by Maya Banks
the house. Now!”
A thunderous boom sounded and echoed through the night air. Everyone dropped to the ground, instinctively covering themselves as the earth shook and rumbled beneath them.
“Fuck this shit,” Zack said, fury lacing his voice. “I’ve goddamn had about enough of this BS. It’s time to take those assholes out and cover them up with six feet of dirt. Pansy-ass motherfuckers preying on women.”
“It’s like fucking Armageddon,” Capshaw muttered. “I’m ready to cap these bastards. Light them up and send them straight to hell.”
Yeah, well, so was Beau, though he didn’t even make the effort to say anything. His sole focus was on Ari and the fact that the explosives had gone off directly in the vicinity of the house.
Fuck!
Ari and Ramie were alone and vulnerable in that house, safe room or no.
“It was a goddamn diversion,” Beau yelled as he scrambled back to his feet. “They knew the body would distract us momentarily. The note was just intended to let us know what they’re capable of. Or maybe they thought we’d be scared and actually back off.”
“What they’re capable of is fucking themselves,” Eliza snarled. “And I’ll back off when I have their goddamn balls.”
“Down girl,” Dane murmured, though Beau noticed his lips were in a thin line, suppressing his chuckle.
Eliza was one vicious woman when on a mission. Beau admired that about her.
Their plan, though hastily put together in light of the fact they’d had less than five minutes to come up with one, had been to fan out from the house and then come back together from different directions so they could take out as many targets as possible before launching a full-scale frontal attack.
But the single most and only important directive the entire team had been given was to keep intruders away from the house. Take the fight to them. Protect Ramie and Ari at all costs.
“We don’t split up,” Beau commanded as they ran for the back entrance to the house. “For God’s sake, don’t get separated from the group and make it even easier to pick you off.”
Always cool under fire. Unwavering. Solid. Stony and rigid. Yeah, right. He was a hot mess because he knew this was bad. The worst possible outcome, one they clearly hadn’t seen coming. Goddamn it!
There was no gunfire. No ducking for cover. The night had gone eerily silent where before it had been ablaze with gunfire and explosions and yet not a single shot had come close to them.
It had been nothing more than a fucking distraction.
He was at full sprint when he hit the veranda and nearly tore the door off its hinges in his haste to get inside. To Ari.
They pounded into the house, guns up, spreading out as they cleared each room in a direct route to the safe room. The only place they could be assured the women were safe because they sure as hell couldn’t risk allowing them out of the house. But now Beau knew that somehow, the safe room had been breached and the unthinkable had occurred.
When they reached the still closed door of the safe room, Caleb’s face drew into an expression of confusion. With shaking hands, he punched in the security code, cursing when, in his haste, he failed to enter the correct code on the first attempt.
Zack merely shoved him out of the way and punched in the right code. The door slid open and they rushed straight into the bowels of hell.
The entire room was in disarray. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, which meant the bastards had gained entry from the attic, through the goddamn roof. The room was hazy from dust and the remnants of smoke swirling erratically. The gaping hole was large enough for a damn elephant to fit through. They would be lucky if the explosion hadn’t killed one or both women, because to force entry into the safe room, regardless of direction, it would take a hell of a lot of explosives.
“Ramie!” Caleb shouted hoarsely. “Ari!”
Caleb’s cry was echoed by Beau’s own as he yelled for Ari.
And then they saw Ramie, huddled in the far corner, her knees drawn to her chest, a vacant look in her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and her stare fixed forward unseeingly as she rocked back and forth in obvious distress.
“Dear God,” Caleb whispered as he rushed to kneel beside his wife.
Beau searched the room furiously as the smoke and haze began to clear through the now-open door, his gaze catching the rope ladder dangling through the opening in the ceiling. Already, Zack was nimbly scaling upward, pistol in one hand, rifle slung over one shoulder from a strap, securely holding it in place. Dane scrambled up behind him to provide cover, and all Beau could do was stare numbly at the wreckage of the safe room, absorbing the knowledge that he’d utterly failed to protect the woman he loved with his entire heart and soul.
