Page 39 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Hugo

H e was holding her at gunpoint, the barrel at her chest. Her hand touched his face. I could see them through a single window. The only one. Night vision gave clarity as to where they were, where my eyes could not.

I had one shot.

Chloe’s tracker had sped up the search, and now, I had to hope that it was enough. But I knew I only had one chance before Dick Davenport would kill her.

I placed the crosshairs of the long rifle at his head. But then I changed my mind, twisting my shoulder up to lower the sights to his chest.

One chance.

She opened her mouth to speak, and whatever she said had him riveted.

I squeezed the trigger. Glass shattered. Through my scope, I saw liquid splash onto her. Davenport fell to his knees, then onto his side.

She stayed as still as a statue.

“Let’s go,” I said, as I rushed into the building, not caring if Alastair, Callum and Geordie followed.

I would get to her on my own if I had to, and had to trust that my team would kill anything else that was on the ground.

I barreled through the door - the same one Bellamy had gone through. Thank God he was there first, and able to get the boys out. Then I was free and clear to concentrate on saving her, and only her.

Otherwise, she would have kicked me out to save the boys, just as she had the peacock. Turns out he was one of Philippa’s MI6 agents.

That was a surprise.

Calissandra’s skin was paper white, contrasting with the beat-red blood that splashed across her features.

“ Ma petite ,” I began, grabbing her by the shoulders.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at the dead man at her feet. Though, not dead, it turned out. His heart was still beating, his chest wide open, flooding with his own blood as he gasped for air. His skin was blue, his eyes bulging.

“Cali?” I asked, running my hands over her head, into her hair, looking for divots, breaks, or anything that would indicate that she had been wounded. I clinically ran my palms over her neck, her chest, her torso, and knelt down to feel each leg.

None of the blood was hers. Thank God.

“He can’t die like this,” she said, her voice a whisper.

Dick Davenport’s hand outstretched towards her, shaking in the air, as his crooked fingers reached to the vision of his uncaring wife.

“His death should be slow. It should be long, and painful. This is too fast.” Cali shook her head. “He can’t just die peacefully!”

Her voice lifted in a scream.

To my surprise, she stepped forward and planted a boot into his side, kicking him like a football at the penalty area.

“You bastard!” she screamed.

She kicked him again, and he kept on fighting for breath.

If he could speak, I errantly wondered what he would say. Would he try to placate her? Would he apologize? Would he plead and beg? I wasn’t sure.

Callum and Alastair were in the room, staring at Calissandra as she beat the man to death.

I placed my hand into my pocket, to find the brass knuckles I kept there in case of a melee. I grabbed Cali before she did another kick, and handed her the brass knuckles. She stared at it, dazed and confused. I placed it on her hand and turned her fingers into fists.

“Voila,” I said, nodding to the corpse. “So you won’t hurt your fists when you get there.”

It was only a matter of time before she stopped using her foot and I’d hate for her to hurt her knuckles.

She wasn’t like Rose or the She-Bear. She wasn’t a trained fighter. Still, she deserved this revenge, as long as Richard had the good sense to stay somewhat alive.

I brought a phone to my ear and dialed.

“Pippa?” I said, as soon as it connected. “I need you to do a cover up.”

“How bad is the damage?” Philippa asked, that snooty voice over the phone as annoying as the first time I met her - back when she was Callum’s fiancée and an absolute bitch.

Before she revealed to us that she was, in fact, an MI6 spy.

“Well… he’s been shot in the heart.” I winced, because the rest would be harder to explain. “He’s still alive and is currently being beaten.”

There was a disbelieving silence on the other end. A quiet that was so heavy, that it rubbed my skin.

“How badly bruised will he be pre-mortem?” Pippa’s tone was slow and puzzled.

I switched it to speakerphone so that I could hold my mobile away from my face and get a better look at the damage Cali was inflicting.

“I’m thinking a few kicks, broken ribs, and…”

Calissandra fell to the ground, still screaming, and she switched from her kicks to the brass knuckles. She lifted her arm, and punched downward, the knuckles making contact with Richard’s nose. Blood spurted from the wound, spraying across the floor.

“Facial trauma.” I finished.

“How significant?” Philippa asked.

“Pretty significant,” Callum chuckled.

I turned to my comrades, and saw that their weapons were on safe, their rifles dangling from straps to the armor. Their pistols holstered and put away.

“And how would you like me to cover up this pretty significant blunt trauma and gunshot wound?” Pippa asked.

I thought about it for a moment, wondering what the best answer would be. Then, eventually, I settled on the most obvious solution.

“Suicide?” It was just a suggestion.

“Are you bloody joking? Suicide? From a gunshot wound to the chest, and incredible lacerations and breaks throughout his body?”

“Maybe…” I thought it over. “He fell down the stairs?”

“He committed suicide by placing a rifle pointed at his chest, managed to pull the trigger in an angle that I assume is not conducive to a self-inflicted wound, then conveniently fell down the stairs?”

