33
Rafael
Gabriel furrowed his brow after a cursory check on the security system he’d hacked. “No sign of Pavel outside the house yet.” He locked his phone screen and tucked it safely into the pocket of his black cargo pants. We continued forward, prowling through the woods on Pavel’s estate.
One call to my man inside and he’d cut a hole cut in the fence line at the back of the property and made a guard disappear to give us a window to sneak in. The closer we could get before the diversion went off, the better.
Pavel and Dima would be dead by the end of the night, my contact inside taking over their operation as we’d always intended from the moment he first came on my radar, but the transition had to be seamless. There couldn’t be any remaining men loyal to Pavel and his sons, no heirs left to claim his position as their birthright.
His young, American wife had been trafficked by Pavel and his men, sold to one of the local brothels for her virginity to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. That would have been her fate if he hadn’t seen her and claimed her for himself.
Love didn’t always start out as a pretty fairytale. Sometimes it was brutal and ugly and reflected the realities of the world around us. But when it grew, it outshone anything that was rooted in the beautiful lies society tried to tell us were the truth. In the end, though, they would always be false—deceptions to keep people complacent.
Men like me ruled the world, whether we worked for a government or a criminal organization. We were power hungry. We were selfish, and we’d destroy anyone who got in our way.
We were the only real law that mattered.
We moved through the yard next to the house, stepping out from the tree line in the moments when the guards patrolling were on the other side of the building. Aaron was already at work, his explosives secured to the side of the house as he stepped back to join our group and retrieved the detonation device from his pocket.
The explosion rocked the south corner of the house as the first bomb detonated. Rubble and chunks of the building sprayed through the air, and I waited for the dust to settle.
The commotion would bring any guard worth his weight to the scene, and I needed to be well on my way to retrieving my wife before that happened. When everything stilled finally, Aaron motioned us on. I followed Gabriel as he raised his assault rifle to rest against his shoulder and moved into the new opening where there had once been a door. We moved quickly, sweeping through the hallway that we stepped into. The two brothers flanked me, acting as guards even though the person they should have been protecting was already inside and hurt. Aaron and some of the others veered off toward the basement, going for the women imprisoned there, while the rest remained behind to fight the response to our attack.
Blood boiled in my veins at the memory of the marks on Isa’s skin. I was the only person in this world who was allowed to touch her, to leave her with the imprint of possession that would never go away.
Dima had dared to touch what was mine, and I would make him bleed slowly for it.
We turned the corner, heading toward the library where Dimitry had said Pavel liked to take his after-dinner drinks and force his guests of the evening to sit and indulge him or talk business. After reviewing the blueprints of the house, we made quick work of the labyrinth of hallways and stairs in the old manor. We met little resistance along the way, which only served to raise my suspicions higher.
Pavel had to have known we’d come, the explosion to break down the doors couldn’t be mistaken. Gabriel kicked open the double doors to the library when we found them, stepping into the space first despite all of Joaquin’s insistence that he should take point.
I followed, cursing when we found the room empty. Only a wet stain of blood on the carpet remained and offered even a hint of a struggle.
My blood ran cold at the sight of it.
“It’s not hers,” Joaquin said, reassuring me even though he couldn’t possibly know if that was true. There was no way to know, and I suspected the words were just as much to reassure himself as they were me.
He stepped over to Pavel’s desk, picking something up off the surface and grinning at whatever he saw. That beaming smile turned my way. “That’s my girl,” he said, pride blooming on his face when he held up the bloody queen piece from the chess set.
“Is that an eyelash?” Gabriel asked, tipping his head to the side and turning for the door back into the hallway.
Joaquin pocketed the piece as we moved. “The basement is cleared of hostiles. No sign of Isa,” Aaron said, his voice coming through the radio confirming his team had swept through the basement and the torture chambers we knew were located down there.
It was where, the last time we spoke, Dimitry had claimed Isa would sleep for the time being. Her absence there did not reassure me, but if I knew I was being invaded I would keep my best bargaining piece at my side, too. Isa would be with Pavel, if she hadn’t already killed him with a chess piece.
We moved to the staircases, hurrying up them as quickly as we could while keeping quiet. My assault rifle was heavy in my grip, but my arm showed no hint of tiring. It never would, not when it was all that stood between me and the people who wanted me dead.
A dead man couldn’t protect his wife.
I would not die unless she was safe.
The first of Pavel’s men stepped out from the top of the stairs, firing rapidly as the three of us moved to make ourselves the smallest targets possible. Gabriel fired first, catching the man between the eyes. He fell to the floor, his gun blasting holes in the ceiling until his finger finally let off the trigger when Gabriel kicked it out of his hands.
Another jumped forward while he was distracted, earning three rapid shots from me that took him down before he ever fired off a single bullet. We continued through the halls, searching the abandoned bedrooms for any hint of my wife.
Eventually we came to a junction in the hallway, looking both ways before I signaled Joaquin and Gabriel to each take a hall.
“We stay with you,” Joaquin insisted.
“All that matters is findingmi reina,” I ordered, taking the hallway to the right. He looked as if he might protest more but nodded and did as he was told. The secondary team would catch up once they cleared the ground floor and offer assistance, but Joaquin had something to prove.
He’d failed us when he allowed Isa to be taken in the first place. He’d be the luckiest man alive if he survived my wrath when we were home.
Never in my life had I cursed the size of a home so much as I did in those moments when I kicked open door after door hoping to find my wife. I continued through the halls, searching until the smell of smoke finally drew me toward the room at the end of the hall.
My feet couldn’t move fast enough, instinct driving me toward the place where I knew without a doubt, my wife waited for me.
With her life hanging in the balance.