Page 28 of Monochrome (ORCA #4)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

ETHAN

Felix’s words rang in my ear, and my blood ran cold as my uncle emerged from the shadows, gun drawn and pointed straight at me.

“Uncle? What is this?” My brain was struggling to catch up with what I was seeing.

There was no way my uncle had willingly kidnapped his great-niece and nephew.

But the evidence to the contrary was damning.

“This is me taking what I want. What I deserve.” His voice was colder and harsher than I’d ever heard it, and it sent a shiver of icy dread down my spine.

“Con? What are you talking about?”

My uncle’s attention swung to Julius, and hatred burned bright and hot in his eyes.

“Of course you’re here. And isn’t that fitting since this is all your grandmother’s fault.”

“What does Juno have to do with any of this?” Julius asked, his icy tone matching my uncle’s.

“Everything!” His scream of fury echoed around us, and the gun swung wildly in his hand.

He turned his back to us for a second, and when he turned around again, he had composed himself.

“Juno has everything to do with this.”

I’d never met the Hunter matriarch, and right now, she wasn’t my concern.

“Where are Lily and Jude?”

My uncle’s answering smile was frigid and calculating.

“The little brats are fine.”

“I want to see them. Now.”

He shook his head and lifted the gun.

“I have the gun. I call the shots. And right now, you’re going to listen.”

“The fuck I am. I have the painting you wanted. The deal was the painting for the twins.”

Constantine—I had no idea who that was, but it made it easier to think of the man in front of me as a stranger than my own flesh and blood—lifted the gun and fired off a single shot that hit the metal wall behind me.

“I have a clean shot. I can take him out.” Cal sounded cool, calm, and collected, but I shook my head, hoping it was enough for him to see.

He responded instantly.

“Understood. Say the word and I’ll take him out.”

“And if you keep interrupting, I’ll take the painting and make sure you never see the twins again.”

He couldn’t do that.

I wouldn’t let that happen.

I wasn’t walking out of there without them.

I held my hands up in surrender.

“Fine. Say what you need to say.”

His answering grin was wicked, and I truly didn’t know him at all.

“Your sister always tried to call the shots too. Even when she had no authority to do so, she went tattling to your father, telling him she thought I was doing things that weren’t in the best interests of the company.” He paced away from us, then spun on his heel and paced back.

“I would have. I would have given Grove Core everything”—he spat the word—“but no one ever gave me that chance. First, my father passed leadership of the US side of the business to my younger brother, making him CEO. When Shan moved into the global CEO position, the US position should have been mine. But no. Instead, your father hired someone from outside the family. It was a slap in the face, and that was when I knew the only person who was going to look out for me was me.”

Julius and I exchanged a covert glance as Constantine paced away from us again.

“So I went looking for more lucrative ways to make money. I had always been good at blending in, at hiding in plain sight, and I started taking jobs lifting surplus items from people who had more money than taste. That was how Constantine Yang was born. Since I wasn’t getting the recognition that was mine by birthright, I earned it through skill, cultivating a reputation as a gentleman thief. But soon, petty theft wasn’t enough. At the time, the art market was hot, and there was one person at the top of the food chain.” His gaze swung to Julius.

“Your grandmother. I’d pulled enough art jobs to have established myself as an up-and-comer in the art theft world, to get on the right people’s radar, and I finally got a referral to meet with Juno.”

Julius stiffened beside me, and I felt tension rise in him through our bond.

Whatever was about to come out of Constantine’s mouth was what had damned the Hunter family in Constantine’s eyes.

“She took a meeting with me, but dismissed me almost instantly. I wasn’t what she was looking for in her crew. According to her, I was too much talk and not enough skill. Of course, dismissing me during a private meeting wasn’t enough for the great Juno Hunter. No. She had to tell everyone she knew what she’d thought about me, and my prospects dried up until I had no choice but to go crawling to her, lying and telling her she was right, that I did have a lot to learn, and begging her to let me learn from her. That if I wasn’t ready to join her crew, that I would work under her, as her assistant, until I was ready.” Constantine’s face split into another dark and dangerous smile.

