“It seems appropriate. I don’t have a lot of fight left in me.”
“I just want to know why,” Ace said.
“Why what?”
“Why you took me from my crib. Why you left me with the monsters.”
“I don’t have an answer that would pass your strict sense of justice. I did it because having you in the tunnels with me gave me a cause, a reason to keep fighting.”
“You did it because you didn’t want to be alone?”
“You find that surprising? Jason would say you were my game piece.”
“You had two pieces in the game. Me and Greer.”
“Better to cover as many bases as possible. The truth is that this thing is bigger than you or me or any family. The Omnis are going to gut the world with their new technology. The only people who will survive them are the ones who know how to fight. You are a fighter. Your brother is a fighter. I feel I’ve done right by you.”
Ace scoffed. “Are you going to surrender? Or are you going to fight?”
“Surrender.”
That answer disappointed her, actually. But Owen wanted these bastards alive. So be it. “Then lie down on your stomach and put your hands behind you.” He did as she requested. She took out a set of zip cuffs and knelt on his thigh. Next thing she knew, he shifted and kicked her head, knocking her over.
She rolled over and sprang to her feet. He moved like a man half his age. She ran at him, launching her knee into his chest. He stepped back, moving with her momentum, then came at her fast, his hands slicing through the air. She blocked him each time, but his energy was escalating. She could feel him leading into a kick. Before he could, she ducked and swiped her feet into his, tangling him up. Her full range of motion was hampered by her arm cast and the heavy operations gear she was wearing.
He leapt to his feet. “What happened to your arm?”
A wash of guilt flooded her. “Edwards’ goons got a good hit in.”
“You let them.”
“I let them nothing. They got the jump on me.”
“I taught you better than that.”
In the seconds between his words and his next advance, Ace wondered if her love for Val and her new found comfort had softened her, stealing her edge. She didn’t have time to process that thought before Santo was on her again. Maneuvering in the cluttered space of the tunnel took focus.
The moves they made were familiar. They each got in some good strikes, and they each made good blocks. It was like dancing with an old friend. Ace’s heart softened toward Santo, and she realized that was not a weakness. It was honor. Val had taught her to see her own value. And because she could see it in herself, she could see it in others.
Santo had taught her hate and vengeance. Val had taught her love.
She felt her grandfather slowing his attack and tried again to get through to him. “We don’t have to fight. It doesn’t have end this way. You have valuable knowledge. Surrender. Please. Grandpa.”
He pressed forward hard. Their encounter became less of an exercise and more of a fight. And when that shift happened, she didn’t take time to consider it—he’d taught her not to. A shift like that was lethal. She didn’t want either of them hurt. Her best bet was to let him wear himself out.
She executed a couple of backward flips, escaping his brutal kicks and punches. When there was a little space between them, she fought for her breath. “Love doesn’t weaken, Grandpa. Did you never learn that?”
“I learned there are things bigger than oneself.”
“Things worth abandoning your honor for?”
“We all make sacrifices for a greater good.”
“What about me? Was I nothing to you?”
“You were my sacrifice. Of course you had meaning.”
“But what kind of meaning?”
Thankfully, their conversation gave them both a moment to regroup. If she could keep him talking, she might be able to get through to him.
“I had a choice,” he said.
Ace’s heart squeezed uncomfortably in her chest. “What kind of choice?”
“Lose you, or lose your entire family.”
A chill skittered along her spine. How terrible to be faced with that. She could see the Omnis doing that, too.
“It wasn’t really a choice.” In the faint light of the section of tunnel they were in, she could see his shoulders slump. “I watched him cut you. He’d sedated you with chloroform, then sliced you all to hell, hoping that would make everyone believe you’d been killed, not just kidnapped.”
“It worked, as you know. They did think I was dead. My parents lived with that for more than two decades. Greer hates you. But I don’t.” Tears distorted her vision. She was glad he couldn’t see them.
“All I could do was build a following in the tunnels. Teach as many as I could to fight, resist, learn. When they made you service their men, I stayed in full-time. I took every minute with you that I could get. I knew you would become a sword of vengeance. And like hardened steel, you did just that.”
