Page 30 of The Ties That Bind

Aleksei took in Ben’s angry stance, then slid his eyes back to the house. “He knows my fee.” Dragging his gaze back to me, he said, “Now he can go home to brag he pulled a job making more than me. He won’t share though. Only me. I’m the one who pays for everything.”

Ah, I was beginning to understand some of the family dynamic. It seemed Aleksei and I both had an asshole who shared our blood.

Accepting his explanation, Ben shook his head, but remained quiet. And then we waited in silence until we saw the five mercenaries I’d just paid an exorbitant sum to walk out the front door as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Then again, they’d all just gotten rich so maybe they didn’t.

Unfortunately, the fact remained there were still five other men inside. But why hadn’t they tried to stop these guys from leaving? Something was going on behind those black-out drapes and our lack of intel had my senses on high alert.

Ben sidled up next to me. “What now?” he asked, looking for direction.

Blunt force attacks weren’t Ben’s area of expertise—he was more a covert ops kind of guy—so it meant all the more that he’d followed me here, no questions asked. Not that he wasn’t good in a fight; he could brawl with the best of them and his skill with a knife was legendary. Only, his victims didn’t usually see him coming until it was too late. Since it looked like we’d be walking through the front door the mercs had promised to leave unlocked, Ben was at a disadvantage when it came knowing his next course of action.

Cracking my neck, I settled the large gun in my arms and straightened my spine. The M-16 wasn’t my weapon of choice but I couldn’t deny the extra fire power would come in handy if things got out of control. Messy, certainly, but scarily effective.

With the fingers of his right hand flexing over the AK’s trigger and the palm of his left cradling the barrel carefully, Ben cocked his eyebrow. “Five on three doesn’t seem so bad, does it?” he asked as he tested the weight of the assault rifle in his hands.

“Nope,” I agreed. “Should be a piece of cake.”

Even as I said it, fear clenched at my insides. I could pretend all I liked that this was just another operation, but he and I both knew the stakes were higher than they’d ever been before. I didn’t know what I’d do if we got in there and Arabella was dead. At the same time, I knew we couldn’t rush in, guns blazing, in case she was still alive.

“Kumbaya time is over now, yes?” Aleksei asked, his eyes sparkling with something akin to glee … or maybe desire … revealing how anxious he was to get the show on the road.

In the interactions I’d had with him since Arabella had set up our first meeting earlier in the week, his no-nonsense, practical approach to life had made me almost forget that he got off—literally—on the carnage he created. CeeCee was a fucking lunatic if she decided to take him on. Still, that was her problem, not mine. Right now I was buried up to my eyeballs in shit that needed sorting through, beginning first and foremost with getting Arabella to safety … and then putting an end to my own bat shit crazy family member.

I swallowed. “Yes, kumbaya time is over. Let’s do this.”

At my command, the three of us fanned out to take our positions around the perimeter of the house. Ben covered the left side where a basement door opened out onto the side yard, while Aleksei ran around the other way to enter through the back door. Me? I waltzed through the front like I owned the place. Come to think of it, I kind of did.

Stepping over the threshold, I was met with complete and utter silence. The house wasn’t large—around 1200 square feet, I guessed—and with five men and one captive female with a mouth like a sailor, I expected there to be much more going on, some type of noise. The eerie stillness made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

When I heard the back door open, my eyes jumped at the sound, but my nerves settled when I saw it was only Aleksei joining me from outside. He tilted his head toward the staircase and together we crept across the linoleum-tiled kitchen until we reached the empty hallway. He raised his eyebrow in question and I shook my head in response, a scowl on my face. I had no fucking clue what was going on either. Whatever it was, this was not normal.

As quiet as we could manage, we inched upstairs, making sure to avoid the fourth step since I knew remembered it squeaked if you put too much weight on it. When we reached the landing, I finally understood why everything had been so fucking silent. The far wall was streaked with crimson and at its base were the bodies of five dead men. I looked to Aleksei who only shrugged, indicating he had no more clue what was going on than I’d had downstairs. Stepping closer, I scanned the pile. With the toe of my boot, I nudged aside the man on top who rolled away to reveal the shocked face of Jayce’s bodyguard.

The sight of the mercenaries piled up like so much garbage normally wouldn’t have affected me like this, but if Jimmy was out here, where the fuck was Jayce? My heart sped up as I moved toward the only door that wasn’t open. Turning the handle, I grimaced when it stuck and old, rusty metal rubbed against metal.

Here goes nothing, I thought, steeling myself for a grisly scene. When door swung open, the first thing I saw was Arabella twisting from a hook in the ceiling, her feet barely scraping against the worn shag carpeting. In three strides, I was in front of her, one arm wrapped around her middle as I reached toward the ceiling with the other to unhook her bound wrists. Carefully, I untied the gag from her mouth and she sagged against me, letting out a groan—the best fucking sound I’d ever heard because it meant she was still alive.

“You’re safe, I’ve got you,” I whispered as I finished taking her down, careful of the many knife slices that lined her bare skin.

Behind me, Aleksei spoke. “You brother, he is dead as well.” When I continued attending to Arabella instead of turning to see the evidence for myself, he filled me in. “He was shot like the others. He’s in the other room, if you need to see.”

I nodded once, letting him know I heard, while I cradled Arabella in my arms and moved toward the door. I couldn’t stand to be in this house one moment longer. Making my way down the stairs, I stopped in front of the bar in the front room. Impulsively, I picked up a bottle of expensive bourbon and took a swig and then started pouring it out all over the ugly, old, shag carpet. I kept doing that until the cart was empty and the rug was drenched. Shoving my fingers into the front pocket of my jeans, I pulled out my Zippo and flicked it open. I tossed it into the corner and watched as the fumes from the alcohol met flame and a fire roared to life. Within seconds, the entire side of the room was engulfed in flames that danced up the wall, eating their way through wallpaper, plaster, and wood. I took one final look around and then marched out the front door. When the screen slammed shut behind me, Arabella flinched in my arms.

“I’ve got you,” I cooed into her hair as I dropped kisses to her temple. “I told you Belle, I’ve always got you,” I promised, making my way out the yard toward Ben and the car he’d called to come get us.

She sniffled into my chest and nodded, acknowledging my words. “I knew you’d come for me,” she answered. “I just didn’t know if you’d get here in time.”

I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t find my voice. Instead, I lowered her into the car and then slid in next to her. Ben joined the driver up front and we pulled away from the curb, away from this house of horrors forever. As we turned the corner, I saw smoke filtering out from the kitchen window. Any second now, a neighbor would call the fire department and they’d show up to put the blaze out. I didn’t care what happened when they found the bodies. A plan was already in motion to announce Jayce’s disappearance. Ben would have made the call the second he knew we’d succeeded. That I hadn’t had to pull the trigger myself didn’t matter. All that mattered was Jayce was dead and he couldn’t hurt Arabella anymore.

Eventually, I spoke, admitting I was worried we had been too late. “When we walked inside and it was silent, I feared the worst. Can you tell me what happened?”

She adjusted herself in my arms, leaning back to look me in the eyes. “I showed up for a meeting with my uncle Rocco to discuss using his guys for a security detail to transfer some goods across state line. When I showed up, they drugged me and then I woke up in that house, hanging from a hook.”

She swallowed around another sob and her body trembled.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

“No, I need to,” she replied emphatically. “If I keep this locked up inside, it’ll eat away at me until I’m so afraid of my own shadow that I can’t even function.”

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