“The fool agreed, even though I had already vowed that I would best her at her own game. I knew her brass ring was The Evolution of Man , but she held all her cards regarding the piece close to the vest, and for a while, I played my role perfectly, pretending to be the avid student learning from the master, even though it made me sick to do it. We were getting ready to work a job, but something felt off about it from the beginning. She was being cagey, and she’d told everyone in her crew that the heist required another crew member. I thought this would be my moment, but she took someone else’s recommendation and brought Zach Grayson onto the team.”

Julius flinched, and I heard Jack’s voice mutter, “Motherfucker.”

“Since I was already suspicious about this particular job, and because Juno had the delightful habit of treating me like I wasn’t in the room sometimes, I started to suspect the real reason we were pulling this heist was less about the target she’d told us about and more about The Evolution of Man . If my suspicions were right, I knew I could steal the painting right out from under her nose, and I would have succeeded, except when I doubled-back to follow Juno, Zach followed me.”

“So, you killed him.” Julius’s statement was matter-of-fact, but I saw the muscle in his jaw tic and I knew he was barely holding himself in check.

“He got in my way.” His gaze held Julius’s as he detonated the next bomb.

“She never trusted me again, and relegated me to working coms and offsite operations. I tried to send her a message when I killed your parents in Egypt, proving I could get to her through them, but she didn’t get it. Your parents got in my way too, showing up at a dig site where I’d already found a buyer for the recently excavated sarcophagus. I had to kill them or lose the score, and I made a shitload of money on that deal, so really, it was a no-brainer.”

Beside me, Julius went statue-still.

He’d told me he’d never really known his parents, that they’d died when he was young, but hearing that the opportunity to grow up with them had been stolen from him all because of my uncle’s greed and a misplaced sense of entitlement sent a bolt of white-hot rage pulsing through our bond.

But my uncle just kept talking, oblivious to Julius’s reaction.

His focus swung to me.

“Just like your sister got in my way when she told your father she thought I was skimming money from the company, but I still had friends on the inside.”

“Carl Jacobsen.”

Constantine’s smirk was unkind.

“I’d spent years making sure I had the right people on my payroll. Cops, federal agents, members of the criminal underworld. Buying Carl Jacobsen was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. Cost me barely five million of the company’s money to find out Tessa was going to be at a charity gala for one of his wife’s organizations. He gave me a call when she was leaving, and from there, it was just a matter of making sure I had people in the right place at the right time.”

Listening to this was like losing Tessa all over again, and I’d had enough.

“You fucking bastard. You killed her because she caught you stealing?”

“Grove Core should have been mine!” He waved his gun at the painting, where it leaned against the steel support post. “That painting should have been mine. I’m the one who fucking worked for it. I dealt with my father’s bullshit. I cleaned up my brother’s messes. I groveled at Juno’s feet. I made the right connections. Me! It was all supposed to be mine, and I got nothing!” Spittle flew from his mouth as his words landed between us.

“The twins have nothing to do with what you think you deserve. Give them to me, and you can have the painting. And I’ll talk to my father. I don’t want to be CEO. I never did. You can have everything you want.” It was all a lie.

The only way my uncle was getting out of this was in handcuffs, heading for the rest of his life behind bars.

“Show me the painting.”

Dimitri, who’d been in the background quietly observing, stepped forward and carefully pulled the wrapping away from the canvas as though he was touching the real thing.

“How do I know it’s real?” Constantine had taken several steps closer, his eyes glued to the painting.

“You were at Stefan Dasselaar’s gala. I recognize you. You know what I can do.” Dimitri lifted his hand, wiggling his fingers.

“Show me.”

Dimitri stepped forward and let his hand hover over the painting, and even though I’d seen it before while we’d been practicing for this moment, I couldn’t tear my eyes away as his skin changed color until it almost seamlessly matched the paint under it.

Constantine gasped, and his wicked smile returned.

“It’s real.” He threw his head back and his maniacal laugh bounced off the metal walls around us, making my skin crawl.

