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Ryker led the charge the next day with Rafael and his security at his side. Lino and Yavin had fought for the right to come with us, but in the end they’d been relegated to staying with the women at the Bellandi Estate.
If everything went to hell, they needed to stay clean. They represented the legitimate Bellandi businesses, or at least Yavin would until he married Aoife and started training to take over the Irish mob. That was a story in itself.
It was dark by the time we approached the front yard of the run-down house outside the city limits. In the middle of nowhere, in Illinois, I didn’t think they could have found a more remote location to hide out.
As much as it aggrieved me to admit, it was no wonder Ryker had needed a couple of days to find them.
“It’s too quiet,” Calix said at my side. The Greek from Philadelphia looked unassuming, with the lean muscles of a man who was more into endurance training than weight lifting. But I’d seen him cleave men in two without batting an eye, favoring archaic weaponry like a sword in some nod to the gladiator arena of his childhood.
I grunted in agreement, keeping a watchful eye with my assault rifle against my shoulder. Ryker and Rafael moved to the front door, sharing a quick look before Ryker raised a booted foot and broke in the door. Rafael spotted the guard at the front door, firing the first shots through the suddenly open doorway and taking him out.
They moved in harmony, stepping into the open space as the echoes of gunshots sounded through the clearing at the front of the house. My palms grew sweaty, my fingers twitching with the urge to maim and kill.
Any one of those fucks could have laid hands on Irina. They could have hurt her, or worse.
Calix nudged me with his elbow, understanding in his eyes as we shared a look. Every day he had to deal with the knowledge that the woman who would be his wife had been left to an abusive childhood and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Not yet.
“Clear!” Rafael shouted, moving to the front of the room. He went up the stairs, Matteo and Simon following at his heels. Calix and I finally moved into the house, stepping over the bodies littered across the floor.
The building was quiet, nearly silent, as I stalked through the barren living room and made my way to the kitchen. The door to the basement was left wide open, the opening pitch-black as I headed straight for it.
Something wasn’t right.
To guard a woman as important as Irina, only a fool would leave a dozen men and no more.
I hurried down the steps, ignoring Calix’s shouting at my back. There was nothing that would stop me from finding her.
Darkness met me, swallowing me whole as I emerged from the stairway into the basement with the broken concrete floor. The room at the back of the space drew my eye, the distinct stains of blood on the floor like a beacon I couldn’t ignore.
The guards must have believed I would be too light-blind to see them, that I would walk into a trap without letting my sight adjust.
But I’d been born in the darkness, and moving into the basement was like stepping back into a familiar embrace. My eyes adjusted quickly as my gaze snagged on the two men waiting for me.
I spun as soon as I walked inside the back room, firing a shot into the man who moved to close the door once I was in. He dropped to the floor, bleeding from his gut but alive as I kicked the rifle out of his grip and watched it skid across the concrete.
The second man moved to attack. He must not have been important enough to have a gun, only the sharp glint of a blade in his hand. It sliced through my forearm when I turned, tearing sinew and flesh open. Blood poured from the wound, but I ignored it. Knocking the knife from his grip, I shot him in the face once.
Brain matter and blood exploded out the back of his skull, painting the walls and concrete floors with more filth. Turning back to face the man who would die a very slow, very painful death bleeding out from his gut, I stepped on the wrist that tried to grab for the gun just out of his reach.
He cried out, glaring up at me. “Bellandi fucking filth.”
“Oh, I’m no Bellandi, you little shit,” I said, leaning down and grabbing him by the collar. I hauled him to his feet, shoving him into the wall as I slung my gun across my back. “Where’s the woman?”
“Which one? We got a whole lot to choose from,” he said with a snort, his ugly mug twisting in pleasure. I struck, punching him in the gunshot wound in his stomach so that he curled in on himself.
The door swung open, Calix’s face popping in as he stepped into the room. “This one,” he snarled, holding up a bundle of clothing. I’d seen the outfit several times in the weeks I’d spent watching over Irina before I walked away for her safety.
It was her favorite: a cream pencil skirt and deep navy top. The sight of them, bloodied and torn, in Calix’s grip set my blood on fire.
“Oh, the fun one,” the guy said with a weak but spiteful laugh. “She’s long gone. Darragh’s got quite the thing for her now, so I doubt you’ll ever get her back in one piece. He’s fond of his knife, if you catch my drift.”
I lunged, wrapping my hand around the front of his throat while Calix grabbed me by the shoulders. I’d kill every last one of them who’d touched her. “Where the fuck are they?” I snarled as he sputtered for breath.
“I’m fucking dead anyway,” he wheezed. “Why would I tell you shit?”
“Because if you don’t, I will make sure you suffer. If I don’t have her? There’s nothing to stop me from keeping you alive until I do. It might help, having you to carve into the way Darragh likes,” I growled, letting the name roll around on my tongue.
I’d memorize it. Add it to my red fucking list of names.
His eyes widened, but he winced when my grip tightened. “Bellandis don’t have that in them,” he chuckled, but his tone changed the moment Rafael Ibarra stepped into the room. The man’s reputation for being psychotic would never be outmatched; the joy he found in coming up with the most creative, painful tortures and executions was the stuff of legends.
“He does,” Rafael said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorway. “And even if he doesn’t, I do.”
“Where the fuck is she?” I repeated.
He glanced back and forth, seeming to debate his options. In the end, self-preservation overrode any loyalty he had to Tiernan Murphy. “A storage facility,” he said, rattling off an address. “They’ll be inside one of the containers.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Calix muttered, pulling the cellphone from his pocket and dialing a number as he moved for the stairs.
“If we don’t call within the hour, they’ll shoot the women,” Murphy’s man said, holding his hands up. “Tick tock.”
“No,” Rafael said, shaking his head at me. “Too big a risk that he’ll relay some secret message if we allow him to call.”
I nodded my agreement, pulling my gun around to my front. I stepped close, watching as his breathing quickened and he waited for the quick death he assumed he’d get for the information he’d relayed.
But there were no quick deaths for the men who’d looked at Irina. For the ones involved in her capture and her pain.
They’d suffer for an eternity before I allowed them to die when I made the choice.
“I tried to warn you. I’m no Bellandi,” I said, watching as his eyes widened for a brief moment. I slammed the end of the rifle into his temple, watching as he crumpled to the floor. “Have Ryker put him in the fucking van,” I ordered, moving to the stairs and climbing back up into the daylight. Under any other circumstances, the men might have pushed back against the order coming from me, but in these? They did what they were fucking told.
I had less than an hour to get to the storage unit. I wouldn’t waste a single second of it.
Tick tock.
