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She nodded her head at him, her attention now solely focused on me. “Who is this Marco and what is he to you?”
“Now, is that any way to treat a guest,” he asked. “Especially one bearing gifts?”
“What are you talking about?”
She looked over at him, but her gun stayed firmly fixed on me. I had to admit; I was a little curious myself.
Marco’s gun never wavered as he shifted his weight, letting a bag fall off his shoulder. He tossed it at her feet.
“Open it.”
She kept her gun trained on me, and an eye on him, as she bent down to unzip the bag. When she peeled the sides back to reveal its contents, I leaned over to have a look. At first, I couldn’t tell what I was seeing, my brain trying to block out the horror of the bag’s contents. But there was no mistaking her deafening screech as it filled the room. Suddenly, I wasn’t the one with a gun pointed at them.
She hadn’t betrayed me for her career or money, otherwise I might have left her fate in my brother’s sadistic hands. While I respected her desire to keep her sister out of jail, it didn’t take away the sting of what she’d done. Loyalty was a rare commodity in my world, which is why I valued it above all else.
The Kowalczyks were known for being unforgiving, and I guess I wasn’t much different from my father in that respect. In the end, it was why he’d killed my mother. But unlike my father, and I had no desire for Brandy to die.
Much to my dismay, I’d recently discovered how essential her life was to my peace of mind. This whole possession thing was a royal pain in the ass, and I couldn’t imagine how Ryder and Gunner coped with loving a woman. Their women were everything to them, and while I was incapable of their depth of emotion, I didn’t like how important she’d become to me.
The thought that I could place a woman above the club, the Braterstwo, or even myself was disconcerting. Yet, as I snuck through the kitchen of my father’s house and heard the gunshot, the only thing that mattered was her.
The guard on the other side of the kitchen door was so distracted by the sound of the gunshot that never saw me coming. His body fell to the ground at my feet as the other guard finally noticed me and raised his gun. My blade beat his reflexes, embedding itself into his neck before he had the chance to fire. There was no time for hiding bodies, so I’d have to rely on Piotr’s guards being as slack as he was.
Hallways were eerily silent as I swiftly moved further into the house and closer to my father’s office. Either the sound of the gunshot had sent them all running in that direction or Piotr had fewer guards than usual posted inside the house. I hoped for the latter, but I’d shoot my way through a million guards to get to Brandy. That assumed that bullet hadn’t been meant for her, because if I was too late, god help them all. Every man would die tonight before I burned the entire place to the ground.
Two more guards stood with their backs to me near the main foyer, both of them dropping in a spray of red, my boots tracking their blood across the foyer. Motion to my left had me lifting my last blade. Marek held up his hands and silently shook his head. Blood was sprayed across his face and down one arm, a knife still dripping red at his side. Guess that explained the lack of guards.
“I found my son’s body upstairs,” he whisper hissed. “Near Bea’s room. I took out all the guards in my path and when I find Piotr, he will answer for what he’s done.”
Something about this situation didn’t sit right with me. Bea’s had the same two guards since the day she’d been born and neither one of them would have seen Marek’s son as a threat. Even if he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. Marek was owed a blood debt, of that I was sure, but I wasn’t convinced he should be collecting from Piotr.
A feminine shriek came from the hallway leading to my father’s office, and Marek and I shared a look before both of us took off in that direction. I rushed through the door, gun in one hand, knife in the other.
Marco’s face remained devoid of emotion as he glanced at me, his gun still trained on my sister. Bea’s eyes widened a fraction at my arrival before they narrowed back down to slits as she faced off against Marco. A snarl left my chest as my eyes landed on Brandy, standing off to the side, hunched over, a chair strapped to her back, and her chest tightly bound with rope.
“What the fuck?!”
At her feet lie a familiar body, blood pooling around what was left of his head. Dammit, I’d been too late to keep him from doing anything stupid. Where the hell was… The thought was left unfinished as I looked past Brandy and saw my brother splayed across our father’s desk, a gun loosely hanging from his fingers.
I rounded on Bea. “Explain yourself, and if I were you, I’d be quick about it.”
“For a genius, lately you’ve been rather slow on the uptake.” She nodded her head at Marco. “This fella has it all figured out, and I don’t even know who he is. Soon it won’t matter though, because he’ll be dead.”
Marco chuckled. “You wouldn’t be the first to try it, little girl, but by all means, if you think you can finish the job, have at it.”
“Before the shooting starts, anyone care to tell me why there’s a severed head in a bag on the floor?”
At the mention of it, Brandy looked down, a sickly green pallor washing over her skin before she quickly adverted her eyes.
“That would be your sister’s boyfriend and Agent Smith’s”—he nodded his head in Brandy’s direction—“boss.”
While most would be squeamish at the sight of a severed head, there was something in Brandy’s eyes as she’d looked at it that confirmed what Marco said. At least that explained what Marco had been doing in Austin, and the screech I heard before I busted up in here. Jesus, what a clusterfuck.
I looked over at Marco. “Let me guess, Bea knew he was DEA when she fucked him.”
“Oh, yes.” He smirked at the very unladylike snarl Bea directed at me. “Her little boyfriend sang like a canary before I took his head. He said she was the one who brought Piotr and him together to get rid of you, then she planned to turn on Piotr so she could take control of the Braterstwo.”
Marek stepped out from behind me and hissed, “You’re delusional if you think the men would have followed you after such treachery.”
