Page 121 of Lesson In Forgiveness

Warily, he cut the engine and set the brake, climbing out of the vehicle with his gun in hand. Checking his six, he approached the haphazard stack of corpses, wincing at the vibrant trails of blood coming from several different directions, already drying in varying shades of horrifying brown.

A few pairs of eyes stared up at him in blind terror, already glazed with death. He studied the cut throats, stabs wounds to the head and neck, and grimaced at the guy on top whose entrails were cascading over the ridge of his belt to touch the ground.

Tabitha wasn’t holding any prisoners today.

He counted six dead. Six big, heavyweight guys who’d no doubt been armed with weapons just as deadly as hers, yet they hadn’t stood a chance against the pint-sized pixie.

Leaving the dead as they were, he walked over to the front door, grimacing at the spray of bullet holes peppering the freshly painted wood. Tracing one of the splintered holes, he wondered how close the bullets came to hitting their intended target.

Tilting his head toward the camera pointing at him from the inner corner of the porch, he lifted his fist, spreading and fisting his fingers three times. While he waited to see if the occupants got the message, he used his own body to block the door in case of a sneak attack.

Five impatient minutes later, the door swung open a couple inches. One brown eye peered through the gap, took stock of the situation, and then the barrier revealed Evander, pale yet stalwart.

“Thank fuck,” he breathed. “The cavalry’s here.”

“Everyone okay?”

“Callie might not sleep again for a year or two, but yeah.” Those dark eyes scanned the landscape behind Grit. “The bastards came out of nowhere. We’d only been here a couple hours. Elias was taking the last of the necessities down to the panic room when Callie saw a guy with a fucking gun setting up shop on the banking.” He jerked his chin toward the walled bank edging the drive. “Luckily she kept her head and didn’t start screaming, which gave us time to get downstairs and secure the room.”

“They didn’t break in.”

“I was waiting for it,” Evander admitted. “I watched them on the security feeds, waiting for them to kick down the door, smash the place up, but they just chose their positions and waited.” Blowing out a breath, he shook his head. “Strangest thing I’ve seen. It was like they were just waiting for a signal… or trying to wait us out.”

“Were they the only ones?”

Anger tightened Evander’s mouth, his lips turning white. “The club’s perimeter alarm went off ten minutes after those guys appeared. The cameras in the main clubhouse picked up another eight men, including the guy whose photo you sent us. They’re heavily armed, Grit. I’m talking the kind of guns people use in massacres for a high body count in a short period of time.”

Perfect. Just what the doctor ordered, maniacs running around with automatic rifles and God only knew what else. “Did Tabitha come inside?”

“No. She came out of the blue and just started picking men off one at a time, gutting them like trout. If any of them received the signal to attack, it came too late. She’s a stone cold bitch when she’s working,” Evander added, with reluctant admiration. “On screen, it looked like she didn’t even see them as human. The last guy, she tortured for twenty minutes then cut him open from collarbone to navel. The knife barely left his body before she took off.”

It was disturbingly easy to piece everything together. Dread twisted like a heavy chain in Grit’s gut as he automatically turned to look toward the hillside where Serenity was tucked into its own private haven.

“I need to go after her before she gets herself killed.”

“I’ll come—”

“No. Absolutely not. You’re a six-foot-seven walking target, Van. Go back downstairs, lock yourself in, kiss your wife and your husband.” Urgency thrummed in his blood and he took a step back. “Atticus’s team will be here any minute now. Don’t let Callie come out until the clean up crew disposes of the bodies. Update the team when they arrive, tell them there are two friendlies on the scene. I’ll be back as soon as the situation is under control.”

“Jesus, Grit, be careful.”

“It’s my job—” As his foot crunched on the gravel, the short, rapid-fire snaps of automatic weapons being fired echoed from above them. “Tabby.”

Grit bolted toward his SUV, blinded by fear.

*

Tabitha

Mud, blood, and sweat.

The taste of all three lingered in her mouth as she pressed her back to the side of the nursery and waited for the spurt of gunfire to cease. She didn’t let herself think what Evander was going to say when he saw what Donaghue’s hired cronies were doing to his carefully crafted buildings; this little altercation was undoing months of hard work.

Dispatching the six goons provided the perfect exercise to get her head in the game. Most of them got a better death than they probably deserved, quick and clean, and each time her knives whispered through flesh, she felt a tug of rightness, of belonging, like she was fulfilling her destiny.

It had taken twenty minutes or so to get Donaghue’s location from the last idiot. Once she’d started snicking open his skin, flaying him down to the bone, the mafia soldier from Chicago sang like a fancy parakeet.

Donaghue’s overall plan was smart, she thought as she pulled her Beretta free and double-checked her ammunition. Split up his small, angry band of followers into two groups, set the smaller crew on the house as a fishing net to catch Elias, and hunker down on higher ground with the majority to wait for her.

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