“You need some help.” I was surprised to hear Izzy behind us.
Had I been a better man, not scared of losing another second, I would have told her to stay back, I would have argued that the scene may not be one she wanted to see.
Yet, Izzy and I had worked together long enough for her to know that.
When I didn’t hesitate for one second to kick in the door, Cade and Izzy flew in, guns already pulled. Thankfully, we’d been smart enough to wear bulletproof vests, because the bullets sprayed immediately.
With only three of them and three of us, we may have been even in numbers, but they were outmatched in skill tenfold. Cade was hit once in the chest, and I heard the wind get knocked out of him as I dropped the shooter, then Izzy ducked past a wall as we scanned for the other two men. One had barricaded himself in the bathroom, and the other stood with a gun pointed directly at the floor.
At Delilah.
“You guys make one more move and I shoot her.”
Izzy and I looked at each other, then she shot his leg while I shot his arm. Hesitation was for cowards, and we weren’t either of those things.
Cade whooped and went skipping to the damn bathroom like a lunatic about to find his calling.
“Iago, you’re going to pay before I kill you,” Izzy whispered over him as he screamed, but then she went to Delilah and checked vitals.
She fell over her sister, slid Lilah’s limp body up into her arms, and curled around her. “She’s okay, Dante,” she whispered, tears streaming down her eyes. “She’s okay. Just knocked out.”
The assessment had me snapping my neck and stalking over to Iago, who tried his best to wiggle across the floor, the blood from his wounds smearing beneath him.
Cade jiggled the bathroom door lock, then stopped to grab a roll of duct tape from his suit pocket. “Brought this just in case,” he sing-songed. He threw that and a lighter my way, waggling his eyebrows.
I didn’t wait to grab Iago and drag him to a chair.
The man was going to admit everything before he died. And he was going to suffer while he did it.
26
Black Out
Delilah
“Dante,” I whispered, rubbing my forehead and opening my eyes to see him standing before me.
I jumped to claw at whoever’s hands were around me, but their arms gripped mine and then my sister’s voice was in my ear. “It’s me. It’s just me. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”
I winced as I touched my hand to my head. I felt a bump as large as an egg. “Wow, ow.”
Izzy smoothed my matted hair. Her legs were around me; she had me cradled on the floor where I must have fallen when Iago hit me. “Yeah, you’re gonna have a pretty good shiner from that one.”
I nodded but didn’t answer her. I took in the man before me as he stared down at my abuser. Dante’s hands clenched and unclenched. His whole body seemed three times bigger as he stared down at a bloodied Iago. He wasn’t just a wolf here, he was a werewolf, ready to kill, ready to rip apart a man.
I saw him now, for the first time ever, as the man he truly was. A ferocious beast ready to protect, breathing in and out.
In and out.
I breathed with him as his eyes met mine, and the wild in them calmed for just those seven breaths. His piercing emerald eyes closed for a second like he was settling his soul, and then he opened them again and they landed directly on me.
“Cade, get the knife.” His gaze cut back to Iago, and I watched Cade smile as if the ideas flying through his head were lollipops floating by and he was a hungry kid with a sweet tooth. He walked to the kitchen counter and pulled a large knife from a wood block.
I hadn’t had a chance to take in the room—the plush carpeting, the granite countertops, the lights twinkling above us in a low-hanging crystal chandelier. This room on a cruise ship probably cost a fortune.
It would be expensive to ruin too, I thought to myself as I stared at the blood seeping into the carpet below Iago’s chair. It dripped from his pant leg.
Cade handed the knife to Dante as he continued looking on, lost in a reverie we couldn’t pull him from.