Otherwise Unharmed

  “For what?” Lia asked.

  “Keith Davies was the guy who was nearly court-martialed for giving away our position when I was captured,” I told her. “It was my testimony they were going to use against him. He took the option of being dishonorably discharged instead. There wasn’t a lot of evidence against him but definitely some suspicions. No one was ever really sure if he was working for the insurgents or not, but my statements at the debriefing had them checking into him.”

  “He killed himself eight months ago,” Jonathan said. “It says here his brother was once an FBI agent, but he left the agency a couple years ago.”

  Keith Davies’ suicide would have been just a couple of months before I had my little episode and would have given his brother plenty of time to find me and work on a plan of revenge.

  “What did he say to you?” I asked Lia. “Tell me what happened when he came to the apartment.”

  Lia shifted in her seat and took a deep breath before she spoke.

  “I was in the bedroom,” she said, “reading a book, and Odin started growling.”

  She looked up at me, and I could see the tension around her eyes as she spoke.

  “I’d rarely heard him growl before, and I started getting worried. He got up and went to the door of the bedroom. That’s when the front door burst open, and he was there.”

  “Davies?” Rinaldo asked for clarification.

  Lia nodded.

  “I knew right away,” she continued, “I knew there was something wrong. His eyes—the way he looked at me and kept smiling, even when…when…”

  She took in a sharp breath, and I rubbed the back of her hand.

  “Go on, babe,” I said softly, though the inside of me was ready to start screaming and breaking a few things.

  “I picked up that gun you gave me,” Lia said to me, “and I…I tried to do what you said, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t pull the trigger—I got the safety off, but I just couldn’t do it.”

  “Great match for you there, Evan,” Victor snorted.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I growled back at him. I looked back to Lia. “What did Davies say?”

  “He pointed a gun at me and told me to drop mine. Odin was still growling, and my hands were shaking. He yelled at me to drop it again, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I dropped it. He came into the bedroom, and Odin went after him.”

  She paused and her eyes brimmed over with tears.

  “He was trying to protect me,” she sobbed. “He jumped at him, and I heard his gun go off twice. Odin dropped down in the doorway, and he just kicked him and walked in. He tied me up, went through everything, and the next thing I knew, he was dragging me out.”

  “Motherfucker,” Jonathan grumbled. “I liked Odin.”

  Lia started crying harder, and Luisa took hold of her other hand. I was just barely holding it together, trying not to imagine the scene in my head. If I did, I was going to lose it, but some of it sank in anyway.

  He was a damn fine guard dog after all.

  My throat tightened up on me, and I turned my attention to Rinaldo, who looked over to Matthew.

  “Go tell Howard to retrieve the body of Mister Arden’s dog,” he said. “Have him take a crew to clean up the apartment as well. Leave no trace.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Matthew left the room. By the time he returned, Lia had composed herself again.

  “Go on,” Rinaldo encouraged her.

  “He had these little plastic strips which he put around my wrists. He had the gun in my back as he pushed me into a car outside the apartment building. I was trying to watch where we were going, but I couldn’t figure it out—I don’t know the city very well.”

  “Did he take you straight to the warehouse, where I found you?”

  Lia nodded.

  “The whole way, he kept saying how much he was going to enjoy making you suffer, Evan. He said he’d been planning it a long time and he couldn’t wait to see your face when you found me.”

  I swallowed and looked out toward the window for a moment. The flickering image of the bomb kid was there in the glass, but I didn’t acknowledge him.

  “He took me inside,” Lia continued. “He kept laughing and telling me he wasn’t sorry it was going to hurt because he wanted you to suffer everything I suffered. He said he was going to kill you eventually but not until you’d paid for what you’d done. I kept asking him why, but he never told me.”

  She took another breath.

  “He pushed me down on the floor inside that room. That’s where you found me.”

  “I found you in a chair,” I reminded her.

  Lia just shrugged as she looked away from me. My eyes met Rinaldo’s, and I could see my expression reflected in his face.