Rage. Sorrow. Horror so paralyzing that he literally couldn’t breathe. He was bombarded by pain. So much pain. Terrified for Ari and what she was enduring even now. Knowing she’d trusted him. Had put her faith in him. And how frightened and alone she must feel, realizing he’d failed her.
Slowly he turned, knowing the only answers lay with Ramie, who was clearly in a stupor as Caleb touched her, talking to her in urgent tones, trying to bring her back from whatever hell she had descended into.
Tears streaked silently down her face, and like Caleb, Beau knelt on her other side, biting his lip to keep from demanding the answers he so desperately wanted—needed.
“Ramie, baby, talk to me,” Caleb pleaded. “What happened? Are you all right? You’re scaring me. Please, please, come back to me.”
Slowly her head turned in his direction, eyes dull and lifeless as yet more tears slid in endless streaks down her cheeks.
“He touched me,” she whispered, then looked away from Caleb, resuming her rocking. He touched me.”
She chanted it over and over, and cold rage froze Caleb’s eyes into hard ice chips. His jaw was locked in fury, and gently, as though she were the most precious, fragile thing in the world, he pulled her toward him, carefully wrapping his arms around her. He closed his eyes, seemingly losing the battle over his own emotions. Tears of rage, fury . . . grief . . . trailed down his face, carving raw, anguished trails.
“What did they do?” Caleb choked out. “Talk to me, baby. Please. I have to know how to help you.”
Ramie lifted her head but she didn’t look at her husband. Her gaze found Beau, and Beau was gutted by the grief reflected in her gray eyes. Sorrow. Regret. Guilt? Beau’s brow furrowed, and he leaned in closer, seeking to offer his sister-in-law comfort when she seemed on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. A feeling he fully shared and was currently experiencing himself. Only the knowledge that he had to keep it together for Ari quelled the overwhelming despair clutching at his heart.
She seemed to come back from whatever faraway place she’d sheltered herself in, a self-protective measure to escape her horrific reality. God only knew what had happened in this room. The safe room. Beau wanted to level the entire goddamn house. It was cursed. He never should have rebuilt it. It had seen nothing but pain, devastation and loss. And now, yet again, it had failed to be the impenetrable fortress he’d intended. Safe room. He wanted to choke on the irony that the one place Ramie and Ari should have been the safest was in fact where they’d been the most vulnerable.
In his and Caleb’s arrogance—hell, the arrogance of the entire DSS cooperative—they’d assumed that they could leave Ramie and Ari here, untouched. Safe from whatever evil lurked in the shadows that was coming for them. There was simply no such thing as a safe room. It was a naïve, stupid belief to think, no matter the measures they’d taken in its construction, that it would prove indestructible and impossible to compromise. It was a mistake he could well pay for and have to live with the rest of his life.
Ramie’s soulful eyes connected with Beau’s, and he flinched at the stark pain reflected in those stormy eyes.
“They took her. I’m so sorry, Beau. I couldn’t do anything. He touched me. Had his hands on me. And the evil. Oh God, t
he evil. It was so overpowering. It flooded every part of my soul, and there was nothing I could do to ward it off. I was defenseless,” she said in a broken voice. “And then . . .” She closed her eyes, her face contorted with abject misery. “They told her that she had two choices. Go peacefully with them and they’d spare me and everyone else, or they’d slaughter everyone and take her anyway. But the end result would be the same so it was a matter of whether she wanted to spare our lives. Not her own. Ours.”
Ramie began to weep in earnest, huge, gulping sobs, where before her tears had been silent in her daze. She buried her face in her hands even as Caleb drew her in even closer, nearly crushing her with his strength. Caleb was pale, and he too looked at Beau with so much remorse and . . . pity. It made Beau want to vomit.
“She willingly went so they wouldn’t kill me,” Ramie choked out between heaving sobs. “And there wasn’t a single thing I could do to help her. I was utterly helpless!”
She beat her fisted hand down on her leg, repeating the action until Caleb finally wrapped his hand protectively around hers and brought it to his chest so she wouldn’t harm herself further.
