Page 43 of His Wicked Wants (West Coast Mobsters #6)
CHAPTER 40
NERO
I follow Jack into the kitchen, but he immediately holds up a hand for me to stop. He heard it before I did, but I hear it now. Dishes smashing in the little room where I believe Darian takes his breaks.
Jack makes a motion with his hand. I give a brief nod, grab a kitchen knife from the nearby block, and Jack moves across the doorway to the small room, still slightly ajar, to take up a position on the other side.
It opens a moment later, and a thick-necked thug walks through, oblivious to the two shadows hiding in the dark. Jack shoves him forward, using his body weight to pin him to the end of the kitchen counter, where I finish him with a silent knife to the back of the skull. I leave the knife in him and take his AK47 as a backup to my Beretta handgun. Jack is already checking the butler’s breakroom, but returns a moment later shaking his head. The people we seek are not within.
It’s good in one way, given that I half expected to find Gabriel’s lifeless body in there. Two rooms down. Countless rooms to go.
The terror rises up again, but I force it down. Gabriel needs my focus now, not my fear.
And so we systematically make our way through the rooms in this wing of the house. Jack is, as he claimed, a very skilled killer. Every bullet counts. And I’m pleased about that, given our limited supply of them right now. But we find no sign of Gabriel and the others.
Jack is as frustrated as I am. “The staff panic rooms are in the other wing,” he mutters to me. “Watch it—” He raises his gun once more, and I whirl around, too, only to see the wide shoulders of Bricker Soldano emerging from the corridor that leads to the other wing of the house. Jack drops his gun immediately.
“Staff is secure in the panic rooms,” Bricker whispers. “They’re tucked up nice and tight, and Max and I cleared the wing down here. But I couldn’t find Miller, Jack. Elise told me he and a few others got separated from the rest of the staff—had to make a run for it.”
“Gabriel?” I ask. “Was Gabriel Carstairs there?”
Bricker shakes his head and then points up. “Max told me to meet him in the security room. Might as well come up with me. There should be some ammo there if you need to refill.” It’s only the need for ammunition that makes me go up, because I don’t believe for a second that Gabriel would have been stupid enough to head for the second floor.
“Have you cleared this floor?” I ask as we run lightly up the stairs.
Just as we reach the top, and before Bricker can reply, we’re rushed by a man. Bricker grabs him, throwing him over the banisters, and Jack finishes him with a crack shot through the forehead just as he hits the ground.
“Not yet,” Bricker says. “But I guess we just got our start.”
“Nero and I will check the grounds after I get a refill,” Jack says. “That was my last bullet.”
I’m frustrated, but I’ve seen enough of Jack’s skills to know that he will be useful in searching the grounds. Besides, I also need to make sure I have enough ammunition, and the assault rifle is unwieldy. I want to get rid of it without leaving it around for an opportunist.
We enter the security room, where Pedretti drops his gun when he sees it’s us. Two house guards lie dead across a bank of controls, and Pedretti looks dark. “We need to kill these fuckers fast,” he says. “Bricker—phone. I already called in the crews that weren’t here for the wedding. We could use the Espositos, too, like you said.” He points at a satellite phone in the corner, and Bricker snatches it up. “Hey—not Honeybee or Nico or Giddy,” Pedretti adds.
“Course not,” Bricker snorts. “But Van and Jazz and Tank—and my mom first of all. She’ll send whoever we need.”
While Bricker is calling for help, Pedretti motions us over to look more closely at the cameras. “This was just a few minutes ago,” he tells us, replaying footage from the front of the house.
To my endless relief, I see Julian Castellani leading Gabriel, Miller, Nate, and Darian through the shadows of the front of the house. “Camera lost them after that,” Pedretti says. “But they’re back in the open, which isn’t great.”
The relief disappears.
“It sure isn’t,” Jack says. “Where are they headed?”
I slam a fist down on the control panel, annoyed that they were so close to us. The others merely look at me. “We need to split up,” I say. “There are too many paths they could have taken.”
“Dangerous,” Jack says, but he glances at Pedretti.
“Worth the risk,” he says.
“Agreed.”
“Then let’s go ,” I hiss. “Every second keeps them in danger.”
“We need to stock up first—and Julian is with the guys,” Jack says, pointing me to the cache of bullets kept under one of the consoles. He’s already busy refilling. “He’ll protect them.”
“You trust that golden-haired bastard with your lover?” I ask, surprised into unwise words.
I know they’re unwise, because Jack gives me a look that suggests he sees right through me. “I trust Julian more than I trust you, Andretti. And I trusted you well enough to guard my back. Julian will make sure they’re safe.”
“Bricker and I will clear the rest of the house,” Pedretti says. “We’ll reconvene after that down at the pool house.”
Once Jack and I have restocked, we head back to the foyer and out onto the front steps. There is a score of bodies lying around, and I can’t tell if they’re Bernardi, PacSyn, or Castellani. But we don’t have any attention to spare them now. Later, once the battle is won, we can lick our wounds. Bury our dead.
And I’ll be damned if Gabriel will be one of them.
“Which way do you want?” Jack asks me.
I’m thinking desperately, trying to figure out where Gabriel—where Julian—might go that they felt was safe. The greenhouse? Bullet-resistant glass, easy to hide among the plants? But it would offer no useful cover inside, and Julian, at least, would see that.
Julian.
And Gabriel…
The sudden sound of gunfire floats across the estate. “When in doubt, I like to head toward the action,” Jack says impatiently, and sets off, calling “Good luck, Andretti,” back over his shoulder.
And I will need it, because I know now where I’m heading.