Page 22 of Hell Hath No Fury

Matt presses his lips together as he shakes his head, and then, after a moment, he replies, “Part of me wants to turn around and pretend it was a false alarm.”

Trepidation rolls over me in a wave, and I have to push down my sudden urge to vomit. I attempt a deep breath through my nose and stop, grimacing, as I choke out, “Fuck.”

Antonio’s hand is on my shoulder, he leans over to meet my eyes. “What is it?”

“Blood.”

Antonio frowns, searching my gaze, and I see the moment he understands what I’m saying, and he curses under his breath, his eyes moving to Matt, who’s also cursing.

Giving up any semblance of caution, we take off down the hallway, Matt taking point with Antonio and I flanking him. We open the doors as we go, finding room after room of nothing, and then we hit the end of the hallway, the main entry point of the residence.

Now, there’s shining white marble streaked and splattered with red.

“What the fuck happened here?” I whisper.

Matt and Antonio both shake their heads as Tony comes through the earpiece, relaying the same scene on the other side of the house. We go from room to room, the majority of them empty, but that doesn’t take away from the shock of the rooms we find that reek of chaos and death. We follow the trail of bodies and blood up the staircase to the second level.

We clear several smaller bedrooms before finding ourselves back in the main hallway, headed toward what must be the master suite at the end. Tony is standing there, peering in a crack in the door. He puts his finger to his lips, putting up a finger, letting us know there’s someone there.

Tony’s eyes widen, his entire focus on where the door is ajar, and then suddenly, he raises his weapon, pointing it directly in front of him as he rushes back a few steps.

As the door begins to open, the rest of us raise our weapons, and I silently pray that the person standing on the other side of that door is Antoinette.

Almost immediately, I recognize a silhouette too large to be her, and then Tony drops his weapon. “Darius?”

We all secure our weapons as Darius opens the door fully, stepping aside so we can all enter the room. Once again, there’s blood streaked and splattered everywhere, and I glance around, looking for some sign of Antoinette. But there is none. The room is empty.

I turn my gaze to the large bed, walking over to it and staring down at the sheets splattered with blood. Grimacing, I turn back to Darius, asking, “Is that Antoinette’s blood?”

Darius raises his brows at me, giving me a bland look as he grits out, “How the fuck would I know?”

“Well, how long have you been here?”

“Not long enough, apparently.”

“Did you kill all those people?” Matt asks.

Darius shakes his head. “Some. A lot of them were already dead when I got here.”

Darius backs away from the blood-splattered bed until his back is pressed against the wall. Slowly, he slides down it until he’s sitting there looking completely wrecked, helpless. “I should have come sooner. As soon as that car showed up, I should have broken down the door to get to her.”

“A car showed up?” Tony asks as he kneels in front of Darius, his hand resting on Darius’s forearm, where he has it braced against his own knee. “Do you know who it was?”

“No, I didn’t get a good look at him. A car pulled into the garage, and everything was quiet for a while. Then, after sometime went by, the same car left, and not five minutes later, the alarms went off.”

We all fall silent, and I look over at Matt, who has moved to the other side of the room and is speaking into his phone. After a brief exchange, his call ends, and he stuffs his phone back in his pocket as he comes over to stand with us. “I called in the crew to handle this. They’ll let us know if they find anything.”

“If they find anyone alive,” Tony says as he rises to his feet. “I want them alive.”

Matt snorts, walking along behind him toward the door as he retorts, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they fucking know that.”

I stop in the doorway, turning back to look at Darius who’s still leaning against the wall. “Let’s go, asshole.”

He lifts his gaze to mine, raising his brows, so I add, “Whatever separate fucking agenda you’ve got that you’re working on, it ends here. Now, get your fucking ass up and let’s go.”

If he wants to argue with me, he chooses not to, slowly gets to his feet, and walks toward me. He stops directly in front of me, leaning over and saying quietly, “You probably won’t believe this, but I’ve missed you, Lils.”

I frown as I resist the urge to hug him. Not wanting to risk an emotional outburst, I pat him on the chest a bit harder than I intend to as I mutter, “Likewise.”

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