Page 6

Observation is power. Baron has yet to learn that—as old as he is—patience can gain you access to a lot of things, including the security office of our hotel. A well-fitted coat and a bright smile while glancing at the list of hotel VIPs is all it takes to convince the concierge that my Rolex is missing.

Of course, she believes me. It takes less than four words to be led to the security room before she starts sifting through the lobby footage.

Her chair swivels around, kicking up a cloud of her sickly sweet perfume.

“When did you say you lost it, sir?” she asks in a thick accent.

I step closer, pretending to view the footage as I clasp the arms of her chair and press my knee against the back of her chair. She sucks in a breath, suddenly going painfully still so I move again, leaning over the edge of the chair as if I can see anything through this grainy footage.

She squeaks, something just short of a needy moan and I smirk, standing back abruptly so her chair sways on its wheels until it finally settles.

I smile and glance down at her, brushing a stray hair from her face.

“ó, Istenem…” she whispers under her breath as her eyes flutter closed.

I smirk. It’s not the first time I’ve been called a god. I could make her scream it too.

Baron scoffs in my ear. “If you’re going to fuck her, at least turn the mic off so we don’t have to listen.”

Maybe next time then.

I let my hand rest on her cheek while I gently turn the left monitor, slipping a flash drive into the USB before the camera overlooking the blood-stained courtyard overrides.

My eyes tick back over to her as she bites back a moan, only to come snapping back to reality as I laugh in her ear.

“Apologies, sir,” she stutters. “When did you-”

“Two hours ago,” I tell her, offering a smile when she sucks her lip between her teeth.

Her cheeks darken until I’m sure she’d forget her name if I asked it. It’s not until I nod back to the monitors before she starts scrolling through the cameras again.

Baron’s annoyed groan sounds in my earpiece.

“Either fuck her or tie her up. I can’t handle the ear porn anymore.”

I tilt my head to the side, my eyes dropping to her lips.

“Is this…” She clears her throat. “...the right time?”

I drag a finger along her jawline and tilt her head back towards me. She’s so nervous, she’s trembling and her legs are clenched tightly beneath her skirt. I make a show of looking her up and down before flashing her a smile.

“You shouldn’t have to go through all this trouble, édesem. I can take it from here.”

She stutters when she speaks, an apologetic smile while she tries to tell me she can’t leave me here alone.

Pity.

I lean in, allowing my lips to graze her ear before whispering. “You’re right. No one should be back here, alone .”

She shuts her eyes, a soft plea falling from her lips while I swiftly pull my flash drive from her monitor.

“I’m sorry to have taken up your time.”

She tries to reach for me, to beg me to stay but I’m gone. Better not to stick around before she has a chance to stop the throbbing between her legs and figure out that I wasn’t on her VIP list.

Fury always insists on hacking into nearby security systems, but there are some systems that can even outsmart Fury. Very few, but they still exist.

By the time I return to the neighboring storage unit, Fury is already wreaking havoc in the security system while Baron impatiently throws his knife at a withered wooden piano that’s been crammed into the back along with boxes of baby clothes and polaroid photos.

“As much as I’d love to hear you going at it with your random pick of the week, ear porn is not on my to-do list.” He throws another knife, and the wood splinters.

“I doubt it would’ve gone that far,” I say with a shrug. “They can’t hold out that long.”

“I can do without the bickering,” Fury snaps. “They’ll be here soon.”

Baron rolls his eyes but stuffs his knives into their holsters. Fury stole the surveillance of the courtyard from the hotel computer systems, rerouting it to our own feed. The blood makes the ground look black in the footage, but I can smell the metallic stink from here.

Several moments pass before we catch movement near the south gate. Six men enter, attempting to shuffle inside quickly while just as quickly sealing their own tomb by padlocking the iron gates.

I bite back a smile. It took them less than a minute to give themselves a death sentence and even less to file outside the steel doors of the bloodied unit next door.

“They never learn,” I say.

Baron shakes his head and snickers. “Acacia is full of morons.”

Fury shuts the laptop. “Probably because their leader can’t stomach the idea of someone in their cult having a brain.”

I slide on my vest and wrap my crimson scarf around my neck. The cotton hugs me, the familiar perfume making my eyes flutter shut for a moment before I force myself back into the moment and secure it just under my eyes.

Baron is already at the door with Fury close behind. He looks to me for approval, the same as he always does.

I’m ready.

A scream erupts from one of the contractors as they find their eyeless friend and with a single switch on Fury’s laptop, the door swings shut and traps them inside.

Fury switches over to the camera planted inside the unit. Another switch and then gas starts feeding through the vents. Soon, the entire unit is covered in the thick fog and their bodies are nothing more than big blurs as they run back and forth, screaming so loud even we can hear them through the thick walls outside their unit.

I circle the unit, checking each of the vents. It’s sealed and they’re screaming, clawing at the door until their fingers bleed. It won’t open. The units are insulted, four-inch thick titanium. That was one of the hotel’s prides about their long-term storage. ‘Safe from elements’. Even a bullet.

