Hearts On Fire (The Santiago Trilogy Book 3) Page 10

  “To hell with this freak show,” I hear Joseph curse as he makes to move in her direction but I grab his arm to stop him.

  “He’s toying with us. She’s fucking bait. He put her on display like this on purpose. We need Petrov and his men in place before we commence anything. We need to shut down the area so fewer innocents get caught in the crossfire.” I check my watch. “Two minutes until detonation.”

  I force myself to look in Anna’s direction again. To my surprise, her head snaps up and I can see her blue eyes are raging. I was right. This girl has courage. Or maybe it’s because she can sense her imminent rescue by two lessers of a greater evil.

  She’s gazing straight at us, more at Joseph than me, and she’s pleading for her freedom without saying a single word. I see him mouth something back at her and she nods slowly, tightening her arms across her chest as she does.

  I turn to ask him what all the eye fucking was about when the muzzle of a semi-automatic gun jabs into my back. And I never even got my drink.

  “How nice of you to join us, Señor Santiago. You too, Mr. Grayson,” simpers a voice as my monster inside starts to flex and stretch. “Hands where I can see them, please. Nice and slow. We have you surrounded.”

  “Where’s Sevastien?” I lift my arms a fraction to comply.

  “Oh, he’s around. In the meantime, feel free to enjoy his gallery. As you can see, he likes to display pretty things.” He inclines his head at Anna’s cage. “But he’s a fickle man, I’m afraid. Once used, he prefers to change up his, ah, collection with a depressing regularity.”

  Joseph emits a dangerous hiss.

  “Can I turn around?” I say idly. “I prefer to look all my victims in the eye before I kill them.”

  The voice laughs, a throaty unpleasant gurgle, like fingernails dragging down the inside of a coffin, and my monster snarls in response. “Please do señor, but rest assured I won't be the one dying tonight.”

  Can you say the word ‘hubris’, dickhead? I’ll be ramming it down your throat in a minute.

  I turn slowly, methodically, a clockwork devil spinning for effect with all eyes on me, and then I’m the one who is firing first. Not bullets, not yet, but a dazzling smile for the five men with loaded guns pointing at my head.

  Their smirks falter.

  Their trigger fingers start to convulse.

  They don’t spot the small remote in my palm until I’m detonating the first bomb.

  20

  Joseph

  The force of the blast blows the windows clean out, rocking the foundations and sending everyone crashing to the floor. Four bombs were placed at strategic points outside the club, and hidden inside the luggage racks of parked up motorcycles. Dante’s not dicking around anymore. It was more than enough explosive to get Sevastien’s attention.

  With the dust still settling, twenty of our men access the room on rappelling ropes from the roof above like a fucking SWAT team, opening fire on the suited and booted. I feel my mouth twisting into a satisfied snarl as the screams of the dying begin to multiply. Every sick asshole in here needs to burn for their collusion with this ‘auction.’ Selling women as slaves deserves a reprisal that only a bullet can deliver.

  I pull out my gun to execute the men holding us but Dante’s beaten me to it. He’s on his feet with five corpses splayed out around him like bloody petals from a flower.

  “Get the girl,” he thunders at me above the gunfire, sprinting for the stairs. “I’ll meet you back at the rendezvous point.”

  He’s going after Sevastien.

  I head for the cages, cutting down three men in my path. Another tries to knife me in the neck but his head evaporates into a crimson void as he takes a round of lead from one of Petrov’s men. They’ve followed our team in through the ruins of the bi-folds and windows, and we have the whole place overrun.

  “Get me out of here!” screams Anna, rattling the bars and kicking desperately at the lock but it’s stuck fast.

  “Stand back, sweetheart.” I aim my gun at the mechanism and fire twice. The metal disintegrates on impact, pelting burning fragments in all directions. She whimpers and brushes them off her naked skin as I force the relic of the cage door open. A split-second later, my arms are full of her warmth and fear.