Ramie’s gaze was haunted, a lifetime of regret simmering in her stormy, sorrowful eyes.
“She sacrificed herself for all of us.”
Zack and Dane dropped softly from the ladder, in time to hear Ramie’s whispered statement. Silence fell over the room as everyone absorbed the sheer selflessness of Ari’s act. Discomfort and grim determination were reflected in every single DSS operative. Eliza’s eyes were ablaze with fury. Zack’s features had grown so cold that Beau felt the prickle of chill bumps cascade down his arms.
“They hopped a chopper and were already in the air by the time we got to them,” Dane said quietly. “We couldn’t stop them. We weren’t in time.”
Right that instant the grim reality of just what had occurred hit Beau square in the chest. His knees buckled, and he found himself right back on the floor after rising just seconds earlier when Zack and Dane had reappeared.
A roar shook the room, the sound terrible, much like a wounded, enraged animal who’d lost his mate. Beau dimly registered that it had come from him. An emphatic denial, though he knew every word Ramie had related was truth. Pain like he’d never experienced welled from the depths of his soul, filling his heart with such despair that it overwhelmed him. He couldn’t find his footing and so he knelt there on the floor, numb with terror. Grief. And love so staggering that he was awed that he had the capacity to feel such depth of emotion for another human being.
Love? He fucking adored her. Worshipped the ground she fucking walked on. Love was a paltry, inadequate word to describe his feelings for Ari. Maybe he’d never truly find the words. But he would not lose her. Couldn’t lose her. Because, even if he could never convey with words all that he held inside him, he would show her. Every single day for the rest of their lives. But his vow was empty, meaningless, because the woman who should be hearing it wasn’t here.
Ramie broke away from Caleb’s hold, though how, Beau wasn’t certain because Caleb had what amounted to a death grip on his wife, as if by merely holding her, he formed a barrier between her and the rest of the world. A barrier to the pain and grief she was experiencing even now.
But Ramie crawled the short distance to where Beau knelt on the floor, his face buried in his hands, shoulders shaking as though . . . He scrubbed at his face, shocked to feel dampness covering his cheeks. He stared down at the wetness on his palms in bewilderment just as Ramie’s much smaller fingers slid over and curled around his.
“I’m so sorry, Beau,” she said in a tortured voice. “I let them take her. I wish I had her powers. God, I wish I had anything but this wretched curse to feel the kind of evil that took her.”
Beau roused himself from his agonizing suffering because this was in no way Ramie’s fault, and he would not allow her to torture herself one second longer. Even as Caleb’s lips pursed to form a protest, Beau held up his hand to his brother, sending him a look that instantly quelled his response.
“This is not your fault,” Beau said fiercely. “It’s mine and only mine. We spoke of moving her, of keeping her on the move constantly, never at one place for too long a time. I had yet to set that into motion. I was arrogant and careless. But maybe . . .” He cast a look of despair in Caleb’s direction, knowing he had no other choice. “Maybe you could help us locate her.”
Ramie was nodding vehemently when Zack broke in.
“No need, man. We injected her with the tracking device, remember? Dane’s already working on getting a bead on her location. I vote we go in, wherever she is, with some serious shock and awe and lay waste to the entire fucking lot of them.”
“Fuck me,” Beau said in frustration as he glanced over to where Dane was booting up one of computers. He just hoped to fuck it worked after the utter chaos that had occurred. “I can’t even goddamn think straight! Of course! Jesus, how could I have forgotten the one thing I was the most adamant about? The one thing that would give us a chance if exactly what happened tonight occurred.”
“Keep it together, man,” Zack said softly, his eyes brimming with sympathy. “I know well the frustration in not knowing where someone important to you is. I’ve lived it over a decade. But we’ll get your girl back. You can take that to the bank.”
THIRTY
ARI’s eyes slitted open and bright fluorescent lights stabbed her pupils like shards of glass. Wincing, she slammed her eyelids shut once more and emitted a soft moan. Where was she? What had happened?
