I clenched my teeth and unlocked his handcuff from the pipe so I could jerk him to his feet by the front of his dirty shirt. My anger was fucking close to out of control, so I needed to put this greasy shithead in a chair before I put his head through a wall. So I shoved him out into the main room of the basement and pushed him into a chair.
Eli had silently followed me down to the basement and used a handful of zip ties to secure our prisoner to the chair. But that only made me think of Danny and how she’d laughed at my amateur restraint choices. I needed her to teach me those fancy rope knots she’d used on her victim. Maybe we could use them somewhere else…
“Let me save you the effort of asking,” my prisoner drawled, his gaze bouncing between Eli and me. “I’m not telling you where to find her, so you may as well just shoot me and be done with it.”
A small amount of respect for the man rose up inside me. If he’d been willing to sell my woman out easily, I’d have made his death all the more painful.
“We don’t need to know where she is,” I rumbled, folding my arms over my chest. “I just came from her bed. We’ve reconciled our differences. So to speak.” My smirk spoke volumes about what that meant, and I expected to see jealousy and rage on the tattoo-covered man’s face.
Instead, he just laughed. “Well… I didn’t think you had it in you, Ares. Have you dealt with Leon yet? Because trust me when I say, he’s not letting her go. Not for fucking anything.”
Just hearing that name made my temper flare, and I delivered a vicious right hook to his face.
“I suggest you not actively try to piss me off, Carlos,” I spat, flexing my knuckles.
He spat blood onto the floor, then eyed me up. “What do you want if it’s not where to find Danny?”
That was actually why I’d taken him. My research had told me he was the one helping her stay off all official radars. It was his jet that she used to get around and his helicopter that allowed her access to that little cabin in Iceland. Hell, even the cabin was purchased by Carlos and transferred into a fake name for Danny to own.
Why though? He didn’t take the bait when I implied Danny and I were fucking. So why the fuck was he doing all this for her?
“Boss!” Jae called down the stairs. “Sam’s here!”
I drew a deep breath, exchanging a long look with Eli, then glancing down at Carlos. “Find out whatever he knows about her escape plans. Where she’d go if she wanted to run and hide. Where she’s hidden Stanley. All of it.”
Carlos started laughing, and I got the distinct impression he wouldn’t be easy to break. It made me even more enraged, and I punched him again for the trouble.
“If he won’t talk, fucking kill him,” I snarled. I hated that she turned to him for help before me. Hell, she never even asked me for help, she called my sister.
“If you kill me, she’ll never forgive you,” he taunted me, his bloody lips curled up in a mocking smile. “She’ll hate you, and there won’t be anything you can do to fix it.”
Shit. He was probably right. But there was no need to tell him that, so I just gave Eli a long look and stomped back upstairs to deal with the real reason why I returned to my team.
“Kai, you’re back,” Sam greeted me, his smile brittle. “Cyryl said you were looking for me?”
My glare was pure venom as I snatched a chair from the dining table and pointed to it. “Sit the fuck down, Sam.”
His expression darkened and his eyes flicked around the room. Searching for an escape route or an ally? “Kai, man, I dunno what—”
“Sit down!” I roared, and he flinched before doing as he was told.
Mo stepped forward, a worried frown creasing her brow. “Kai, why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”
My focus was all on Sam, though. “You gonna tell them, Sam? Or am I?” I was so mad, so hurt by his actions, I was practically choking on the words.
Sam just shook his head, his brows hitched high with feigned innocence. “Kai, I seriously don’t know what you think I’ve done or what that whore told you—”
His denials were cut short when my fist crashed into his face, knocking him halfway out of the chair.
Jae and Cyryl both winced, but Mo gave a shake of her head.
“Bad move, Sam,” she muttered. “Read the fucking room, dude.”
“Come on, Sam!” I roared, grabbing the front of his shirt to right him back in the chair. “Why don’t you tell the team about the fucking hit you put out on Danny? Huh?”
Sam paled to the color of a sheet and dread curled through my gut. I had been holding onto the faint hope that I was mistaken, that maybe it was all just a weird coincidence. But that reaction said it all.
“Sam, what the fuck?” Jae whispered in horror. “You did that?”
“You knew Kai was with her,” Cyryl added, focusing on the direct impact to our team.
Mo gave a long sigh, running her hand through her hair. “And you know how he feels about Danny. What the fuck were you even thinking, Sam?”
The accused member of my team just licked his lips, realizing he had no allies left. So he tilted his chin back and met my gaze with stubborn determination. “Yeah, Kai. I fucking put a hit on that bitch, because she killed Mauricio. Remember him? He didn’t deserve to die for her, so she needs to fucking pay.”
My hands clenched and flexed at my sides, and it was taking a whole lot of effort not to rip his head off his shoulders. But it wasn’t that simple. Sam was more than just my friend, he was family. This fucked up little band of misfits that we formed a decade ago, bonding over our mutual hatred of the mercenary Guild… We all had our own reasons to hate the organization Danny worked for. But she was off limits.
“She didn’t kill Mauricio,” Jae argued, his expression tight.
Sam’s lip curled. “She didn’t fire the gun, but she still killed him.”
“It’s a hazard of our work, brother,” Cyryl said in a sad voice. “We all miss Mauricio, we’re all grieving him. But these are the risks we take. Not everyone survives.”
That wasn’t what Sam wanted to hear, though, and he launched out of his chair with murder all over his face. The whole team was against him now, though. Swallowing hard against the betrayal, I pulled my gun and clicked the safety off, aiming it at Sam to stop him getting up again.
“Sam. You had to know you couldn’t get away with this.” My voice was ice cold, and my jaw tight with disappointment.
“What, killing some cheap pussy that caught your eye?” Sam spluttered with indignation. “You’re acting like I put a hit on one of you. She’s nothing to us. Just because Kai suddenly overcame his performance issues doesn’t mean she’s one of us.”
Jae muttered some curses in Korean under his breath, and Cyryl gave a mournful head shake.
“Jesus, you don’t know when to shut up, do you?” Mo asked, resigned. “You fucked up, Sam. Now you’re just making it worse.”
“A blind man could see what she means to Kai,” Eli agreed, having silently joined us. “You see it, too. You just decided revenge was more important than our leader’s happiness.”
“No!” Sam roared back, enraged. “No, Kai decided his happiness was more important than vengeance for Mauricio’s death. That’s what’s happening here, isn’t it? You’re choosing her over us. After everything this team has been through together, and you’re ready to kill me to save her.”
His eyes locked on mine, hurt and accusing, and indecision clawed at my chest. Because he was right. He’d put me in the position where I had to choose, and my gut instinct had been to choose her.
“Kai,” Mo said softly. “We should discuss this.”
I shook my head, not taking my eyes from Sam’s. There was nothing to discuss, because he was right. If I had to choose between my family and my future… there was no contest.
30
After all Kai’s possessive alpha male bullshit, I never expected him to sneak out in the night without so much as threatening to hunt me down if I disappeared or some crap. When I woke to find his handwritten note on the pillow, I was genuinely disappointed.
He’d written that he had something urgent to take care of with his team and that he would take care of the nuisance hit on me at the same time. But that was it. No mention of where he was going or how long he would be gone. Just one line that gave me a dangerous spark of hope.
I’m not leaving you, Siren. Not ever. I’ll be missing you every second we’re apart, so trust that I will return.
He signed the note off with a simple endnote: Dream of me.
Like it was ever an option not to.
Before I could feel sorry for myself—having been left alone by both my love interests—my phone pinged with a new message.
6279: I miss you too, mon cœur.