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Like I hadn’t spent the last twenty-two years of my life knowing him.
Like he meant nothing at all.
Like the hemorrhaging in his eyes and the smashed front teeth in his open mouth meant nothing at all.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Because this wasn’t real…this couldn’t touch me.
Steel walls slammed down in my mind as my gaze lowered again to the sickening sight.
“Jesus,” the Commander muttered, those unflinching eyes missing nothing as he moved to closely eye the knife embedded hilt deep in the calf muscle of Baldeon’s leg.
This had been no assassination…
It was well past that now.
This was a fucking message.
Plain and simple.
I turned away. There was nothing for me to do now. Nothing but to call my father…and give him the news.
One more son down.
Lucky for the Baldeons, they had a backup. Kinda sucks for the Salvatores.
I saw the same knowledge in Lazarus's eyes as he lifted his gaze to mine. There were no words exchanged here, not of war or of comfort. There was nothing but the hollowness of the pit we played in. A pit that’d one day become our grave.
Max and Pavlov fell in behind me as I made my way out of the basement, taking the elevator to the foyer once more. Fucking hours old. That’s all this was, just hours since the moment he was released to his guards. The same two guards who'd been found with double-tapped shots to the back of the head in his apartment upstairs.
Whoever had come here was good…and goddamn quiet.I rose in silence, Max on one side and Pavlov on the other.
“That’s not going to be you,” Max murmured as we approached the outer doors. “Let’s get that out of your head right now.”
He could say the words all he wanted. But it didn’t change the fact this had happened right under our noses.
My mind drifting to Anna, I grabbed my phone, slid my thumb across the screen, and pulled up my messages as I strode out of the building, my shadows on either side.
Anna…
Her name at the top of my short list.
My gaze drifted to Baldeon’s message under hers.
Baldeon: See you soon, brother.The message sent mere hours ago.
“Yeah.” I hit the button, killing the screen. “I’ll be seeing you real soon.”
I made my way back to my building. Movement came from the side as more guards swept the grounds. I could hear Leale’s booming bark as I stepped through the electric doors and hit the button for the elevator.
“It’s all clear up there,” one of the Commander’s men reported as he left.
Three more guards still moved through my apartment. But Max and Pavlov were still through the doors first, moving with military precision, guns drawn, sweeping through the space as the three guards headed for the door. “That’s one big fucking beast you have there,” one muttered with a shake of his head.
Thunder echoed inside the walls. “Leale, down,” I commanded, and the sound stopped.
Every room was searched before Max holstered his weapon and rubbed Leale’s ears. My bodyguard turned his head and those dark eyes met mine before the mountain of a man straightened. “You want me to stay?”
“No.”
