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Maverick had been giving me a disbelieving look, but within seconds, everything about his stance changed. Shoulders and back straightening as he tried to pinpoint what I’d already detected.
Years of working side-by-side had us picking up the other’s smallest cues, like my body tensing and my head slanting.
By the time I looked at him again, he had his gun in front of him and was slowly, almost silently, chambering a round. Head moving faintly to let me know he didn’t notice anything.
“You don’t smell that?” I asked under my breath, surprised because it seemed so overpowering to me. “Blood. A lot of it.”
“Get us inside,” he ordered, already reaching for his phone with his free hand when I turned and hurried off the porch. Keeping close to the side of the house as I readied my own gun while searching for windows that were easily accessible.
“They don’t have security cameras,” I whispered when I felt Maverick fall into step behind me. Effortlessly keeping pace as he moved backward, looking out for anyone coming up behind us. “If anyone’s still in there, they aren’t watching.”
“Dare’s been warned,” he muttered.
I slowed at a low window, putting my hand out to stop my brother as I searched the part of the kitchen I could see.
When there was no movement or sound from the other side, I smoothly passed off my gun to Maverick before reaching into my back pocket for the black fabric that always waited there.
A Borello tradition.
Ever since we’d been saved by them and recruited into the family, everything we did—whether on the offensive or defensive—was with our faces partially covered. It felt wrong to go without.
Like a sin.
Once I had the bandana tied around my head so it was resting just below my eyes and covering the lower half of my face, we moved. Switching positions as he passed both guns into my hands.
But I didn’t hear anyone. I didn’t see anything.
Most importantly, I didn’t smell anything other than all that blood.
Once we were back in our original positions, and I had the window open, Maverick stopped me. Abandoning all training to grip my shoulder and force me to look at him as he asked, “You alive?”
“Yeah, man, I’m alive,” I muttered as I pressed my hands to the windowsill, offering him a shit-eating grin he couldn’t see from behind the fabric.
He nodded in return. “Keep it that way.”
I was in the house without a second thought. Landing in the kitchen soundlessly and bringing my gun up as I hurried to clear the kitchen and adjoining rooms.
Fucking shit.
My steps briefly faltered, but I only took a second to confirm the two bodies on the living room floor were the owners of the Thai restaurant before moving through the rest of the house. Knowing Maverick was there every step of the way until we knew there was no one else there.
“Did you see it?” he asked as we started back toward the mutilated bodies.
“Yeah,” I ground out, head moving in harsh shakes because I wanted so damn badly to have been wrong.
But Maverick’s hushed curse when he entered the living room let me know I hadn’t been. Let me know it was real.
Maverick had his phone out and was calling Dare before I’d even fully taken in the entire scene.
From the look and smell of it, someone had very recently slaughtered them. Savagely. Blood was splattered across the walls and soaking into the carpet. Pieces of their bodies were across the room.
But it was their foreheads that changed everything.
Marked onto their skin in blood was our symbol. The one tattooed or branded into every Borello.
“What does it mean?” I asked out loud, knowing Dare could hear me through Maverick’s phone.
But Maverick just met my stare, looking as confused as I felt...and afraid. He looked afraid. And I knew down to my soul that his fear wasn’t for us, but for his wife and baby.
