by Shandi Boyes
I watch her for the next several minutes, totally mesmerized, my stalker gawk only ending when the quickest flurry of silver catches my eye in the distance. It could be anything, but considering there’s nothing out here but fields and fields of crops, I pay it as much attention as the goon watching Fien’s every move from his station on the corner at the verandah.
He stabs out his half-smoked cigarette into the sole of his boot before he moves to the very edge of the warped wood. My heart leaves my chest with a shocked gasp when he unexpectedly falls backward a second later. He didn’t trip over the debris surrounding the rundown residence. He was taken out by a kill shot to the head. The still lifelessness of his body is a sure-fire sign of this, much less the bullet wound between his eyes.
He’s coming.
Dimitri is here.
He found us.
The beaming smile on my face vanishes a microsecond later when a second man launches for Fien. While screaming that they’re being ambushed, he holds Fien in front of himself, aware the only way he’ll make it out of the carnage unscathed is by using her as a shield.
While my stomach decides which way it should flip, I track his race across the verandah holding the brain matter of his confidant. When he breaks through the front screen door under a halo of bullets, I charge for the only exit door of my room. The bullets flying past Fien didn’t come from Dimitri’s side of the arena. They were from the flood of men surging in the direction the silver flicker came from.
My throbbing foot screams with every step I take, but I don’t slow down. Dimitri is so close to getting his daughter back, I can’t stomach the idea of him losing her again. I don’t think he’d survive it. The thread he’s been clutching the past two years is extremely thin. One more fray could completely unravel it.
It takes me crashing into the paint-peeled door with enough force to burn my eyes with tears before it finally pops open under the strain.
I don’t realize Audrey is following my race down the empty corridor until she says, “This way.”
She throws open the bathroom door before jackknifing to her left. When she tosses a stack of towels out of a linen cupboard, my mouth falls open more in shock than to suck in much-needed breaths. The stack of scratchy material concealed a secret entrance. It leads to a concrete stairwell that goes to the basement.
After galloping down three flights of stairs, we enter a dark and dingy space at the very bottom of the ranch, sweaty and out of breath. It’s cold down here, and the set-up makes it seem as if it housed an army in the hundreds the past week.
After taking in the multiple cots set up around the damp-smelling space, Audrey drifts her wide eyes to me. “There’s a hidden garage on the fence line. If they’re taking Dimitri’s daughter, they’ll go there.”
“Where are you going?” I ask in shock when she heads in the direction opposite to the one she suggested I take.
She doesn’t answer me. She just disappears through the underbelly of the ranch, her speed remarkably fast for how hard her thighs are shuddering.
I duck with a squeal when a bullet suddenly whizzes past my head a second later. Maestro stumbled upon my hiding spot during his sprint for the back exit. He isn’t happy, and neither am I. He has Fien shoved under his arm. Even with her crying loud enough for two blocks over to hear, he acts oblivious to the fact his clutch is hurting her.
His rough handling of a child unleashes a side of me I didn’t think I’d still have—my protective mother instincts.
With a roar, I charge to Maestro and Fien’s side of the room, acting as if I am able to outrun a bullet. Maestro fires at me on repeat. I don’t know if any of his bullets hit their target. I said the pain of losing my baby would be greater than the deadly pierce of a bullet, so I could be hit, I just refuse to give up.
The air in my lungs leaves with a grunt when Maestro loosens his grip on Fien’s waist so he can backhand me. He has run out of bullets, meaning it is now just him versus me.
I shouldn’t smile at the thought, but I do.
His hit has me seeing stars, but the howl he releases when I jab my thumb into his eye before kneeing him in the balls alerts numerous balaclava-clad men to our location. They surge into the basement two at a time, their approach more authentic than any action flick I’ve ever seen. Although their accents are foreign, they’re not Italian, making me fretful I’ve been caught in the middle of a turf war that has nothing to do with Dimitri.
Maestro tries to suppress their surge like he’s the Hulk, raging arms and legs go in all directions, but he’s outnumbered within seconds, killed even quicker than that, and Fien and I are one measly step behind him.