Her brain was effectively scrambled. Maybe she’d finally had the big one. The super psychic bleed Beau had feared. Or maybe she’d simply had a stroke. But weren’t they essentially one and the same? A stroke was a bleed in the brain, right? Hers just wasn’t the normal kind of bleed most stroke victims incurred. Her mind was so fuzzy that she strained to remember anything at all.
The ache in her head intensified as she tried to focus. To concentrate enough to make sense of her surroundings. Because something wasn’t right.
She couldn’t move.
Her arms and legs were restrained and cold metal surrounded her neck.
Her neck?
Her eyes flew open in alarm and this time she ignored the splintering pain the action caused, and she forced her gaze to her surroundings, panic billowing like a thunderstorm. Oh God, where was she? Was she ensconced in her worst nightmare? And if so, why couldn’t she awaken and seek comfort in Beau’s arms? Her shield against all hurts and fears.
And then the events of the night crashed into her, staggering her and leaving her breathless. Tears stung her eyelids. Were the others even alive? Was Beau alive? Oh God, he couldn’t be dead. No! The men who’d taken her were completely without honor. But she’d known her fate was inevitable once the safe room had been breached. Her only choice was to take a shot that they actually would leave Ramie and the others alone. Content themselves with finally achieving their primary objective. Her.
Now she would finally know what these . . . fanatics . . . wanted, and honestly, she was terrified to have that question answered. But if these people had her parents, would she finally see them? At least know they were safe? Alive?
Her pulse ratcheted upward until her breaths came in shallow bursts.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
The sound speared through her skull like someone pounding a pickaxe through her head. Nausea boiled in her stomach, and she swallowed convulsively even as she knew that swallowing the accumulating saliva would only nauseate her more.
“What do you want?” she rasped, shocked at the effort it took to even speak.
“We have a few tests we want to perform,” the man said as calmly as if he were discussing something as mundane as the weather. “You have a higher purpose, Arial. It’s time to embrace your destiny.”
Destiny? She didn’t want to embrace this freak’s idea of her destiny. Her destiny lay with Beau. And finding her parents so she could hav
e her family back. So she could start her own. Share her new family with her mother and father. She just wanted a normal life!
The disembodied voice was seriously freaking her out, so she twisted left and right, craning her neck until her gaze finally found the source of the voice. Her heart leapt. Not at the sight of the gaunt medical-looking person wearing a lab coat, but rather the two men who flanked him.
Heavily muscled, tall. Towering over the much smaller-framed man. Both were expressionless but their eyes spoke of ruthlessness. They were hard and cold as they stared dispassionately at her. Her eyes narrowed in recognition of one of them. The asshole who’d been employed by her father. The man who’d attacked her. Tried to drug her. Unsuccessfully.
But they didn’t scare her. Once they would have. She would have scurried under the nearest table like a frightened mouse and covered her head and ears, shutting out everything around her. Now that she knew exactly what she was capable of and armed with the knowledge that there was likely a whole lot more she didn’t know she could do but possessed the necessary powers for, these assholes could easily be dealt with.
Did they think simply restraining her would prevent her from unleashing hell on them all?
Some of what she was thinking must have been reflected in her ever-expressive eyes and face because without speaking a single word, one of the goons simply turned, pointing a remote at a monitor mounted on the wall.
It flickered once and then came immediately into focus. Ari’s breath caught in her throat and stuck there. Her chest constricted and burned, robbed of air as she simply stopped breathing.
Her parents were in what looked to be a jail cell. Like common criminals, or worse, hostages subjected to deplorable conditions. Her father was seated on a flimsy-looking cot with her mother curled into his arms as he tried to comfort her. Judging by the look of distress—and defeat—on her mother’s face, even her father couldn’t manage something he’d never failed to do before. Reassure his wife that everything would be all right.
Bile rose in her throat and hatred burned a hole in her stomach. She, who had never truly hated anyone. She, who balked at the mere idea of inflicting violence on or hurting anyone. In this moment, she knew she was absolutely capable of, not only hurting, but killing these bastards for what they’d put her parents through. And she’d suffer no remorse whatsoever.