  I catch her easily as my senses are jumped by the purest, sweetest scent known to man. She wraps her trembling body around mine, legs linked around my waist, bare breasts pressed up against my chest and for a split-second there’s nothing else but her. I need to cut that shit out. After three days of systematic abuse at the hands of a Bratva, the last thing this woman wants is another man pawing at her.

  “Thank you so much.” She’s sobbing into my shoulder as I carry her into a small side room and away from the dwindling line of fire, kicking the door shut behind me. The fight is falling back downstairs. All that remains on the other side are the dead and dying, the keening of the six other women, a carpet of gore and bullet shells and the bitter tang of murder in the air.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” I warn her, setting her down on the top of a desk. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Don’t leave!” She’s refusing to let go of my neck and her soft pleading is drilling down deep into me. She has a voice that could wrap itself around my heart like a memory.

  “I need to go help the other girls, Anna.”

  “Oh my God, yes. Go!” Her arms slither free and she swipes her fingers across her face to catch her tears.

  I stand there watching her, my feet dragging, my decision wavering. In another lifetime, there are a thousand other things I’d do to this woman over the top of this desk. “Here.” I shrug out of my jacket and arrange it around her shoulders to spare her embarrassment.

  “Thanks,” she whispers, slipping her slim wrists into the armholes and pulling it tight around her body.

  “Are you hurt?” I gently touch her shoulder and she flinches away. What the hell did they do to her? “I’m coming back for you, okay? Scout’s honor and all that other bullshit.”

  She nods and forces a smile. “How did you find me?”

  “Let’s get out of here first and maybe I’ll tell you.”

  Stepping back into the room, I blast the other girls free and instruct my men to get them to safety via the outdoor fire escape. “We need to move fast,” I tell them. “Petrov’s favor with the authorities is on borrowed time. We have seconds before the cops show up.”

  Anna is still huddled on the desk where I left her.

  “Can you walk?” I crouch down to assess her injuries. Jesus, She’s more banged up than Eve ever was. Her cuts and bruises weave a tale of abuse, but the dried blood on the inside of her thighs tells a much darker story.

  I meet her eyes and an unspoken tragedy passes between us. Still, there’s a fire burning there that they couldn't beat out of her. This bird has broken wings, not a broken spirit. In time, she’ll heal and her scars will become a part of her, like mine have become a part of me.

  “I–I’m not so sure,” she stutters.

  “I need to shoot, honey, and I can't do that with you in my arms.”

  She nods again, slow and hesitant, her blue eyes huge and wary. This woman is in serious shock. She can't seem to take in anything.

  “Stay close to me, baby,” I murmur, taking her cheek gently in my palm. “I won’t let them touch you again.”

  She trembles at first before a spark of trust flickers between us. “I know you won’t,” she says quietly, and suddenly I feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I feel like a good man.

  We pick our way across the smoking battlefield together, her hand firmly rooted in mine. I go at her pace – she’s barefoot and there’s broken glass all over the floor. Gunfire is still raging fiercely in the club and in the streets outside. I direct every man I come across to get their asses back in the game and to go and help Dante.

  Another huge explosion rocks the building as we’re making our way down the fire esca
pe. I quickly cover her body to the metal framework to protect her from the falling tiles and masonry, and this time she doesn't flinch away.

  The sidewalks are a bloodbath, fifty dead for sure. Our feet hit the cobblestones and straightaway I’m yanking her behind a red dumpster as stray bullets hit the brickwork above our heads.

  “Stay behind me,” I order as I start firing at a couple of Romanians with machine guns. They’re dead in seconds. Next, I hear her scream out as another stray bullet hits the dumpster, propelling it sideways. I reach out to steady it as I pull out my radio. “Come in, Reece. It’s Grayson!”

  His voice comes over straightaway. “The place is fucking steaming,” he yells. “It’s like a pressure cooker out here! I’m parked up a couple of hundred yards away and collecting bullet holes by the minute.”

  “Any sign of the jefe?” I take aim at another couple of stray assholes and watch them crumple to the ground like tin soldiers.

