Page 25 of Devil's Retribution
“Not this evening.” My head was already pounding too hard to dry myself out with hard liquor. “Again, keep me posted.”
It started raining again halfway home, fat droplets smacking against my windshield as I drove. Predictably, no one around me was slowing down or being more cautious. I stayed as focused as I could on the road. But Emma kept slipping back into my mind.
This isn’t right. It wasn’t right from the beginning, but now it really isn’t. I winced, imagining her sitting terrified in her room, trying to hide from the boy that their situation had, as far as she knew, turned irrevocably worse.
I would never dream of hurting her for her uncle’s sins, but she didn’t know that. For all she knows, I’ll put a bullet in her head the next time that I see her.
That wasn’t what I wanted. Whenever I thought of her, I thought of her beauty, her soft scent, her bright eyes. Her intelligence and wit, the strength she’d shown through all of this. You didn’t kidnap such a woman, or keep her hostage, or scare her.
You courted her. You seduced her. You gave her pleasure and made her crave more of you. And you never, ever, gave her reason to fear you.
That’s for my enemies, I thought as I steered around the trip’s first fender-bender. That is for her uncle.
***
The headache gave in to a good workout, a hot shower, and some rest. By the time I settled in to sleep, the pain had dwindled to a dull tenderness.
At first, I dreamed of my brother. Leon was sitting on top of his gravestone, feet hovering over his open grave. His mortal wound still blushed on his white shirtfront, and he was as white as the unstained silk.
“You’re not giving up, are you?” he asked, conversationally.
“Never.” I couldn’t hang onto my anger in dreams; the emotion behind that promise slipped away from me, but I talked on. “Not until you’re avenged.”
“It’s not just about revenge, Viktor,” he told me, but when I looked back at him, the headstone was unoccupied—and the grave was full.
I gasped awake to full darkness and the tap of rain on the nearby window. My bedroom was just warm enough, even with the air purifiers sending a draft through it.
I got up and strode naked through my room, passing the rack where I hung my holsters and headed for the ensuite. I ran water into the black marble basin and splashed it on my face, feeling like I’d either overslept or not slept at all. A sense of urgency was tugging at me.
I checked my phone. No messages, no texts. No fucking news. It had been another four hours since I last checked, and nothing.
Nothing but the guilt, and the certainty that I had done wrong by the doctor and her strangely familiar-looking nephew. Wrongs that I wasn’t sure I could ever make up for.
I had pulled on some underwear and was doing my stretches when my phone shrilled. I snatched it up, it was Alexei. “Talk to me.”
“He’s taken off.” His voice was out of breath and shook a little. “That son of a bitch has taken off!”
“What?” I straightened, my heart suddenly pounding with anger.
“Private helicopter, straight to an airstrip just off the coast. He’s running for it!”
The fury filled my body with sudden heat. “Track him. Find the plane he’s using, find the flight plan. We cannot afford to lose him!”
“I’ll do everything I can.” Alexei stammered. “What about the others?”
I paused, my mind racing, then made a quick decision. “Put as many resources on tracking that bastard as makes sense. The others can handle our day-to-day.”
“And the…” he hesitated. “Our hostages?”
“They just got promoted,” I said firmly. “The doctor just became the only person we have available who might have any idea where he went if we lose that plane. I will be enlisting her aid personally.”
“What makes you think she’ll cooperate?”
“Because it will earn her freedom no matter what her uncle does. Because she now has plenty of unanswered questions about the man, that I can help her satisfy. And because I suspect that her uncle has now jumped off the pedestal she had him on. There’s no way she’ll believe in him now.”
“I understand,” there was another hesitation. “But how do you plan to make her believe in you?”
“I’m working on that,” I said, and then more firmly, “But I will find a way.”