She embraced her powers, finally realizing she did serve a higher purpose, but it sure as hell wasn’t what these bastards imagined. If they knew that she was imagining in exacting detail their deaths, they’d likely flee like the complete cowards they were.
Around her objects began trembling, shaking, as if in the throes of an earthquake. Frames fell from the walls. Glass vials flew from their resting spots to shatter against the far wall. And she stared at the worm in the lab coat who’d calmly announced he wanted to run tests on her. Like she was some kind of an animal. Her parents were already—had been for days—being treated with less regard than animals. Caged in filthy quarters. Only each other to lean on while worry for their daughter tortured them every bit as much as their disappearance and not knowing their fate tortured Ari every single hour since their abduction.
Goon B’s lips curled into a sneer, and he spoke for the first time, seemingly undaunted by her show of strength. Not that it had been an impressive feat by any stretch. She was still weak from the powerful sedative they’d administered. She didn’t even know how much time had elapsed since she’d been taken from the safe room, where she prayed to God Ramie was still safe and sound.
“Cease your tantrum,” he bit out.
“Or else?” she taunted, her eyes narrowing on the focus of her ire.
Immediately his face turned red, and he grasped his neck with both hands as if fighting off an unseen attacker. He pried uselessly at the invisible hand wrapped around his neck, slowing squeezing the life right out of him. Ari wanted to kill him. She was pissed enough to take every single one of these assholes out and damn the consequences.
“Enough!” Goon A barked, yanking her attention momentarily from Goon B.
Goon B coughed and sputtered, holding his neck as he gasped for breath.
“You’re going to pay for that, you little bitch,” he snapped, his face red either from the pressure she’d exerted or sheer fury. She didn’t care one way or another. Never had she felt such a pervading desire for vengeance. Violence. She wanted to hurt these people, whereas a month ago, the mere thought of her unleashing violence on another human being was abhorrent, against her very nature. Now? She was anticipating with every breath just how she would exact her revenge on these people for upending her life, for threatening her parents—adopted or not—and for bringing their fight to Beau and his family’s doorstep.
God help them all if Beau was dead. God may have mercy, but Ari would have none.
“Maybe you should have a look at dear mommy and daddy again,” Goon A said in a mocking tone that grated on her nerves enough to make her want to squeeze a different part of the anatomy than she’d attacked on Goon B. Walking around ball-less and singing soprano would certainly take his ego down a notch or three.
But when she tracked back to the monitor, unable to resist the urge to see her parents after hearing the underlying threat in Goon A’s voice, she froze.
Four men burst into the cell and erupted into a flurry of action. One of them snatched her mother and wrapped a beefy arm over her breasts, curling around to the back, where he fisted a handful of her hair to yank her head upward to bare her vulnerable neck.
It took the combined efforts of all three of the other men—huge men—to subdue her father when the fourth put his hands on Ari’s mother. His rage was a terrible and awing thing to behold, and she couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride that it took three impossibly large men, with the aid of weapons, to subdue her father, and even then it took every bit of their combined efforts to keep him pinned to the floor, although they made certain his face was pointed in his wife’s direction so he could see exactly what was being done to her.
His face was harsh with rage and agony. And suddenly sound burst through the room where Ari was helpless to do anything but watch. Her father’s voice was hoarse, desperate, pleading.
“Leave her alone, damn it. Take me. Do whatever you want with me but leave her alone. She’s done nothing wrong. Take me, goddamn it!”
Tears burned Ari’s eyelids but she furiously blinked them away, determined for these assholes watching her closely not to see how affected she was by the sight of her parents. How relieved she was they were alive even as terror snaked through her body when the man holding her mother’s head at an uncomfortable angle slowly drew a knife and placed it against the front of her neck.
Ari could see the stark fear in her eyes even as she visibly tried to prevent her husband from seeing just how terrified she was. Again, Ari felt a burst of pride, this time for her mother, because she didn’t want her husband to know just how scared she was. Her expression was defiant, a definite fuck you look stamped on her delicate features. Even her eyes, after that first flash of fear, eyes that had never held anything but warmth, love and tenderness, were cold with