But one of them tries anyway. He fires twice and they ricochet, striking one in the head. The other five take cover while the bullet bounces off the walls before claiming another victim. They stay on the floor and soon start gasping for breath.

After a moment, I reach over Fury’s laptop and unmute it.

“Anyone’s lungs still working?”

One of them crawls off the floor, banging on the door in response.

“Why don’t one of your pussies open the door and find out?” He rasps.

Baron’s eyes light up when we both recognize the voice of our old partner. “Duncan, is that you? I almost didn’t recognize you with half your face melted off. What happened?”

“Your goddamn fire is what happened!” He clutches his chest, wheezing while he tries to breathe through his blood-stained shirt. Another collapses and blood pools from his head.

Duncan coughs again, leaning onto the door for support.

“Look at you!” He wheezes. “Too fucking scared to fight me yourself, so you’d rather gas me up, wouldn’t you, preacher’s boy?”

Baron’s eyes immediately snap to mine, but I wave him off.

“Would you like me to fight you?” I ask.

“You’re damn right I would!”

“Say please.”

He bangs on the door, weaker this time. “Open the damn door!”

“You don’t sound so good, Duncan,” Baron muses. “You really should’ve laid off those cigarettes. They’ll fuck up your lungs.”

“You…” Duncan falls to his knees, wheezing. “You son of a bitch…”

“Tell us where the bunker is and we’ll let you out,” I offer.

Duncan tries to laugh, but it turns into a blood cough, splatters of red spewing on his hand. “The bunker? That’s what this is about? The hell does that mean to you?”

I blink.

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

He spits, another mouthful of blood falling at his feet as the last contractor collapses.

“I’d rather suffocate,” he seethes.

I shrug. “Okay.”

I lean back, watching him cough and groan. His pounding on the door slowly weakens to a soft knock that takes his entire body to even move and each exhale expels more blood from his lungs.

“Wait,” Duncan slurs.

I throw Baron a sharp look when he reaches for the speaker. He reads me instantly and a smirk spreads on his face. Creepy little bastard.

“Castor!” Duncan screams, panic laced in his voice. “Castor, please!”

I finally release the button on the speaker.

“Make it count. I’m getting bored.”

Another bloody cough.

“I don’t know where it is,” he says frantically. “Only Bane knows. I can tell you where he is.”

Bane’s here? Now that’s interesting.

“Where?”

“Twenty miles, at Lake Velenar. He’s overseeing the operation from there.”

Fury has the location pulled up in seconds. He was right. Heat signatures in a small building on the shoreline.

I hand Baron a pair of bolt cutters, who leaves just as quickly with Fury on his tail.

“Thank you, Duncan.”

“Fuck you,” he wheezes. “Now let me out.”

I stand, gathering my own things before leaving to join the others.

“Castor!” Duncan’s voice blares from the laptop. “Castor, open the door! We had a deal!”

I turn back a moment and, instead, open one of the vents so he can see me.

“You’re right,” I tell him. “I said I’d let you out. I didn’t say when.”

I shut the vent before he can punch through it, drowning out his screams as I walk calmly back to the gate.

“Guards on the roof,” Baron says through my earpiece.

I adjust my position by the lake, focusing the scope of my rifle onto the rooftops. Two men patrol either side—guns trained at nothing—while Fury hides in the tall weeds with a remote and Baron creeps up to the door.

I fire twice, my gun cracking quietly before both bullets send the men off of the roof. Just as quickly, the lights flash inside and go out and Baron slips inside.

My night vision switches on automatically when I enter. Two shadows move in the dark, sprinting for cover. They don’t even make it to the door. The frame crackles the second they pass through the entryway and their bodies light up in Fury’s trap before they collapse.

“Building’s secure,” Baron’s voice crackles.

I press on my earpiece. “We’re clear out here.”

It’s a bloodbath inside. Baron ditched his gun the second the contractors were unarmed. Twenty contractors sprawl out in the small building, throats cut and knives stuck into the heads of others.

I step over the bodies, my boots squelching in the blood and severed body parts, cut with the serrated edge of that knife that’s always strapped to his side.

Baron is crouched on the other side of a door, that same knife in his hand, stained with blood. He nods towards the other side. Bane is here, which means the bunker can’t be far either.

We could be rid of Acacia. Tonight.

I draw up my gun, reloading the cartridge with a single hand.

It ends here.

I kick open the door and it flies off its hinges, crashing inside. We both charge in as dust kicks up in a thick cloud. Baron slashes his knife in the small space, almost nicking me in the process. A flickering lightbulb overhead breaks through the dust as it settles and it casts a shadow on the only other thing in the room. A small empty chair.

My blood spikes.

That’s it?

“Fury?” I call through my earpiece.

“I’m all clear.”

My hands ball into fists, speaking with tightly clenched teeth. “Bane isn’t here.”

I rip out my earpiece when Fury gives me another non answer and start feeling around the walls for some kind of latch or hidden door, but there’s nothing. It’s empty.

Where the hell is Bane?