  “Nada. Containment’s gone to shit. The fight is spreading throughout the whole city. Blasts all over the place.”

  What the hell are you up to, Dante? “Drive as close as you can get to the club without having your dick handed to you. Me and the girl are coming out.”

  “Shift it, Grayson. Cops are all over the frequencies.”

  “We need to evacuate. Send out the message to fall back. Over.”

  “Message received. Over.”

  “Anna, we need to run,” I tell her, switching on my GPS to pick up the tracker we installed in the SUV. She looks scared as hell. “Streets are too hot. We’re taking a back route.”

  “I trust you,” she repeats, teeth chattering as she crouches there, half-naked, in the dead of winter.

  An unnatural silence is settling over Die Wallen as we venture out of our hiding place. It’s like the last days of the Somme with fallen assholes everywhere. The nearby canal is awash with floating bodies. Most of the clubs and shop fronts have fallen victim to tonight’s violence as well. Trees are burning. Dogs bark their houses down in distant neighborhoods. Tonight, the carnival of neon lies in ruins.

  We turn into a street running parallel when there’s a screeching of brakes and a black SUV hits the curb in front of us.

  “Get in,” shouts Reece, kicking the door open for us. I throw Anna into the backseat and follow after, yanking out my iPhone as I do. The sounds of sirens are drowning out the chilly night air. Flashing blue and red lights start to pass us in every which direction.

  Where the hell are you, Dante?

  I try his number.

  No answer.

  Fuck!

  “I’m going back out there,” I tell Reece, loading a fresh clip into my gun.

  “You can’t!” Anna grabs my arm to stop me. I can feel her broken fingernails piercing my skin through my shirt. “Everyone’s dead. You saw it for yourself.”

  “Not Dante.” I punch in a message to him, one-handed. “That man refuses to die. He thinks it’s a fucking insult.” Prising her fingers from my arm, I reach for the door handle.

  “I’m begging you, Joseph.” Anna is crying again but my loyalty lies with another.

  “Listen,” I say swiftly, “Eve’s at the safe house, Reece will take you back there now.”

  Her eyes widen in shock. “What’s Eve doing in Amsterdam?”

  She married a devil on a suicide mission.

  My cell phone starts vibrating in my hand. Speak of the....

  I’m not coming with you.

  I stare at my phone in disbelief. “You stubborn fucking asshole!” I roar, slamming the door shut again.

  “What did he say?” demands Reece.

  “Tell everyone to proceed with the evacuation. Leave the smaller jet for us. It’s time to go.”

  “Is Eve okay?” ventures Anna.

  Before I can answer, my cell beeps again.

  Remember what you promised.

  His fucking promise can go to hell. I’m not having that conversation with Eve when there’s still a chance I can stop this. I have to pull him back from this madness. If he pursues Sevastien with no back up, in a burning city that’s baying for his blood, he’ll never see her again. He’ll never taste freedom, hold his unborn child…

  “Where’s Petrov?”

  “Airborne already.”

  We’re the motherfuckers left behind as usual. A series of images flit through my mind: the burnt-out carcass of an M-ATV, a four-bladed Black Hawk stuttering from the sky, a sun that never quits, and torture that never ends…

  My fingers hover over the onscreen keyboard. I have one shot at saving his life remotely but there’s every chance I’ll drop a mortar on close to twenty years of friendship in the process. The sacrifice is worth it.

  Time to let the dead go. Eve’s pregnant.

  Pick the right side for a change.

  I take a breath and hit send.

  21

  Eve

  This conflict is like an ache that won’t subside. His presence is calling to me like a dog to ‘heel’. He’s so close to my hiding place, I can almost smell my childhood. Sugar and spice…but what he is, isn’t nice.

  I must be losing it. I’m making up crazy rhymes in my head. I’m so cold I can't feel my lower body anymore. The pain of my twisted ankle has settled into a vague shooting-like cramp. I can't remember a time when my teeth weren’t chattering so violently.