21
Dimitri
Sweat slips down my cheeks when I climb a rickety stairwell two steps at a time. I’ve killed a dozen men already this afternoon, watched another eight be slaughtered by Rocco directly in front of me, and saw Dr. Bates hung for his crimes in a practice not even chop-shop operations like the Castros could use without cringing, but I’m still thirsty for more. I don’t just want every man responsible for the pained expression on Roxanne’s face when she peered out of a top-story window twenty minutes ago to pay for their stupidity, I want them gutted for witnessing my daughter’s happiness before me.
She was born into a world full of violence, ripped from her mother’s stomach weeks too early, yet she still stops to smell the roses. She’s a baby, barely a toddler, but Rocco was right, her eyes reveal she’s strong enough to survive anything. I just don’t want her to fight alone anymore. As I said, she’s a baby. She shouldn’t have faced the things she has, much less a brutal bloodbath with the intention of only taking one hostage.
I can’t believe I agreed to Henry’s request. I’ve been hunting Rimi for years, so the thought of harnessing his punishment until the Feds are through with him has me wanting to take down Rimi’s entire crew with my knife instead of my gun. It would be more painful that way, more vengeance fueled. Alas, I shook hands with the devil more than twice earlier today. Considering it got me here at a hidden compound Rimi is endeavoring to get off the ground, I’ll swallow the injustice. Rimi will still be dead by the end of the day, just not until Grayson’s team has drained him of information.
My heart races like it’s about to go into coronary failure when I reach the landing at the top of the stairs. Although I’ve never handled them before, I’m reasonably sure nerves are also jittering in my stomach. Everything I’ve been working toward the past two years hinges on what I discover at the end of the hallway I’m creeping down. Roxanne was last seen in this location. Neither her nor Fien have been spotted since.
“Three… two… one…”
I kick down the door when Rocco reaches one, then we race inside shoulder to shoulder. My eyes go crazy while roaming over the four dozen pairs staring back at me. It’s clear from the women’s clothing and demure personalities that they’re not a threat, not to mention them guiding Rocco and me to a bathroom partway down the hallway we just snuck down when they realize who we’re seeking. Rocco showed them a picture of Roxanne he has stored in his phone—a photograph I was unaware he had until now. We will have words about it later, but for now, I’m happy to use his fondness of Roxanne to my favor.
“Fucking prick,” Rocco grunts under his breath when his dip into a secret entrance sees a bullet ping off the concrete block next to his head.
A groan of a man taking his last breath rumbles up the stairwell a mere second before I pull Rocco back so I can take the lead. The stairwell isn’t wide enough for us to go in side by side, so I will enter first. The suggestion to go in heavy was my idea, so if anyone is going to helm the charge, it will be me.
The scent of death teems into my nostrils when I step over the man Rocco took down from above. It isn’t the secretion of his bodily fluids responsible for the rank smell in the air, it’s the indent Henry’s tactical team made to Rimi’s crew when he stormed the lower level of his compound. Bodies line the floor. They stretch as f
ar as the eye can see. The number alone reveals Rimi didn’t walk into his new adventure lightly. He has almost all his men on deck for this.
Even himself.
He stands at the back of the room, smirking like the bodies of his crew aren’t scattered around him.
When his eyes shift my way, and his smile doubles, my anger goes so white-hot, it could cause an aneurism.
With my eyes locked on the man responsible for years of torment, I shrug off my customized M6 machine gun, yank off the balaclava I requested the men of our joint raid wear so there’d be no mistaking the enemy, then pole-drive Rimi like several members of Henry’s team aren’t flanking him.
I know our agreement, I’m aware Henry only disclosed Rimi’s whereabouts on the agreement Rimi would walk away from the carnage for a couple of hours, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fuck him over. He’ll be more cooperative this way. More scared. I can rough him up how Grayson can’t. I can make him bleed and not face any conflict about it. The rules changed when he orchestrated the death of Henry’s brother. However, they were obliviated when he cut my daughter from my wife’s stomach.
