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When she didn't reply, Ben shook his head, chuckling. "Well, you've really fucked up, Tess. It's out of my hands now."
With that, his arm shot out and his blade arced back toward Nora, making good on his earlier threat. Tess wailed as her friend was dropped, lifeless, to the floor. Ben and one of his companions grabbed Tess before she could reach out for Nora--before she had even a moment's hope of saving her with her touch. They carried her away from the carnage, trapping her legs and arms as she fought them in a burst of animal desperation.
Struggling was futile. In moments, Tess found herself on the floor of one of her exam rooms, then heard the metallic click of the lock as Ben shut her inside to await her fate.
Nikolai drove like a bat out of hell, speeding the Breed's black SUV through the city at a breakneck pace. The temptation to watch the sunlit streets and buildings fly past through the dark, UV-tinted windows was tempting--a sight Dante had never seen, and one he sincerely hoped he never would need to again--but he kept his head down in the passenger side of the vehicle, his thoughts trained on Tess.
He and the others were outfitted in head-to-toe black nylon protective clothing: fatigues, gloves, ski-mask head coverings, and close-fitting wraparound shades to shield their eyes. Even so, the jog from the vehicle to the back door of Tess's clinic building was intense.
With weapons at the ready, Dante wasted no time. He led the charge, planting his booted foot in the center of the storeroom door and kicking the steel panel right off its hinges. Smoke swirled from the fires that Sullivan had begun setting inside. The roiling plumes grew thicker with the sudden influx of air from outside. They wouldn't have much time to finish this.
"What the hell is going on?" At the crack of splintering metal and raining debris from the door, a Minion came running in to see what was wrong. Niko let him know without the slightest hesitation, firing a round of metal into the guy's skull.
Now that they were inside, Dante smelled blood and death through the smoke--not the fresh kill lying at their feet and, thankfully, not Tess either. She was still alive. He sensed her fear like his own, her current state of sorrow and pain tearing into him like heated steel.
"Sweep the place and put out the fires," he ordered Niko and Chase. "Kill anyone who stands in your way."
Tess tried the tightly wound cords that bound her hands and feet together behind her on the examination table. They wouldn't budge. But she couldn't stop trying them, even when her struggles only seemed to amuse her captor.
"Ben, why are you doing this? For God's sake, why did you have to kill Nora?"
Ben clucked his tongue. "You killed her, Tess, not me. You forced my hand."
Sorrow choked her as Ben came over to where he had trussed her up on the table.
"You know, I thought killing you was going to be difficult," he whispered near her ear, his hot, stale breath assaulting her nostrils. "You've made it very easy for me."
She watched nervously as he went around to the front of the platform and bent down to her level. His fingers were rough in her hair as he lifted her face up off the slab of cold metal. His eyes were those of a dead man, a mere shell of a human being, no longer the Ben Sullivan she once knew.
"It didn't have to be like this," he told her, his tone deceptively gentle. "Just know that you brought this on yourself. Be grateful I didn't turn you over to my Master instead."
He stroked her cheek, his touch revolting. When she flinched away, he held her hair tighter, forcing her to look at him. He leaned in as if to kiss her, and Tess spat in his face, fighting back by the only means he 'd left her.
Tess braced herself for retaliation as he raised his free hand to strike her. "You fucking bit--"
He didn't get a chance to finish speaking, let alone touch her. A blast of arctic air rushed in from the open doorway, the instant before the space filled with the massive form of a man clothed in solid black and wearing opaque wraparound sunglasses. Guns and blades hung from his hips and from the thick leather holsters that crisscrossed his muscular torso.
Dante.
Tess would know him anywhere, even beneath the cover of all that black. Hope flared in her, along with surprise. She could feel him reaching out to her with his mind, assuring her that he would get her out of there. That she was safe now.
And at the same time, she could feel his rage. The icy chill of it rolled off his huge body, centering on Ben. Dante lowered his head, the focus of his gaze readable even through the dark lenses that shielded his eyes. A glow emanated from behind those black shades--ember bright, and deadly. With the flick of a glance, Ben's body was jerked up off the floor and smashed into the cabinets on the exam-room wall. He kicked and flailed, but Dante held him aloft with just the power of his will. When another black-clad warrior appeared in the doorway, Dante growled a command.
"Get her out of here, Chase. I don't want her to see this."
Dante's companion came over and cut Tess loose, then carefully lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the clinic to an SUV that idled out back.
Once Chase had removed Tess from the room, Dante let go of his mental hold on the human. The contact severed, Sullivan dropped like dead weight to the floor. He started to scramble up, trying to grab for a knife he'd left lying on the counter. Dante sent the blade flying with a sharp mental command, embedding the steel point in the opposite wall.
He stalked farther into the room, forgoing his own weapons in order to deliver Ben Sullivan's death with his hands. He wanted vengeance now, and he meant to make the bastard suffer for what he'd intended to do to Tess. For what he had done to her in the time before Dante reached her.
"Get up," he ordered the human. "It ends here."
Sullivan chuckled, coming up slowly to his feet. When Dante met his gaze, he saw the dull glint of a mind slave in the Crimson dealer's eyes. Ben Sullivan had been turned Minion. Certainly explained his recent MIA status. Killing him by any means was going to be doing him a favor.
"Where's your Master hiding out these days, Minion?"
Sullivan only glared at him.