“Why not?”

“Are you mad?”

Yes. But that didn’t seem relevant right now.

“Lea sliced Alexander Baas’ throat, and shot him. You made it look like suicide.”

“Sure, I staged the scene, but I also spent tens of thousands in fucking bribes! The British taxpayers are not going to want to fund such a thing!”

“Since when was the Sideshow accountable to the taxpayers?” I knew she couldn’t see me quirk a brow, but I’m sure she could hear it.

The bloody MI6, and its subset Sideshow, were like the CIA, Special Forces, and Delta. They were funded by $100 staplers, and research and development projects that did not exist, all hidden in pork bills within pages and pages of legislation that no one ever read.

“I’ll pay for it,” I said, gritting my teeth. I could swing it. Maybe. I wasn’t sure.

Or I’d have Callum advance me my salary. He’d do it, too.

“I’ll pay for it,” Cali’s voice was so quiet, it was barely a whisper. But then again, I was so attuned to any hint or sound of her, that it rang as clear as a bell.

She was covered in even more blood. Blood the color of pomegranate juice. Blood like rubies.

Dick Davenport was in the throes of his final breath. The last kick, the final struggle, before he succumbed to the end.

He let out a large exhale, then did what was naturally done by most corpses who knew the end was near. He evacuated his bowels.

Calissandra stood up and away from him in disgust.

In the end, Dick Davenport died in the most undignified of ways. Not at the gun of a warrior. Not from the quick penetration of a bullet. He died slowly bleeding to death as the woman he wronged again and again beat him slowly until the end of his life… then he shit himself.

“No,” I told Cali, placing an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll take care of it.”

She was still in shock. But she had enough left over to speak.

“I’m a very rich woman, and now I have control of my assets again. I… I can do it. I want to.” Her trembling hands snaked up and around my neck. “Let me be in charge of my own fate. Just for now. Just… until…”

“Okay,” I said, without hesitation, planting a kiss on her temple. “As you wish. I’m your servant, always.”

I was not a man to force a woman into anything. If she wanted this, she would have it. If she wanted to own this - to own his fate as he had owned hers for twenty-five years, then who was I to steal the credit?

“Oh, isn’t that just bloody cute,” Pippa’s voice came through the phone and I wanted to hang up on her. “Our Legionnaire is getting all soft and gooey.”

“Just send us the bill.” Then I hesitated for a moment. “Or send Brett. He’ll do it for a drink, and a high five.”

“You make a fair point. Maybe I will outsource it to him.”

“My boys?” Cali whispered.

“Picked up by helicopter,” Callum answered quickly. “Bellamy has them safe with MI6…”

“We’ll need signed Non-Disclosure Agreements from all of you on that. Bellamy is…”

“Fine!” I said, dismissing Philippa. “None of us are interested in blowing his cover. Give us the paper, and we’ll sign.”

I hung up on her not because I was mad at Philippa, but because Calissandra was shaking.

I dropped the phone just as her knees buckled, and I caught her.

I lowered her slowly to the ground, holding her against me, damning the body armor for keeping space between us.

It was time for me to get skin-to-skin to her.

To feel her close. To comfort and warm her.

She let out a long exhale, as we settled on the floor.

“I thought that it was going to be the end.”

“You doubted me?” I was offended. Never had I broken a promise. But somehow, everyone continued to question it. “Even when I gave you my word?”

She smiled. “I fear that some things are even outside your vast capabilities.”

I held her close to me, taking in her warm scent. Her sweat, her blood, her fear. The metal on her fingertips, and the salt of her tears. All such light fragrances, that embodied who and what she was right in this distinct moment. The moment she was free, and she was mine.

“You saw my screens.” I bent down to place my arms behind her knees, lifting her like a bride.

“I have faithfully waited for you for ten years. I have protected your sister, even though I think she’s a brat.

” She slapped me on the chest, her brows knitting in mock annoyance.

“I have turned the world upside down for you.”

I began to walk her over the blood, past the fallen splinters and rubble, over the smashed glass, and the violence. Back to the clean car, where she belonged. Safe and sound.

“There is nothing I will not do for the woman I love, who loves me.”

“You think I love you?” she raised that haughty brow.

“I know you do.”

“I haven’t said it.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Christian Saint-Martin,” she said, trying out my real name on her mouth. I liked it. But it fit me like a pair of jeans that had been hiding at the back of a closet for over a decade. It stretched and bowed in odd places, and fit a different person. “Or do you prefer Hugo?”

I shrugged. “Call me Benedictine Cumber-snatch if you like. I do not care.” I kissed her, gently. Like a man who could kiss like he had all the time in the world. “As long as you are calling to me, it does not matter the sounds you make.”

“Will you still love me, now that I’m not a woman on screen? A woman you can’t have?”

“I have always had you,” I placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I have always been yours, and you have always been mine. It was fate.”