Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“We need a plan,” Miko said, breaking the silence between us for the first time since we’d climbed in the cabs.
“The usual,” Gio said, shrugging. “Front and back entrance, clear the upper floors, but I imagine that Saylor is being kept in the basement.”
“I’m going down there,” Matej said, face stone-still.
And, really, none of us were going to deny him the right to confront his brother after all he’d been through.
“Me too,” I said, though I felt it went unsaid. My girl was down there. It was my right.
“We’ll clear the house,” Gio said.
“Depending on what we walk into, I will make a split decision based on need,” Miko said, getting a nod from everyone.
“Is everyone packing?” Gio asked, getting a round of affirmatives as we closed in on the port. “Only half of us will fit in our car. So instruct the cab to park on the next street over. We will do the same, then fan in from opposite directions.”
Plan in place, we met up on the street where Gio popped the trunk of his car, and handed out silencers. “The more quietly we do this, the better,” he reasoned.
Then, weapons at the ready, we made our way toward the house, the tension palpable, though no more so than with myself and Matej. Who already felt responsible for the deaths of his loved ones, and now shouldered the guilt for Saylor being taken by his psychotic brother as well.
My pulse was a berserk bass beat in my chest as we silently split up as we closed in on the house, half going in front, the other half in back.
Inside the house, someone had the TV on a football game, the volume turned loud enough to allow us to catch them off-guard. And the pops of the guns as Miko and Gio took out the one guy in the living room would barely be noticeable through the rest of the house.
Gio, Ciro, Elio, and Miko moved through the house as Matej, Miko, and I went straight for the basement steps, moving down them as silently as possible, heading straight for that door that I knew Saylor was behind.
Because it made the most sense.
But also because I heard her stubborn “Fuck you,” spat at whoever she was speaking to.
There was a loud crack, fist hitting skin and bone, that had my stomach twisting. Rage slid up my spine and exploded through my brain as another voice met my ears.
“Where. Is. Matej?”
With that, Matej used his free hand to yank open the door, me one step behind me.
“Right here,” he declared to, I assumed, his brother, given the family resemblance.
“The fuck?” Jan hissed, starting to reach for his gun.
But Saylor was faster, kicking out a foot, sending the gun clattering to the floor as Matej charged at his brother.
He didn’t, it seemed, want it to be a quick, easy death, a bullet to the head to end this. Matej wanted his brother to suffer like his men had suffered.
And, honestly, I couldn’t fucking blame him.
Not as my gaze landed on Saylor’s face, seeing the damage that motherfucker had already done to her.
One of her eyes was half closed, a deep blue bruise spreading underneath it. It matched the one forming on her cheek. And another on her jaw. And a fucking ring of them around her throat.
There was a slow trickle of blood from her nose and a split in her lip.
But alive.
She was alive.
Everything else could heal.
I’d be right there by her side through it.
I just had to get her out of here.
I tucked my gun into the waistband of my pants as I found the key Elio had used earlier to free Matej and rushed toward Saylor.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fury,” she said, voice raspy, likely from that fuck’s hand being around her throat.
“We got her,” I assured her, finding my hands fucking clumsy as shit as I tried to stab the key into the lock as Jan and Matej clashed together just a dozen or so steps away.
What felt like a lifetime later, the key slipped in, turned, and the chains loosened enough for me to work them free.
Saylor pulled her shoulders forward, cursing at the pain as she tried to work the tension out of her muscles.
I was still kneeling beside her when it happened.
A loud bang.
And white-hot pain piercing through my shoulder and chest, making me pitch toward the ground.
“No!” Saylor screamed, half folding over me, looking at the man who was in the doorway, the one with dried blood around his nostrils, and more of it staining his tee.
It happened so fucking fast, and I was a little distracted by the bullet wedged in my flesh, but I felt Saylor’s hand reach into my waistband, then watched as, like some kind of fucking avenging angel, she lifted my gun, and emptied the fucking magazine into the bastard, her face twisted in rage.