  She was hiding something.

  “What happened?” I pressed.

  “He put me in the chair when he figured out you were coming,” she said.

  “What about before that?”

  Lia was jumpy and kept looking away from me. I reached over and took her chin in my hand to force her to look at me.

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “I told you. He pushed me down on the floor.”

  “What else?”

  “He just…well, he hit me.

  “What else?”

  “He…touched me,” she whispered, still refusing to look into my eyes.

  “Where?”

  Her eyes closed, and she shook her head silently.

  There was something growing inside of me—something dark and powerful and deadly. I watched her face and knew there was a lot more than what she’d already said. Inside, it felt like my organs were caught up in the beginnings of an earthquake.

  “Tell me!” I growled.

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “What did he do?” I demanded again.

  “He just...he just fingered me, okay?” she finally yelled. “He was holding me down and saying he was going to…to rape me and make you pay for everything you did. I…I think he was going to, but that’s when his phone went off, and he said you were coming.”

  My teeth clenched as my body started to shake, and everything in my vision went red. The earthquake inside began to rocket to the surface.

  I had to get out of there, find Kyle Davies, and rip his flesh from his body. I shoved myself up from the couch.

  “I gotta go take care of something.”

  “Evan…” Lia placed her hand on my arm, but I pushed it away.

  “I need to go take care of something,” I repeated.

  “Evan, you don’t even know where he is,” Rinaldo said. He also stood up from his chair and crossed the room to place a hand on my shoulder. “Now let’s sit down and-”

  “NO!” I screamed as I shoved him backwards.

  Both Matthew and Victor were on me immediately. I threw a punch to Victor’s face, which threw him backwards into the bookcase. Matthew grabbed my arm, but I wrenched it away and kicked him in the gut.

  “Leave him alone!” Rinaldo yelled at both of them as he stood up and straightened his jacket. “You’re just going to get yourselves killed if you don’t.”

  Jonathan didn’t listen to Rinaldo. He came up from behind me and grabbed both my arms, locking them behind my back. I leaned forward to try to throw him off, but he was expecting it, and Jonathan was a big guy. I couldn’t get the leverage I needed.

  What if I had been any later?

  “He fucking touched her!” I screamed. I looked to Lia’s crying face as I struggled against Jonathan’s grip. I kicked backwards and connected with some part of Jonathan’s leg, but he didn’t let up. Luisa had an arm around Lia’s shoulders and was glaring at me.

  “You aren’t helping!” Luisa spat. “For Christ’s sake, Evan, stop it!”

  “He…he…” I couldn’t bring forth words. I couldn’t even understand the incredible rage I felt inside of me. I’d never wanted someone dead so badly. I wanted to tear him apart with my hands. I wanted his blood al
l over me. I wanted to revel in his screams of agony.

  Jonathan held me firmly.

  “I know, brotha,” he said calmly. “I’m gonna be right there with ya when we make that motherfucker pay for it, too. But not right now. Right now, you have to get your shit together and think. She’s still alive. If you go off like this, she’s just going to have to deal with you getting yourself killed.”

  I looked at her and watched more tears fall from her cheeks and onto her shirt. I pushed against Jonathan once more but with only minimal effort. He slowly loosened his grip as I tried to get my breath back under control, but he didn’t let go entirely.

  “I want his fucking balls on a platter,” I snarled over my shoulder. Jonathan let go, and I dropped back down on the couch next to Lia. I reached over, moving slowly because I knew I had scared her, and ran my hand down her arm. She stroked my cheek.

  “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you,” she whispered.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but the only words I had were of blood and violence so I closed it again. I reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks with my thumb.

  “We’ll git ‘em,” Jonathan promised, “but we do it smart, right? We gotta find him, first.”

  “I know where he is,” Milena said.

  Jonathan grabbed my arm again as I stood up and took a step toward Nick’s girlfriend.

  “Easy, brotha.”

  “Where?” I asked. “Tell me where—right fucking now!”

