Page 42 of Dark OZ

Chapter 18

Izeroedinmyscope on Crowe’s limp form. Shit had gone to hell so quickly. One minute, he was regaling me with all the details I didn’t need to know about Thea, the next, the cab was spinning out of control.

All because that girl was the definition of trouble. The kind that looked vulnerable and sweet, tricking you into wanting to indulge in it. The kind that got you ambushed on the I-9 and sent your world spinning out of control. Trouble was never worth the time, even when it came with spiraling auburn hair and an attitude to match its fire. Thea was beautiful, no doubt. Then again, the worst gifts came wrapped in pretty packaging. Case in point: our current predicament.

None of this would be happening if we had just handed the girl over to Westin and claimed the reward. Or we could simply send her back to her aunt. Simple. Trouble gone. Emily Rosen had put out a hit, and all she wanted in return was proof of death. Easy, except Crowe’s history with Westin made him impossible to reason with. He’d never hand Thea over to a Witcher, especially now that he was growingattached,and there was zero chance of Danny working with The Farm. So, here we were, knee-deep in shit for a girl who couldn’t possibly be worth all of this trouble.

I looked back through my scope, the night vision illuminating Gorba’s construction yard. Dozens of vehicles and equipment were parked in a line to one side. The rest of the yard was filled with stacks of piping in various sizes. There were a dozen men running patrol around the perimeter. Not that they did a very good job of it. It was laughably easy to move into position near Gorba’s portable offices. More than anything, I was annoyed that we would miss the Crick Link job because of this.

What I needed was a distraction and for Crowe to wake the fuck up. Whatever was in the dart had knocked him out instantly. He hadn’t even been able to fully swear out his concern, slumping over the steering wheel with a half-muttered “Fuuu—”

In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising that he made such a rookie mistake. We’d both been distracted. Crowe was obviously pussy drunk, and I barely heard his prattling because I was too focused on Thea’s whimpered cries still rattling around in my brain—triggering memories I didn’t need to confront.

I was pushing the image of Thea’s silver tears from my mind when Crowe fell into the shifter, knocking us into a lower gear and sending the cab into a full spin. Luckily, the stretch of abandoned highway was empty. By the time the cab slowed, a swarm of lights descended on us, far more than I could handle on my own while trapped in the vehicle. I grabbed my rifle from the back and made the split-second decision to abandon the car.

To them, it would look like I was making a run for it and abandoning my friend, but in reality, I was choosing to pick my battleground. They’d used a tranq dart, so they weren’t here to kill. Not yet, anyway. Which meant I had time.

I fired off a quick warning text to Danny. While I was trailing thesemaleducatito this site, my phone flashed a warning notification at me. The compound was under siege. One security feature after another was disabled. So that had been the point of the attack. They’d been after one of our phones so that they could bypass our security and get to Thea.

Trouble. The girl was nothing but the worst kind of trouble.

Once I was in position, I used the time to pull up the compound. I watched Danny and Thea leaving down the escape tunnel on the back of his bike right before he set off the lockdown measures. Of course, he was bringing the trouble with him. She could have stayed behind. Even with Crowe’s phone, whoever this was would never make it in the building, not once full lockdown was enabled. I thought I could depend on Danny to be smarter, but I saw the way he looked at her when he thought no one was watching, and I definitely didn’t miss the way he ran his hands down her legs after she straddled the bike behind him.

With the way that Danny drove, it would barely be another twenty minutes before they were here. Which was a good thing because a man in a suit came walking across the lot. In the silence, the sound of his shiny loafers crunching on the gravel seemed to echo. I zoomed the scope, trying to identify who was dumb enough to ambush us. Not that it mattered. As soon as Danny got here, this moron was getting a bullet straight through his unsubstantial brain.

He loomed over my brother, sticking him in the throat with a long needle. The man tossed it aside and gave Crowe’s face a couple light slaps. Crowe’s head lolled back, consciousness slowly returning. His eyes lacked focus, and he seemed completely unaware of where he was.

The man in the suit noticed, too. Crowe must not have been waking up fast enough because he clocked him with a hard right hook. The impact forced Crowe’s head to slam against the pole, anchoring him to the ground.

That did it. His hands flexed behind him and pulled at their bindings. The well-dressed man snapped to the side, beckoning over the hired muscle that was hanging back. A big man reached down and hauled Crowe upright. His feet scrambled beneath him as his semi-conscious body tried to find footing. The sound of metal on metal echoed off the different surfaces.

Crowe’s features twisted from confusion to fury as he finally understood where he was. He said something to the man beside him, earning him a punch to the gut. Crowe, the crazy fucker, laughed. That earned him a second punch.

The haptics on my watch buzzed with an update from Danny. They were still five minutes out.

The man leaned over, gripping Crowe’s chin and saying something. Whatever it was made Crowe pull back. Alarm flickered over his golden features, and he yanked frantically against his binds. The man in the suit shifted his weight and pointed at the northern end of the yard. Directly toward where Danny and Thea should be approaching any minute.

Son of a bitch. He knew.

The attack on the compound, our ambush, it was all a ploy to get Thea out of hiding—and Danny was bringing her right here. The man in the suit turned toward me, providing a clear view of his face ashe winked.

Orin Berret.Cazzo!Fuck.fuck. FUCK.

Five red dots all appeared on my chest. Followed by a flood light illuminating what I was sure had been a perfect place to snipe from.

“Come on out, Niccolo. I wouldn’t want your father to hear you died cowering behind a shed,” Orin called.

I hated this man, truly hated him.

Slowly, I rose, my hand hovering over my wrist to send an abort code to Danny. If it wasn’t already too late. This wasn’t an amateur hit team. This was the absolute one group of people we needed to avoid, WM Mercs.

“Ah-ah-aah,” he chided. “Hands in the air. Not that it matters. Your message would be falling ondead ears,as it were.” Orin laughed at his joke.

“Winged. Monkey. Fucker. I swear to Ozma, if you’ve so much as touched her, I will skin you alive.” Crowe pulled harder against the post anchoring him in place. “You’re a dead man, Orin. You’re already dead!”

The leader of the Winged Monkeys tsked with a disapproving finger wag at Crowe’s outrage. “This display is completely unnecessary. That little wisp of a thing barely screamed the first time. Now, Danny…” His voice trailed off with a goading laugh.

I didn’t react. I wouldn’t believe they were dead until I was holding their cold flesh in my hands. Until then, I refused to play whatever mind-fuck game Orin was trying to force me into. Danny had more lives than a black cat in hell, and if Thea was anything, she was a survivor. That girl would stare down the barrel of a gun with a smile that could melt iron. This was a bluff, and I was about to call him on it.

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