35
Rafael
The knowledge that Isa was finally secured with not one, but two of the brothers working to get her to the rendezvous, where more of my men waited, bolstered me. I walked forward, making my way toward the front of the house where I suspected Pavel must have gone to escape the reckoning that was coming for him.
With my wife and unborn baby safe, I was free to ensure he died a very slow, painful death that would somehow still never be enough. I owed him one last thing before I fulfilled the promise I’d made.
He would watch all of his sons die before him, and only after he knew his line had been all but eradicated would I allow his personal suffering to begin. His grandchildren would be raised by carefully chosen guardians around the world, my allies who were beyond reproach and I trusted completely to snuff out the toxicity of their lineage.
If I’d been able to bring myself to slaughter children, I’d have removed them from the equation entirely, but even I had to draw the line somewhere if I wanted to stand apart from the very monsters I hoped to rid the world of.
I stepped out into the night, spinning slowly and scanning the grounds at the front of the house for where Pavel might have disappeared to. My allies stood guard around the plane, some of the remaining of them scattered through the front of the property.
There was no chance that Pavel had gotten through undetected. Not with the sheer number of men peppering the property and his security bleeding on the ground.
I pulled the radio from the strap against my bulletproof vest, clicking the button. “Gabriel, did you see any tunnels on the blueprints? I have a hard time believing Pavel wouldn’t have some kind of escape plan.”
“No, there’s nothing on the blueprints,” Gabriel confirmed, undoubtedly having double-checked the schematics on his phone before he answered me. Dimitry’s voice came on the radio. “There are rumors about the old dog kennels. Ground floor of the Eastern wing. Pavel had to move them out to a barn when Dima was a boy because he’s terrified of them, but it’s unlike him not to convert the space to something new.”
I turned, making my way toward the East wing as my irritation stirred. Even if it was solely based on a rumor, that kind of knowledge would have been usefulbeforePavel made his escape attempt.
“On my way,” I grunted, charging through the groups of people coming my way. Allies who had cleared the main floor and were on their way to help the crew in the basement. They didn’t follow me, as if they could sense that taking Pavel down was something I needed to do on my own.
The kennels were tucked underneath a deck on the second floor, with enough height for me to stand up and have room above my head. I rounded the corner into them, moving past the abandoned and eerily clean cages that had held dogs at one point in time.
At the back corner of the space, I came to a storage room. Pushing the door open, I moved inside and searched the room quickly for threats. When I found none, I felt along the walls that connected to the house itself.
Nothing.
I moved around the corner, pressing on every inch of space and hoping for that moment when something would snap into place with a resounding click. From what I knew of Pavel, Dimitry was right. He would never allow this space to be an eyesore if it wasn’t serving a purpose.
Finally when I reached the opposite corner, the wall gave way beneath my hands ever so slightly. I pushed, applying more pressure until the mechanism and aging gears ground into place.
The wall shifted, retracting back as if it had been sucked away by sudden pressure. Then it slid to the side on a smooth path, leaving just enough space for a single person to slip through undetected.
I pulled one of my longer knives free from the sheath at my belt, dropping it into the track on the floor where the wall would undoubtedly reclose in time. Hoping it would be enough to keep that from happening until the others could follow me, I stepped over the threshold the track created.
Darkness surrounded me, welcoming me home like an abyss as I descended the slight decline into the earth. My steps were fast and sure, moving along the darkened path and toward the dim lights in the distance. They illuminated a walkway that seemed to lead to tunnels that ran beneath the house, with stairs at the end that went further underground.
To get there, I needed to walk through the complete absence of light that surrounded me in the open space.
But the devil didn’t fear the dark, he came to reap what his enemies had sowed there. Where other men might have hesitated, I moved through the inky darkness like one of the phantoms Isa had seen in the waters of the Chicago river.
I didn’t slow, striding through the open space to follow after the soul that was mine to claim. Pavel thought he knew Hell.
He knew nothing.
As soon as I was within the dimly-lit tunnel, I picked up a slow jog. Hurrying to catch up with the head start Pavel had, I wished I knew where the tunnels let out. To be standing on the other side, waiting for him to emerge, would have given me the greatest satisfaction.
Taking his moment of triumph and twisting it back to show him he’d never had a chance at all. There was no escaping death when it came at the hands ofEl Diablo.
I hurried along, moving as quietly and swiftly as I could in an attempt to channel Joaquin. The man moved with more stealth than should be possible, blending into the shadows seamlessly until there was no hint of anything else remaining.
The exit loomed ahead, the dim light of the moonlit sky shining through as I rounded the corner quickly.
The swing of a pipe came across the tunnel, and I ducked to avoid it as I spun to come face to face with the eldest Kuznetsov. With one of the only people alive in the world I hated almost as much as I’d despised my father.
“Rafael,” he said, tilting his head to the side and hefting the pipe in his grip. He swung again, moving quickly for his age with the understanding that if he didn’t move fast and hard, he would stand no chance of winning. “I always thought you were far too sophisticated to murder me with something as simplistic as a gun.”