Ace heaved a long sigh. “Come home with me. You get to heal, too.”
“No. I will never heal. I don’t deserve to. I deserve to die. Here and now.”
“I won’t kill you, Santo.”
“You will. Or you will die. One of us is not leaving this tunnel alive.” He followed those words with a forceful advance that left no doubt he’d meant what he said. She tried retreating, but he cornered her between a big metal bin and the tunnel wall.
The little watcher who’d brought her to Santo carried his lantern out into the section of tunnel they were fighting in, giving her enough light to decide on her next move. She jumped on the metal box as Santo came at her, then grabbed a pipe overhead and swung forward, kicking him in the throat, hard enough to lift him off the ground. He stumbled back, then fell on a pile of jumbled metal. One of the spikes shoved all the way through his chest. Even in the weak light of the tunnel, she could see the dark stain spreading across his woolen robe.
She rushed to his side. “No! No, Santo! Dammit. Don’t you dare die.”
His eyes met hers. He gurgled for a minute, then went still.
“Damn you. We could have fixed this.” She caught his hand and cried, weeping for all of it—what was, what wasn’t, what would never be.
When she was spent, she realized he was wrong about love. Love didn’t weaken a person…it only strengthened what it touched.
Ace returned to where their fight started and picked up her flashlight, then looked around for the kid. He didn’t come out, but she knew he was still nearby.
“Look, kid. Get outta here. Go find Lion and stay with him. You don’t need to see this stuff.”
She wiped her left hand across her face, then tasted the blood from her cut lip. Her broken arm hurt like a sonofabitch. She walked back toward Owen, checking at every turn that the way was clear. Angel and Owen were fighting four men outside the spur tunnel. For every hit they got in, they took two more. Looked like the fight had been going on long enough that the guys were winded. Ace watched the fight, trying to see where she could break in. She was glad it was a hand-to-hand fight instead of a gunfight…until a knife slashed toward Owen. He snagged the guy’s hand between his, then kicked his groin, grabbing the knife free as the guy doubled over. In a smooth motion that went almost too fast to see, he cut that guy’s throat and stabbed his second opponent in the neck.
Ace ran to help Angel, sliding her leg between one of his opponent’s feet, tripping him. When he went down, she smashed her cast into his face, knocking him out. Angel’s second opponent dropped about the same time, a knife sticking out of his eye.
Gunfire came from the tunnel where Owen had been. Owen rushed to the opening in time to see a guy coming out, carrying Addy over his shoulder. Owen kicked his knees in. He screamed and fell, dropping Addy as his legs caved beneath him…bending the wrong way. While Owen hurried to Addy, Angel and Ace rushed into the tunnel where Doc Beck still was. He was standing
there with Owen’s SIG, staring down at a dead Omni.
“You good, Doc?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. You guys?”
“Fine,” Ace said. They went back to the Syadne tunnel. Owen had just picked Addy up. “Was she hurt?”
“No. Angel, go ahead and make sure the way’s still clear,” Owen said. “Ace, hold your position here. I’ll send more help as the team frees up. Beck, with me.”
Ace watched them head to the Syadne tower. The door to the tower was blown out. They stepped inside and disappeared into a stairwell. She hoped everything would work out for Owen. He was different than she’d expected him to be. He and Addy deserved a chance.
A few minutes later, she heard a commotion coming from the tower.
Instinctively, she retreated inside the tunnel, shutting off her light. Someone was exiting the Syadne tower. Light from the broken door spilled into the bigger tunnel, backlighting a couple that was hurrying toward her. They kept looking behind them. Edwards and some blond woman whose hand he was holding. Not Edwards. King. Fucking King. Was that Roberta—or Annie Roberts—Jax and Addy’s stepmom with him?
Ace stepped out in front of them, shining her flashlight into their eyes. It was Edwards, all right. “Going somewhere?” she asked.
