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A thin, still figure lay on it, eyes open, his livid body covered with bruises and lesions.
“Don’t look,” I whispered swiftly to Holly, but she had seen it. Her eyes were huge, bruised-looking, and her lips trembled.
“What the hell is this?” Nicole shrilled. “What happened? Is he dead? Who killed him?”
“Nobody killed him,” the man pushing the gurney said sullenly. “Except for you. You’re the one’s been messing with him. He just croaked, is all. He was sick. And older’n shit.”
I put it together. “Oh God. That’s Uncle Jay, right? Mick’s uncle. You really have been sending Mick nasty videos of you torturing that poor old guy? Oh, Nicole. You justsuck.”
Nicole swung around, backhanding me so that I crashed against the wall. “Put them in Jay’s room,” she spat out, her voice vindictive. “Since he no longer needs it.”
“It’s a stinking mess,” the guy said. “There’s blood everywhere, and it—”
“Good. Let them look at it and consider what their future holds.”
We were herded into a gray-painted cinderblock room that looked like it had been a broom closet before. It had a narrow, bloodstained cot. Old, brownish blood was spattered on the floor. There was a bloodstained, prison-style toilet and sink.
It smelled unspeakably bad in there.
Nicole hesitated for a moment. She pulled out a blade, and slashed through Holly’s cuffs. Then she cut mine, shoving me sharply forward so I was still stumbling when the door slammed shut. When the lock engaged, Holly’s mouth began to shake.
I held out my numb, aching arms, and she came right into them.
We found the least bloodstained corner of the room and huddled together on the cold, clammy floor. I cradled Holly in my lap, her head under my chin.
It was so ironic. I could almost laugh, if it wasn’t so awful. This whole shitty scenario—being captured, imprisoned, threatened with torture and an early death—all that was old hat for me. I was familiar with that nightmare, because I had always known perfectly well it would end like this for me, sooner or later, once the Petruzzis caught up with me. It was just a matter of time.
But I had clung to the notion that at least this time, I would be alone. That they wouldn’t be able to hurt me by hurting my family. They had already done their worst, so I had nothing left to lose, right?
Hah-hah-hah. The joke was on me.
CHAPTER36
Ethan
Iran down the stairs from the helipad and found Mick sprawled on the ground, the side of his head sticky with drying blood. Jed and Freya sprinted toward the house, calling for Holly as I crouched down and checked his pulse. “He’s alive,” I told Remy and Darius. “You two. Get him into the house.”
I got to my feet, leaving the others to tend to Mick as I ran down the breezeway, I didn’t know toward what. Or what I thought I could do now.
The worst had happened. They had neutralized my defenses, which I had trusted implicitly. I had invested so much time and thought in making this place a fortress, in handpicking the people worthy to defend it. But I’d fucked up, and I had left the people I loved most vulnerable.
Now, I had to pay for my mistake. The ultimate price.
Jed came charging back from the security room, meeting me halfway down the breezeway. Freya followed more slowly, eyes horror-stricken.
“The guys are all unconscious,” Jed said grimly. “Alive, but out cold, every last one. Drugged or poisoned. The ambulances are on their way up. No sign of Kat or Holly.”
“Oh, God,” Freya whispered. “Oh my God. My sweet baby.”
Jed pulled Frey into his arms, and I was glad he was there to do it, because I was in no position to give comfort. How the fuck…? How was this possible, that I had left five tough, seasoned, battle-hardened men, tested in the field, men I had trusted my life to multiple times, and Nicole had sliced through them like they were nothing?
There was something terribly wrong here. Not even any signs of a struggle, other than the blood on Mick’s head. How thefuck…?
We moved forward somehow with caring for our injured. Got Mick inside, carefully worked his jacket off, and then the Kevlar vest which had evidently saved his life, judging from the bruises beneath it.
Mick’s eyelids had begun to quiver. They opened a slit, squinting against the light of the lamp.
“Mick,” I said. “What the fuck? What happened?”