“You’ve gotten what you wanted, now give me the twins.”

“Fine.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen to make a call.

“Bring in the brats.”

Nero confirmed through the coms that there was movement on the dock, and I watched as two men entered the warehouse the same way my uncle had come in, one of the twins clutched tightly in each of their arms. Lily and Jude had duct tape over their mouths, and their faces were tear-stained, but when they saw me, they went wild—kicking, scratching, flailing, and screaming as much as they could with their mouths taped shut.

I should let Cal take the shot just for that.

“Let them go.” The second Constantine gave the command, his goons dropped the twins, and they ran flat out into my arms, tears coursing down their faces as I worked to carefully remove the tape from Jude’s mouth.

Julius reached for Lily, and she went easily, sobbing into his shoulder as he tried to take the tape off her mouth too.

“It’s going to hurt, Lily girl, but I need you to be brave for me. Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Can you?” She nodded.

“I’m going to pull it fast, okay?” I saw the glimmer of tears in my mate’s eyes, and I knew even hurting her in this way was breaking him.

“We’re going to do the same thing, Jude. Are you ready, buddy?” He nodded, and I counted down.

Julius and I ripped the tape away, and the twins immediately fell back into our arms, sobbing, and shaking, and clearly terrified.

I rubbed my hand over Jude’s back, offering him all the comfort I could.

“I’ve got you, buddy. You’re safe. I’m right here.”

“You were so brave, Lily. So brave.” I watched the tears slide down Julius’s perfect face as he held her reverently in his arms.

“As touching as this all is, I’m afraid none of you are going to get the happily ever after you think you are.” I stood, Jude in my arms, his face buried in my neck, as Constantine lifted his gun and pointed it at my head.

His minions started to pull their own guns, but the sharp hiss of silenced bullets cut through the air, and the two men went down before they managed to take aim.

“What the fuck?” Constantine screamed, looking around for where the shots had come from.

Without backup, he was starting to panic, and his gun shook in his hand.

“You’re not taking this from me too!” He lifted his gun, and I saw his finger start to squeeze the trigger like it was happening in slow motion, but the bullet went wide as a gunshot rang out and red bloomed on Constantine’s shoulder, the gun falling from his hand and skittering out of reach across the concrete floor.

The shot hadn’t come from Cal or Jack, though, and careful to keep Jude’s face hidden, I turned, expecting to find Julius holding the gun Cal had insisted he bring.

But Julius was holding Lily the same way I was holding Jude, her face tucked into his neck.

Instead, it was Dimitri who held the gun, his hands shaking as he kept it trained on my uncle.

Constantine hesitated, moving toward the painting, then looking toward the exit.

“This isn’t over, Ethan.” He spat the words as he ran for the exit, blood dripping from his fingers and leaving a trail of red dots in his wake.

Through the coms, Jack sounded the alarm that Constantine was headed for the boat, and Nero confirmed he and Quin were ready to pursue.

Dimitri lowered the gun.

“I’m sorry. I meant to kill him. Do you think Cal and Jack will teach me how to shoot?”

“Anything you want, D. That was fucking badass. Felix, tell me you got Dimitri grabbing the gun from Jules’s waistband and smoking that fucker.” Cal’s giddiness came through loud and clear over the coms.

Felix was quick to respond.

“I got it all. Man, do I love myself a good villain monologue. He told us where all the bodies were buried. The DA should have no problem bringing a case with this evidence.”

We’d decided that if at all possible, my uncle should stand trial and go to jail for his crimes, that a fast death was too good for him after all this, and I wanted to go outside, to watch and make sure my uncle didn’t get away, that justice was rightly served, but Jude spoke against my shoulder.

“Unca E, can we please go home now? Please?”

“My brothers and the SPD have this. Let’s go.” Julius reached for my hand, and I took it, giving it a squeeze.

It was over. We had the twins.

My uncle would get what was coming to him, for everything he’d put us all through, and maybe one day, in the not-too-distant future, we could put all of this behind us.

But today, right now, I was content to have my children and my mate safe and sound around me.

That was enough.

That was always going to be enough.