As the monster inside of me roars to life, I pound Rimi’s face with my fists another two times before removing my switchblade knife from its pouch on my waist.
Rimi’s scream will highlight my dreams for years to come when I slice my knife across his stomach. I gut him like he gutted me all those months ago, unconfronted and without remorse. He tore my daughter out of my wife’s stomach without anesthetics, not the least bit worried about how painful that would have been for her.
I bet he’s regretting his decision now.
I bet he wishes he could take it all back.
It’s a pity for him it is too late. I’m on a warpath, and I don’t see anything slowing me down. Rage this hot can’t be contained. It’s uncontrollable. Brutal. Fucking all-consuming. Although it has nothing on the fervor that stops me in my tracks when my eyes lock in on a pair of gleaming green eyes in the corner of the room.
Half of Roxanne’s face is hidden by the shadows of a wooden stairwell Clover and several members of my crew are stomping down. She’s cradling my daughter in her arms, sheltering her eyes from the brutality she was born in with her chest while humming a melody to save Fien’s ears from the slaughter as well.
As my knife falls to the ground with a clatter, so does Rimi. His head crashing into the boilermaker matches the frantic thump of my heart. Usually, I would find his attempt to hold his stomach together humorous. Today, I don’t pay it an ounce of attention. My daughter is in front of me, in the flesh, breathing, and well, and she’s with the woman I love.
That outranks anything in the world. Nothing could come close to the emotions bombarding me now. Not even my deceased wife stepping into the frame with a butchered stomach and an ashen face.
22
Roxanne
Dimitri blinks several times in a row, certain he’s dreaming but hopeful it won’t turn into a nightmare. His daughter’s messy dark brown hair is fanned across my chest, her thumb is stuck in her pouty mouth, and her eyes are puffy from her sobs, but since her mother is lying on the gurney separating them, fighting for her life, he hasn’t had the chance to calculate just how many similarities they have.
I escaped injury in my endeavor to reach Fien, but Audrey wasn’t as lucky. She suffered multiple stab wounds to her stomach. Her injuries would be fatal if it weren’t for Dimitri’s last-minute decision to bring Ollie onto the battlefield with him. He’s doing everything in his power to save Audrey. He has since she collapsed into Dimitri’s arms thirty minutes ago.
The back of a hotwired ambulance isn’t the ideal spot for a reunion, but when news broke that the CIA was on the way, Dimitri had no choice but to bundle his crew into multiple transport vehicles and leave. I hated abandoning the women who had helped me beyond what I believed imaginable for what they had been through, but the elderly man leading the charge alongside Dimitri assured me it was the right thing to do. He said the CIA had contacts he didn’t and that they would ensure every woman was returned to their families. That alone made the burden easier to swallow.
It’s been a crazy thirty or so minutes since then, the haze growing more when Audrey murmurs Dimitri’s name in her almost unconscious state. She barely saw him for a second before the wounds to her stomach overwhelmed her, but as I’ve said previously, it takes a lot to snuff the aura of a man as dominating as Dimitri. Audrey can sense his presence like I did moments before he took his wrath out on the man believed to be the head of the organization who kept his daughter captive.
I could have screamed for him to stop as I did when he tackled the police officer earlier this week, I could have shown him his daughter was safe and unharmed, but something held me back. I want to say it was because he was serving justice to the man responsible for killing our baby, but that would be a lie. I wanted Dimitri to get his revenge, to end the life of the insolent man who had caused him years of pain, then hopefully, when I reveal just how far the pain extends, he will handle the news better since the ringleader has already been executed for his crimes.
As Rocco races us through sloshy fields, Dimitri’s eyes bounce between Fien and me, their springiness only slowing when I pull back the locks fanning Fien’s face. It exposes more of her adorable rosy cheeks and plump lips, but it also reveals she’s sleeping.
I’m not surprised. Crying is exhausting. The sob I released when I woke up in a pool of my blood had me napping for hours that day.
