Page 72 of Darkness Falls

The two non-injured men tuck their guns back into their waistbands and walk toward the living room of the small cabin. I can tell they still don't fully trust her yet based on their body language. They stop in the middle of the living room and stare at her as ifthey are expecting something from her. I don't like this, and I'm right back on edge.

Callie picks up on the fact that they don't plan on moving any further than the middle of the room. She glances around at the wood walls before her eyes stop on a painting on the far right side of the room. She narrows her eyes and walks toward it.

What is she doing?

She pushes the painting to the side and reveals a wall safe with a keypad. Clearly, we don't know the combination for it, so we wait to see if one of the men types it in for her, but they don't. They simply stand there waiting for what she does next. Callie takes a deep breath and steps forward, entering a series of numbers.

The air in the room shifts as we wait for the telltale sign of whether or not the numbers are correct. My heart slams in my chest with each button she presses. Finally, she enters the last number, and there is a clicking noise. My eyes flutter shut for a moment of relief when she pulls open the safe.

All I can see from this angle are the several stacks of cash inside. Callie's hand reaches inside to pull out a small flash drive before turning to hold it up to show us. Barrett walks over to grab it from her.

Callie turns back to the safe and reaches in to grab something else—a yellow folder with a name written on the top. It's too far for me to make out the name, but I can tell it means something to her. I step forward to take it from her and notice it says 'Stone.’ I wonder if this is about her biological parents. She reaches in to grab one last thingbefore closing the safe and turns to look at us.

A key dangles from her fingers, and her eyes meet the dickheads. "Take me to the room this belongs to."

It's a bold assumption that the key unlocks something here. If she's wrong, it will give us away. It's like she didn't think it through before she opened up her damn mouth. The dickhead narrows his eyes, waiting to see what she will do before he turns to walk down a small hallway off of the living room. We pass a bathroom to our left and stop in front of the next door. I look to the right to see another small hallway that passes under the stairs with a door on the other side.

"What's over there?" I ask.

"That's the master bedroom. It's where Gabriel stayed when he was here."

"How often did he come here?" Callie asks, leaning forward to push the key into the door to our left.

"To my knowledge, he has never slept here. I wasn't always assigned to the cabin, though. He could have stayed here prior to the group of us taking over."

Callie turns the handle, and my hand goes to the butt of my gun, holding it just in case I need to pull it out to quickly defend us. When the door creaks open, and we all funnel inside. I’m shocked by the rows of silver filing cabinets lining the entirety of the room. Each one of them is noted with a letter, and Callie walks over to pull one of them open to reveal yellow folders similar to the oneshe found in the safe. I watch her grab one to inspect its contents.

The letter on the front of this cabinet is E, and the folder is noted 'Evans.’ She flips it open to reveal a small photo of a man and a few pieces of paper. I hear her sigh before closing the folder, placing it back into the cabinet, and closing the door. Apparently, she doesn't need to see any more to discern what this room's about. The fact that I don't have all the details keeps me on edge, though.

"Anything else I need to know about?" she asks the quiet one, and he shakes his head no.

This one seems more timid than the others. I almost feel bad that I have to kill him because he seems like he doesn't even want to be here to begin with. Mercy will only end badly for us, especially where Rogue is concerned.

"Who else knows this is here?" she glares at the dickhead.

"Nobody, ma'am. This cabin is for use by the leader and his, um, their team only. The only people who know about this place are the people inside the cabin.”

Perfect, I think, and I lift my gun and shoot him directly in the head. A half second later, the other guy is on the ground from Barrett’s bullet, and Kyler is out the door to take down the one we left by the stairs.

Just like that, I take the first real breath I've taken since we pulled up to this place. We still need to be careful, but I believe what the men said. I don't think anyone in Rogue has any idea this exists.

Ilook up at Callie and close the distance between us, my hand immediately finding her throat as I push her back against one of the tall cabinets. "Don't ever pull that kind of shit again. We all could have died."

"It was fine," she grits out, struggling to breathe. Her hands push against my chest, nails digging into my skin through the fabric of my shirt. "Get the fuck off of me."

"Enough," Barrett says, grabbing me by the back of the neck and pulling me from her. I push his hand away, and he scoffs.

"We have shit to do. Keep your emotions under control. We're still on the job," Barrett tells me, and he's right; I need to get myself under control. I'll deal with Callie when we get back home.

Chapter 33

Damien

Ididn't have to kill her parents. I could have just taken her, but where's the fun in that? Avery deserved to feel pain after all the shit she made me put up with. I've been sitting in my car outside of her house now for several hours, waiting for her to make her grand appearance.

By now, she should have been notified that her parents are dead. I wish I could’ve seen her face when she found out. It would have been so fucking satisfying to see the way it crushed every bit of happiness in her.

Finally, something happens. A car pulls into her driveway, and she steps outside to climb into the backseat. Interesting. It looks like it's an Uber. With any luck, she's on her way to party away her sadness. I spent enough time with her to know that Avery isn't the kind of person who would be able to handle something like this without falling off the deep end a little.

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