Owen came out of the building behind the couple. They were so focused on her that they didn’t hear him. Edwards fired off a gunshot into the light. The woman cried out when he pushed her back against the wall of the tunnel, out of the line of fire.
“Turn around, King,” Owen called out. “Ace isn’t your enemy. But I am.”
Owen’s flashlight was blinding as he shined it on the couple. Ace lowered hers so it wouldn’t affect his vision. “How long did you think you could keep the game up?” he asked King.
“Long enough to win, which I’ve done,” King said. “I own the world.”
Owen laughed. King shot toward him, but missed. Owen’s shot didn’t. It hit King’s ankle. Roberta screamed. King stumbled to his knees.
“I’ll be sad to kill you,” Owen said. “I can’t tell you how many times and how many ways I thought about doing it.”
Why was Owen toying with the bastard? Ace wished he’d polish him off. Prolonging it just put him at risk. What would Troy do without a mother or a father?
King shot at Owen again. Thanks to Owen’s flashlight, he missed again. Owen shot King’s hand, sending his gun flying out of his grip. Roberta ran for it, but Ace got to it first. She reached for one of her zip ties, but they were gone. She must have lost them in her fight with Santo.
She held her gun on Roberta, ready to take her out.
“You’re not going to kill me, despite your sick dreams,” King said to Owen.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m the only one who knows where Augie is.”
Ace couldn’t see King’s smile, but she could hear it in his voice.
“Okay,” Owen said. “So I guess we’ll do it the hard way. Which works for me, since it’s one of my sick dreams. I’ll tell you how it’s going to go. I have six more bullets in this mag. I’m going to blow out parts of you that aren’t strictly necessary. We’ll see how long you last. The sooner you tell me, the less pain you’ll have to feel.”
Owen fired into the thigh of King’s uninjured leg. He screamed.
“Want to talk?” No answer.
Now Owen really did need to move faster, Ace knew. Shock was going to set in and they’d lose King.
Owen fired into his other thigh. King lay back, twisted in an odd way, and laughed. He used his uninjured arm to try to drag himself away. “Oh, poor, poor Owen. The love of his life is dying. His boy is dying. Such a sad, sad life, Owen has. Annie told me how much you loved dear Addy. It was fun taking her from you.”
Owen fired into King’s shoulder, immobilizing him. “Where’s my son?”
“I’m sure my men have heard the gunshots. They had explicit instructions to carry out. If I didn’t make it to them in a timely way, they were to drop your boy into the acid pools. I’m so sorry I can’t be there to see that.”
“Fox!” Owen bellowed for the cub.
The boy ran toward Owen from the Syadne tower. “Sir?”
“Where are the acid vats?”
“This way.” Fox took Owen’s flashlight and ran around the bleeding King, who was too broken to grab for him.
Owen stooped and lifted King’s body, carrying him over his shoulders. Roberta screamed and leaped after them, grabbing at King until he shouted for her to stop. Ace followed them. She’d heard about the acid vats when she lived in the Colorado tunnels. It was a threat King liked to lord over the serving class there. She’d never been sure they were real, but she was afraid she was about to find out.
They took some turns that Ace wasn’t certain she’d remember, and came to a place with a deep black pit. I-beams ran across it to some rooms on the other side. She didn’t see anyone there. Were they too late?
“Fox, get out of here,” Owen ordered. The boy ran ahead, disappearing from sight. Roberta was still screaming. Owen carried King’s limp body. Lifting him off his shoulders, he dropped him down to the I-beam. Ace looked down into the still, dark pools, wondering if they really were full of acid.
The sizzle that came every time King’s blood dripped was her answer.
Owen crouched down. “Tell me where my boy is, and I will end you with a quick bullet. Don’t tell me, and I’ll end you with a quick dip.”
“You won’t kill me. You don’t have the balls.”
“You know, you little bastard, my balls are like fucking boulders.” Owen walked off the I-beam and headed straight toward Roberta. He grabbed her hair and shoved her forward. Despite her struggles, Owen’s balance was unwavering.