  Nick stepped forward and took Milena’s hand. He was obviously ticked off at the way I was talking to her, but I didn’t give a shit. If she didn’t give me what I wanted, I’d gut her right in front of him.

  “He’s with Rurik,” Milena said. “Micah’s with him, too.”

  “Where?” I demanded again.

  “I’ll tell you,” Milena said, “but there’s a condition.”

  I pulled out my Beretta, cocked it, and aimed it at her head.

  “The condition,” I told her, “is you getting to live for telling me what I want to know.”

  Nick moved in front of her, but Milena—bravely or stupidly—pushed his arm away to look right at me. I saw Rinaldo roll his eyes, which meant he didn’t realize how serious I was.

  “No, that’s not the condition,” Milena said, “well, not the only one, anyway. Micah’s my brother. He can be as dumb as a box of rocks, but he’s still my brother. I don’t want him dead.”

  “I’m not making any fucking promises,” I snarled.

  “Then you’ll have to shoot me and figure it out for yourself,” she said with a shrug.

  “Me, too,” Nick piped up.

  I moved the business end of the Beretta to Nick.

  “Evan.” Rinaldo’s voice held a warning I couldn’t completely ignore.

  I took in a long breath and huffed it out my nose sharply before I dropped the gun to point at the floor. If I was going to be the least bit successful, I needed Rinaldo on my side. I couldn’t do that if I shot his kid. I glared at Milena.

  “Fine,” I said. “He lives. Tell me.”

  “There’s a construction site just south of Quay—a little restaurant and bar on East Illinois.”

  “I know the place,” I said.

  “There’s a little outbuilding there—that’s where they are hiding. Davies is there with them along with that other guy who’s always with him. At least, they were headed there a few hours ago.”

  “Johnson,” I said.

  “That’s not his name,” Milena said with a shake of her head. “He’s Russian, too.”

  “Figures,” I muttered.

  “Hey!” Nick called out in protest.

  “Enough, Nicholas,” Rinaldo responded. He walked forward and took his illegitimate son’s arm to lead him over to the opposite couch and sit him and Milena down away from me. “Evan, do you have what you need?”

  “All I need is this,” I said, indicating the weapon in my hand.

  “I’m going with ya,” Jonathan said with conviction.

  I wasn’t going to argue with him.

  “Then go take care of your business,” Rinaldo said. “We’ll watch over Lia.”

  I moved back over to Lia, and she stood up to meet me. I held her against me for a moment. We parted slightly, and I looked into her eyes, still red from crying.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I told her. “Then we’re gone, you hear me? We’re going to leave.”

  I turned my attention to Rinaldo.

  “I’m done here,” I told him. “This is my last job, and then I’m out—permanently.”

  His eyes went dark, but he didn’t argue. He didn’t agree, either.

  “We’ll discuss that when you return,” he said with a meaningful look.

  I leaned in close to Lia.

  “We’ll leave as soon as this is done,” I vowed. It was a promise I intended to keep.

  She closed her eyes and nodded. We touched our foreheads together, and I leaned a little closer to press my lips softly and briefly to hers before I turned to leave with Jonathan behind me.

  “I’m going to need a drink when all this is done,” Jonathan said as we went out into the hallway.

  I was about to respond when an explosion rocked the house.

  The blast was enough to send both Jonathan and me to the ground. I rolled to the side, Beretta out, and looked back down the hall toward Rinaldo’s office. The door had been blown off completely, and there was debris everywhere.

  “Lia!”

  I shoved myself up and ran back down the corridor. I could hear Jonathan’s footsteps behind me, but all my focus was on what was up ahead. The window of the den had been blown out completely, the bookshelf was toppled over, and people were coming in from outside.

  “Motherfucker!” Rinaldo was screaming. “How dare you come to my house? My house!”

  Shots rang out, but I couldn’t pay attention to them because I couldn’t see Lia anywhere. I pushed my way into the room and tried to make out shapes through the dust that clouded the air. I could hear more shouting and recognized the voices, but I was too focused to register whose they were.

