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“One down. Throat slit.”
Everything within Dimitri shut down. It was a trained reaction.
“Two down.” Grunt said. “Throat slit.”
A litany of curses erupted in Dimitri’s head. He tapped Lake’s shoulder and pointed to the doors, knowing that Joe and Grunt would be doing the same thing. They found blood on the carpet in the sitting room. Bullet holes in the wall. Another guard fallen behind the French sofas. Dimitri’s heart began to race. On the surface he was contained, efficient and silent, inside there was terror.
They moved quickly through the rooms, checking each in turn. Keeping their guns, and their guards, up ready for attack. None came. Instead they found an ever-increasing body count.
In the upstairs bedroom—the master bedroom—they found Henri Boudin.
There were at least three bullet holes in his body. His grey Savile Row suit was drenched in blood. It pooled out onto the Persian rug, staining its beauty the same way Henri had stained everything in his life. Dimitri looked into the face of the man who’d imprisoned his sister and felt only violent, cold hatred.
“Over here.” It was Lake. There was no longer any need to keep radio silence, or any other kind of silence. Everyone on the estate was dead and there was no sign of Katrina.
Dimitri strode to the walk in closet, where Lake was standing in the doorway. His usually stoic face was grim. He stepped back to let Dimitri pass. A cold dread washed over Dimitri’s skin as he caught the hard fury in Lake’s eyes. At the back of the closet was another door. One that blended a little too well with the décor. At first glance you wouldn’t have seen it amongst the clothes.
“What we got?” Joe said as he came up behind them.
Lake just gave him a look.
“Hell.” Joe looked at Grunt.
They stopped at the entrance to the closet. Waiting for Dimitri. The message was clear: they had his back, but this was for him to do alone.
With muscles so taut they felt like they would snap, Dimitri pushed open the door to the concealed room behind it.
It was empty.
Relief that he hadn’t found the body of his sister almost took him to his knees.
He looked back at Lake, saw the grim line of his mouth and turned back to study the room. A single mattress on the floor, bare except for one blanket. A toilet in the corner of the room. A tiny sink with a bar of soap, toothpaste and brush. There were no windows. No decoration. Nothing. Bare wooden floorboards under foot, marred by the marks made from the chains. Chains that were attached to the wall near the bed and ended in ankle cuffs that lay open on the floor. There were no clothes in the room.
Shaking, Dimitri stepped deeper inside the room. It was barely bigger than the closet behind him. He knew, just from looking, that the chains would stretch as far as the toilet, but not as far as the door. Henri could have left the door unlocked and his captive still would never have gotten free.
He’d seen enough. He turned to leave and his knees gave way. He hit the floor with a loud thump. The wall, where the door sat, had been papered with Polaroid photos. Thousands of Polaroid photos.
All of Katrina.
“Get him out of there,” Lake ordered.
Joe was already in the room when the order came. He glanced at the wall. Saw the horror and cursed. “Let’s go. You don’t need to see that.” A hand clasped Dimitri’s shoulder.
Rage surged and Dimitri roared, throwing off Joe’s hand. He clawed at the photos, ripping them off the wall, tearing them to nothing, letting them fall until the floor was littered with them. It was what he imagined his sister would have done if she’d been able to reach them. If she hadn’t been chained in place to stare at them, to be reminded every minute of every day of why she was there and what her captor could do to her. With his bare hands, he destroyed the evidence of her torture at the hands of Henri Boudin. The same way he wanted to rip apart the man who’d done this to her.
Lake and Joe stood sentry while he worked out his rage. They didn’t try to stop him. They didn’t comment. When every image was gone, he stood gasping at the horror around his feet. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. He wanted to rip the place apart until he bled. Until everyone bled. All of them.
“I want this gone.” He didn’t give Lake a choice. “I want it all gone. I want to raze this place to the ground. Nothing left. Nothing.”
There was agreement in Lake’s icy eyes.
“We need to find out where she’s gone first.” Joe ran a hand over his face. “Someone took her.”
He was too late. Again. He saw red. Literally. Everything else was obliterated.
“Got security footage,” Grunt called from the bedroom.
Joe and Lake waited for Dimitri to walk out first before they followed him. Grunt was leaning over the desk that sat in front of one of the huge windows overlooking the ocean.