When Dimitri scoots to the edge of his chair, his face expressing his desire to run the back of his fingers down his daughter’s chubby cheek, I nod my head, encouraging him. He can’t come to our side of the ambulance since Audrey’s gurney is wedged between us, and although I’d love nothing more than to hand him his daughter, the weapons strapped to his chest would make that awkward. Thankfully, the impressive reach of his arms won’t throw up any obstacles for him to caress his daughter for the first time.
Dimitri’s hand makes it to within a hair’s breadth of Fien’s blooming cheek when Audrey murmurs his name again. It’s a groggy, pained wail that rips my heart out of my chest as effectively as it jerks Dimitri’s hand away from Fien. He isn’t retreating with remorse. Audrey conjured up the strength to slip her hand into the one she mistakenly believed was for her.
Her show of strength has me hopeful her injuries aren’t as life-threatening as suspected, though I’d be lying if I said I also wasn’t panicked. Dimitri appears as torn now as he was when he held a gun to my head in the woodlands outside of Hopeton. I don’t believe he wants to kill me. He just has no clue how to process everything happening.
He isn’t the only one lost. Fien is asleep now, but I had to fight her with everything I had to get her to settle. I’m not just the stranger who pulled her out of the line of fire, I’m also the woman who held her back when she attempted to race to a man she has mistaken as family. It broke my heart seeing her outstretch her arms for Rimi. I’m certain the cracks will heal when she learns to do the same for Dimitri, but for now, it still stings.
While Fien’s daddy attempts to understand what her mother is saying beneath her oxygen mask, I carefully rake my fingers through her glossy hair. Audrey’s voice is so frail, I can’t hear the word she’s speaking, but I’m confident it’s only one. Her lips make the same weak movements on repeat, only stopping when an alarm overtakes the shrill of my pulse in my ears.
She’s flatlining, and we’re miles from nowhere.
With tears welling in my eyes, I watch the scene unfold. Ollie commences CPR while Dimitri tilts Audrey’s head back, plugs her nose, then prepares to breathe air into her lungs. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he’s done this before. Saving lives isn’t something the head of a cartel gang does. They usually take them, not fight for them.
Dimitri and Ollie continue compressions until the ambulance screeches to a stop at the front of a residence I’ve never seen before. I assumed we were goin
g to Dimitri’s New York compound, but I guess that was stupid of me to consider. Dimitri’s crew just massacred over a hundred men. More than just local authorities will be chasing them.
The doors of the ambulance are tossed open by two large men flanking a petite blonde with big blue eyes. “Theater is prepped and ready. Take her through the double doors, into the elevator, then down one floor,” instructs a lady I’ve never met before. She’s only young, perhaps a year or two older than me. Blonde, regal-looking, and seemingly aware of who I am. Not only does the sweat beading on her forehead double when she spots my watch, fine lines crease the top of her lip. “I’ll take care of Roxanne and Fien, you look after Audrey.”
Although I appreciate Dimitri’s quick glance my way to check I’m okay with the blonde’s plan, it isn’t necessary. He shouldn’t feel torn between his wife and me. She’s the mother of his child, and I no longer am. There’s no competition. Fien needs both her mother and her father, and I refuse for my selfishness to steal that from her.
Besides, I rarely put myself first, so there’s no chance of that changing today.
“Go,” I whisper to Dimitri when his exit stalls long enough for the blonde’s pencil-thin brows to join together. “I’m okay.”
Dimitri lifts his chin, strays his eyes to Rocco for not even a second, then hotfoots it in the direction Ollie and a group of men dressed in white coats wheeled Audrey.
“You good?” Rocco’s voice is full of suspicion, cautious of the hiss I involuntarily released while stepping down from the ambulance.
Since Fien is still cuddled in my chest, I placed our combined weight onto my sore foot to ensure my step down didn’t wake her.
I shouldn’t have bothered being vigilant. I’ve barely jerked my head up half an inch to assure Rocco I’m fine when Fien is ripped from my grasp.