  “Evan!”

  To my right was the toppled bookshelf, and Lia was on the floor next to it. I rushed over to her and knelt down.

  “Luisa!” Lia cried as she pointed to the shelf.

  I could see one of her legs and part of an arm sticking out from underneath it. Crouching down, I got a good grip on the edge and shoved up with my legs as hard as I could. The shelf only moved a foot, but it was enough for Lia to grab onto Luisa and pull her out from under it.

  She was bleeding from a gash in the back of her head, and her arm was obviously broken. I checked her head, but the gash wasn’t deep—just a lot of blood. I pulled off my shirt and held it against her scalp as I pulled her and Lia back behind the upturned couch.

  With the Beretta back in my hand, I peered out to the scene in the room.

  Rurik Dytalov and Micah Severinov were right at the edge of the window surrounded by three of their goons. Micah was yelling at Milena.

  “You never fucking listen to me!” he screamed. “You’ve joined the fucking enemy!”

  Nick pushed Milena to the side as Micah fired. She fell amongst fallen books and Rinaldo’s globe-shaped bar as Nick screamed and dropped down beside her.

  “Nicholas!” Rinaldo cried.

  His gun fired rapidly toward the two Russians, but my attention was drawn to the figure behind them.

  Kyle Davies.

  His eyes met mine, and everything I was feeling before abruptly resurfaced. It wasn’t just a feeling, either—I could see it. I could see him holding Lia down on the floor of that warehouse and threatening her. I could hear the words she said he spoke, and I could see the terror in her eyes has he forced her to the ground.

  “Motherfuckingsonofabitch!” I screamed as I pushed away from the couch and ran forward, gun firing into the dust-filled air.

  A flash brightened my peripheral vision,
and a searing pain in my calf caused me to lose my footing in the mess of glass, wood, and brick scattered around the floor. My head slammed hard onto the floor, and my Beretta flew from my hand as bright spots formed in my vision.

  Johnson was on me a second later, slamming my shoulders into the ground as I rolled to grab for him through blurry vision. He pulled back to try to aim his weapon in my face, but I grabbed his arm, twisted it, and shoved his head to the floor into a pile of glass. He screamed, and I pulled his head back to slam it down again. One of the pieces of glass embedded in his neck, and blood began to pour onto the floor.

  More shouts. More shots. I didn’t even know where they were coming from. My head was pounding, and I still couldn’t see clearly. Blood covered my arm, but I held firmly to the back of Johnson’s neck until he stopped struggling, his face a mess of gashes. Just as I released him, a sharp blow to my gut sent me reeling to the side.

  A burst of nausea trampled its way through me. I shook my head to try to clear it, and when I looked up, Davies stood over me, his gun in his hand and a smirk on his face.

  “You get it all figured out, asshole?” he snarled down at me.

  “I figured out you’re a dickless piece of shit,” I replied. “You can’t handle me yourself, so you have to pick on girls.”

  “She has a nice, tight little pussy,” he said. “I figured you couldn’t fill it up.”

  He stuck a finger in his mouth and sucked on it.

  I pushed myself up, lashing out with one boot to his shin. Davies lost his balance and fell but kept hold of his gun. I grabbed for his wrist, and we rolled to the side. He cried out as he hit the glass, then wrenched his hand free and punched my gut with the butt end of the gun.

  My left fist made contact with his jaw, and his head snapped back. It didn’t deter him, though. He punched me again with the revolver, knocking me back to the floor.

  My head swam. I was on my back again, blissfully not in a pile of glass, but I could barely move from the dizziness in my head. I looked up to see Davies standing over me again.

  “Time to pay, Arden,” Davies said as he raised the gun to my face. “Who’s the fucking hero, now?”

  The blast rang through my ears, leaving me deaf for a moment. I waited for the pain, but there was nothing. For a moment, I thought I might be dead, but then I realized I could hear Lia screaming.