“I don’t need you anymore, King. I got your wife. She knows everything you know, doesn’t she? She knows what it takes to be a good wife, to do everything her husband wants, even if it’s letting him cohabitate with a sweet young girl who only ever wanted to be a good daughter.”
“Leave my wife out of this,” King said. His voice was getting weak.
“Like you left my woman alone? What about all those rape parties? What about all those months she spent in the hospital for broken bones? What about taking her little boy away from her? You want me to be kind to this bitch? You don’t even know the meaning of kindness.”
Fox ran back into the cave. He pulled Ace down so he could whisper in her ear. Ace looked at him, shocked. “You’re sure?”
The boy nodded.
“Owen,” Ace called. “Lion has your son. He has Beetle. He’s bringing him down.”
Owen huffed a broken sigh. He looked up when Lion came in the cave, his arm on the shoulder of a young boy. Owen nodded. Tears filled his eyes.
“Lion, take the boys and Ace back up to the Syadne tower. Do it now.”
When they were out of sight, Owen wrapped his arm around Roberta’s neck. “Addy tried to be a good daughter. She tried to make you proud of her. You. A monster. Of course, it never worked. But you could have shown her a little decency by helping her get away from the turd you married. For your cruelty to her, you’ve earned your fate.”
He slipped his knife between her ribs and cut upward to her heart, ending her life only seconds before he tossed her into the acid pool below.
King roused enough to scream and stretch his broken arms toward her. Owen knelt beside him. “Don’t worry. You’ll see her in hell shortly.” He pushed King after his wife, then walked away.
29
Owen walked at first, then walked faster, then ran back toward the Syadne tower. He prayed that Addy was still alive, that she might rally enough to see her son before she passed. God, he hoped she was still alive. What were the chances that Max was able to get into the Omni system and crack the code that was killing her?
He took the stairs by twos and threes, then rushed into the room where he’d left Addy with Beck, Max, and Angel when Kit had alerted them that King was in th
e elevator.
Addy was still lying where he’d set her. Augie was draped over her stomach, crying. Owen looked over to Beck, who was standing behind Max. He shook his head.
“We got in, boss,” Max said, without looking back at Owen. “Greer and Nathan have control of the application. They’re making some adjustments.”
Owen knelt next to Addy and took her hand. It was cold. How much longer could she hold on? He put his hand on his boy’s back. “Beetle. Augie.” The boy looked at him. “I’m your father.”
His son blinked. He thought Augie might argue. Instead, he looked at Lion for confirmation. Lion nodded. Augie’s chin trembled. He threw himself at Owen. Owen held him tight.
“You killed him, didn’t you? You killed Edwards? He hurt my mom so much.” Augie sniffled. “I thought he’d killed her when he took me. I never thought I’d see her again.”
“He’s done,” Owen said. “He’s not going to hurt anyone anymore. We’re going to stay here with your mom. My men have a way to help her.”
“Is she going to live?”
“Yes. Yes, she is.”
“Got it!” Max shouted. He lurched out of his seat and hurried over to them. He knelt beside Addy and pushed a button on his phone. Nothing happened. “How will I know it worked, Nathan? Nothing’s happening.”
“The app shows the nanos received the signal,” Nathan said. “Give it a minute.”
Doc Beck came over and took her pulse. Owen moved to her shoulders and drew her up over his lap. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he put his face against hers. “C’mon, Addy. You can do this. You’re stronger than this. This is the last time you’ll have to fight back from anything. Augie’s here. Troy’s waiting for you at home. C’mon, Laidy.”
The room went quiet. Doc Beck pressed his fingers against her throat. Owen looked up at him and saw him shake his head.
“No. No. Goddammit. No.”
Doc Beck looked crushed as he got up and moved away.
Owen shoved his face against Addy’s hair and cried. When he looked up a minute later, his team had come into the room. Lobo, too. They stood as silent witnesses to Addy’s passing and the black hole of Owen’s grief. He bent his head and kissed her hair. She still smelled so much like his Laidy. How was he ever going to live without her?
Forsaken Duty, The Red Team Series, Book 9 Page 28