  Twigs snap. Dead leaves crisp underfoot. My father takes a couple of steps to his left and I angle my head to peek through a gap between the ground and the tendril-like roots of the tree trunk. The clouds have parted and even more moonlight is filtering down through the trees. He’s four meters away and I can see his jeans and hiking boots. With a pang I recognize them as the same ones mom bought him for a family trip to the Grand Canyon eight years ago.

  “Evie sweetheart,” he calls again, his singsong voice rattling around my brain. “Please come out, baby. I want to make things right. I miss you so much.”

  Is it just us? What harm could it do?

  Digging my fingers into the dirt, I shut my eyes tight. If he calls my name one more time, I’ll take a chance and stand up. More than anything I want his confirmation that the man I worshipped for twenty-five years is less of a devil than the one I married. I’m no Photoshop pro but Petrov could have easily manipulated those pictures.

  I hold my breath and wait. One…two…thr–”

  “Myers!” A harsh voice sounds to my right. He starts reeling off a string of sentences in a language that means nothing to me.

  “On my way,” mutters my father, sounding annoyed. He turns to face the other guy, and that’s when I see a glint of silver in his hand.

  He has a gun.

  My father has a gun.

  Did he come out here to shoot me?

  A whimper of fear escapes my lips before I can smother it with dirt.

  His footsteps pause.

  “What the hell are you waiting for?” snaps his companion. “Did you hear what I said? Santiago got the jump on us too. Amsterdam’s a mess and his army are on the move. The big family reunion will have to wait.”

  I watch them drift back toward the safe house until their flashlights are nothing but dancing white specks in a sea of shadow. Straightaway my thoughts switch to Mateo. Is he dead too? Maybe he’s hurt and dying somewhere in the darkness? My stomach lurches as another image of Manuel passes before my eyes.

  I hear the dull rumble of a chopper rising up into the air. Despite the tree cover, I cringe into the ground as it passes by overhead. Now I’m paralysed with indecision. Is it safe to go and find the Colombian? Maybe there are others still alive in the house that I can help? Or maybe the whole conversation was for my benefit and they’re trying to lure me out of the forest?

  Somewhere close by there’s the sound of a vehicle moving at a vicious speed. Engine revving. Tires squealing. I must be near a road. I strain my ears to hear the crunch of gravel in the driveway before all four doors are slamming shut in an ugly chorus. The next
thing I know, more flashlights are penetrating the gloom and loud voices are shouting out my name.

  “Eve? Are you there?”

  Crying out with relief, I stumble to my feet but my legs are completely numb and I crash back down again, cracking my kneecap on the side of the tree trunk.

  “Shit! Joseph!” I scream, but all that comes out of my mouth is a pathetic whisper. Even so, he must have heard as his flashlight hones in on me right away and I find myself tumbling into his arms.

  “Thank fuck!” he rasps into the space above my head.

  “Dante.” I clutch at the front of his shirt. The scent of sweat and death on his skin remind me poignantly of my husband. “Where is he? Where is he?”

  “We’ve got to go,” he says briskly. “The whole op’s been compromised.”

  Why isn’t he answering my question?

  “Is anyone still alive?”

  “At the safe house? A couple. What’s wrong with your ankle?” While we’ve been talking, he’s been running his flashlight up and down my body, checking me over for damage.

  “I fell…I think I sprained it. Mateo?” His name catches in my throat.

  “Took a bullet to his thigh but he’s alive. Here, I’ll carry you.” He hands me the flashlight and scoops me up into his arms.

  “Dante’s not with you, is he?”

  “Not yet.”

  Riddles, riddles, so many riddles.

  He starts jogging with me back to the house. I rest my head against his chest to hold myself steady but the scent that plugs my senses is all wrong. It’s not rich and powerful. It doesn't make my head to spin with lust. It’s not Dante’s.

  We reach the driveway just as two black SUVs come bombing past us and out onto road beyond. A third and final SUV is waiting with the backdoors flung open, headlights on full-beams. All that’s left of the safe house is a damaged shell.