guess you don’t know much about what he does.” She shook her head. “He and his men joined forces with the Kindred to clear out a compound… one he still inhabits… That was meant to be Synonymous property. The arms and the land.”

  “That was a good show too,” Caine said, sitting back to fold his arms. He liked to inject his little comments but was so intent on watching events that she felt a bit like a performer, there for his entertainment. “Better than this one.”

  “You were there?” she asked him.

  His head bobbed in assent. “Watched Grant McCormack Junior face plant. Sure did. Watched Zara and her lapdogs hightail it out of there like terrified rats, too,” he snarled, and again she heard his hatred for the male Kindred leader.

  “How did you get out?” she asked.

  “Leatt told me to split or eat a bullet, not a tough choice,” he said, putting his foot up on the table as he folded his arms. “Who’d have known we’d all end up here?”

  Devon hadn’t known any of these people existed while all that was going on. But there had to be a culmination of events that drove these people to join forces. “How did you end up here?”

  “Caine was the easiest to recruit,” Mitchell said, and Thad scoffed.

  “Offer him a bottle of Scotch and a hooker, he’ll belong to anyone,” Thad muttered.

  “Least I got payment,” Caine said. “What are you doing here, quack? Pissed off that your cousins kept making all the money and getting all the girls while you handed out scripts to pensioners who couldn’t get it up?” Thad took a step toward him, but when Caine surged onto his feet, Thad stopped. Caine laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought… Not so clever without your cousins around, are you? Why don’t you give me that gun? You might hurt yourself with it, quack, and who’d be around to patch you up?”

  “Caine is our sniper,” Mitchell said.

  “Our resident murderer,” Thad said, putting his hand over the gun as he sneered at Caine. “Which is why you’re not allowed to touch weapons until we can trust you.”

  Caine laughed and stubbed out his cigarette. “There’s only one person in the world who can trust me not to put a bullet in them… least not until I fuck her hard and dirty in front of her husband… preferably while he’s chained up, after I’ve cut off his eyelids, so all he can do is watch.”

  Devon’s initial impression of Caine was that he was creepy. Every impression after that got worse. His fantasies weren’t typical, they involved torture, rape, and murder… and he was sitting twenty feet away making eyes at her.

  “We’re going to order room service,” Mitchell said, ignoring the men. “You’ll need some rest, you’ll be our guest for a while, Devon.”

  “But you said…” Thad still wouldn’t look at her, though he returned to his father’s side. Giving up hope that he would stand up for her or that he’d been telling the truth when he said that she was going to be set free, she gripped the arms of her chair. “Why did you bring up my brother, Mr. Mitchell?”

  “Because they set you up, sister,” Caine called. “They arranged for you to be taken to teach your brother a lesson… Can I be there when you tell Rigor that? I missed seeing Rave get shafted… I should get some reward for this bullshit.”

  She was taken because of Rigor. His mistakes usually bit him on the ass, but now it was her turn to take the heat. “You had me kidnapped to teach my brother a lesson about getting involved with the Kindred?”

  “I didn’t know,” Thad said.

  “Not at the get-go,” Caine said. “But you’re no innocent. They set Devvy up to be top of the bill ‘cause it’s the real sick fucks who buy those girls… And, right now, you’ve got a plant in your cousin’s own house… staying with your mommy… No one here feels sorry for you, quack.”

  Jennifer. She was the last girl Zave had bought at auction, and she was staying on the island with Bess right now. “She’s a plant?” Devon’s panic made her bounce to the edge of her chair.

  “Bess won’t be hurt,” Mitchell said. “Jennifer has done her job. She had to make contact with Thad… and she’ll keep you and your husband in line for us.”

  “My husband?” Devon asked. “What do you mean?”

  Mitchell’s smile made her sick, especially when he shared it with Caine. “Wouldn’t look good if the media got wind of the prodigious Xavier Knight going to Mexican slave auctions and coming back with a prize… who knows what he and Jennifer have done together on his isolated island where he’s been keeping her prisoner,” Mitchell drawled.

  “They haven’t even met,” she said.

  “That’s not what Jennifer will say if you come for us,” Mitchell said, stretching out his legs and leaning back.

  Jennifer was their fail-safe guarantee because if she made accusations of something perverted going on at Zave’s manor, it would be difficult to prove otherwise. These men didn’t look like they’d be squeamish about beating the crap out of a woman if it had to be made to look good.

  Her attention rose to settle on Thad. “I can’t believe you’re part of this. He only goes there because of you, because of Bronwyn.”

  “Don’t say her name!” Thad snapped. For a man who’d always appeared easy going, he’d been harboring rage, because this kind of anger didn�
�t come from nowhere.

  Devon couldn’t reply. She didn’t want to get into a physical altercation, Thad still had a gun, and the other two wouldn’t help her. Mitchell spoke again, “Go to the washroom and splash some water on your face, Devon. We’ll order food and we’ll talk more when everyone is back here.”

  Mitchell got up to go back into the room that he’d come from. Devon didn’t like the men that were here, and she didn’t want to meet any others. But Thad hadn’t been honest with her, so she’d have to do as she was told and hope that, like last time, if she behaved herself, Zave would find a way to save her ass again.

  THREE

  Devon refused to eat, and when Thad said that Zave would tell her to eat because she didn’t know when her next chance would be, she almost spat at him. Asserting herself had never been her forte, and the longer she sat in this room with these domineering men, the deeper she sank into the cushion of her chair.

  Caine had no decorum because he didn’t care what anyone thought and made no excuses for his bad manners. Mitchell didn’t say much, but she got the impression that he was reflecting and planning, that his mind was always working, not that he was reserved or modest. There were times that Thad seemed to forget what he’d done. He would eat, relax, smile, and then he would catch a glimpse of her glare and he would tense again. But she couldn’t believe he felt guilt or remorse, he didn’t look apologetic.

  When his eyes landed on her, he regarded her like she was a disgusting reminder of a part of his past that he wanted to forget. The Kindred couldn’t have been that bad, he counted himself as part of their ranks for years. He’d let his mother live in Zave’s house most of the time, so he couldn’t believe that his cousin was evil.

  But then, she could be missing the point. Maybe Thad was as psychopathic as she believed his father to be, and deep down he just didn’t care whether his mother was hurt or not.

  When they figured out that she wasn’t kidding around about not eating, they put her in one of the bedrooms, of which there were apparently three. Devon didn’t care about being segregated, not until she sat on the bed and spotted the crumpled cigarette packet on the nightstand. This had to be Caine’s bedroom. The curtains were drawn over the window, the lamps were built into the walls, and she couldn’t find any kind of weapon.