Page 47 of Vicious Souls

After Dante left to take care of more work, namely deal with the assailants who had attacked us on multiple occasions, I had lain on my side on the bed and said a silent prayer, hoping for his speedy and safe return. Too much has happened in so short a time, and I am just starting to realise the dangerous world in which we reside. I had stayed in that position on the bed until I had finally fallen asleep, my eyes barely dry of the tears I had shed over my concern for him. He had been gone for hours, and I knew he was still gone, because he had told me he’d be a minimum of five to six hours. It had only been three hours since he’d left; there was no way he would be back yet.

I turn my thoughts to Dante; in so little time, he has become the most important person in the world to me. I don’t know how it happened, but I’d somehow found myself falling for my protector, who also happens to be my captor. It is hard to define what is between Dante and me but I know, from the limited interaction we’ve had, that there’s something building between us. My desire for him, although new and innocent and maybe even childish in its manifestation, is violent in its need to be with him. Sometimes, I think it would be easier to stop breathing than to deal with the emotions that he elicits from me.

The roar of glass smashing thunders in my ears; the sound of bullets ricocheting off walls as mayhem reigns in Dante’s beautiful house. Someone is shooting up the house. Someone is trying to infiltrate Dante’s Fort Knox. Someone determined to unleash their own brand of madness in order to get what they want. I shudder, throw my legs over the side of the bed and pause, trying to take stock of my surroundings. The French doors are shot out. It is a miracle that none of the shards of glass that go skating through the room actually land in me. I rise from the bed, too afraid to approach the window, yet too afraid to use the door, not knowing what lays on the other side. Someone is desperate to get what they want from within this house. And Dante isn’t here. So it definitely isn’t him they’re after. They could only be after one thing. One person. And that one person happens to be a sitting duck right now. I curse, a low growl emanating from the depths of my stomach, which now lays in knots of fear. I walk to the door, stand there and listen, realizing the proximity of the shooting and things being smashed. The remaining soldiers would do what they could to keep me safe, but even then, there is only so much they can do against a well orchestrated attack of this magnitude. I back away from the door, afraid a stray bullet will penetrate the wood, then turn to the French doors. If worse comes to worse, I could throw myself out of the window – and straight onto the poisonous bushes beneath the window – maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea considering the alternative.

There is a sudden thump in my room, and I turn just in time to see a man dressed in black from head to toe swing into my room through the French doors, his body tied to a rope. He comes in swinging like Tarzan. I frown. It is as though he knows exactly where to find me. Where my room is situated, and where I would be. And it is in that moment that it strikes me that Dante has a mole in his camp. This man, and perhaps all the others on this mission, know this house as though someone has drawn them a map and given them the key to the kingdom. I shiver. This has been a carefully orchestrated assault on Dante’s home. Now I am worried. Has something happened to Dante? The thought terrifies me. And what is more terrifying is that I now face the unknown with this masked intruder in my room.

Uncertainty is something I was not particularly fond of. My whole life up until very recently has been meticulously planned by my father. The disguise. The Swiss schooling. Every theme of my life carefully dictated to ensure my safety. Having someone make the decisions for me and plot my life, from a very young age, made it that much easier for me to simply adapt to life as it was meant to be. Every last detail of my roadmap had been planned in minute detail; without my father’s guidance, I am like a fish floundering out of water. And without Dante to protect me and guide me on what is happening or what has to happen, I have no idea how to manage this life.

The intruder is wearing a ski mask cut out at the eyes, and I can see the menace in their darkness as he advances on me, brandishing a gun at his side. This is not going to go well.

Fear, an emotion I have held at bay all my life, now grips me, squeezing me like an iron fist, as I consider all the possible outcomes of an intruder with a gun. There are too many to consider. And nowhere for me to run. This man who has dived into my room now has the upper hand as he rushes toward me and grabs my arm.

There is a thunderous bang in my room, and we both turn toward the noise simultaneously, the intruder obviously more surprised than I am. The door to my room is swinging from its hinges, kicked in furiously. I watch as Helga comes into the room, her hand extended with a pistol aimed at the intruder. I witness the flicker on his face as realization dawns on him and he lifts his hand in her direction. She is prepared, he is not, but again, another set of odds is at play here. Helga presses the trigger, and I hear the click, click – empty clicks and nothing happening. I see the look of surprise on her face as she looks at the gun, then looks back up at the intruder, who aims and shoots her in the chest. Helga goes falling backward, her arms outstretched as though to break her fall, her heavy body thudding against the ground, the life shuddering out of her.

“Move,” the man commands, pushing his gun into my side painfully and leading me toward the French doors. I stumble as I walk toward the terrace, my nerves taut with fear. Will he actually make me jump?

The deafening whir of chopper blades breaks through the persistent gunfire behind us, and I lift my eyes to the sky as a helicopter comes into view. So close to the house, it seems like the blades might take out a chunk of the roof from where it lingers idly in the air. A ladder rope is flung from the chopper, and the intruder pokes his gun wielding hand into my side again as he reaches out his other to grab the ladder. When he finally secures his hand around it, he lifts it and orders me to start climbing, telling me he is right behind me and wouldn’t think twice about shooting me should I even think of trying anything funny.

“You’ll be too high up to survive a fall, so I suggest you do as you’re told.”

I think of all the ways I can stall him. There are not many. I think about what I can do to get away from him. I consider what I could offer to sway him from doing what he is doing. My mind doesn’t think the way a thug’s mind does. I don’t understand, process, or even live the same way as those born into a life of organized crime. And as I put my foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and heave myself up to the idling helicopter, I make a silent vow to myself that if I come out of this alive, I would learn everything I had to in order to ensure my survival in this brutal new world I’ve been dragged into.

43

DANTE

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!!”

I kick a lampshade which has fallen to the ground during the melee and send it hurtling across the room. It flies with such force that it leaves a gaping hole in the wall, adding to the considerable damage already done to the property.

Five minutes. I would allow myself five minutes in which I would cuss and curse and break things, but then I would have to come back down to earth. I would have to regroup and formulate a plan of action. I would throw every last resource I have into finding Kingsley and bringing her back home.

Home. This is my home. This is my shrine, the sacred temple of my memories of the past. This is my sanctuary, my nirvana. And someone has taken it and trashed it beyond recognition. Someone will pay dearly for this destruction.

I run my hands through my hair, messing up an already imperfect ruffle, wind my arms behind my head, fingers intertwined, and walk around in a circle, surveying the damage.

Helga is dead. A few of my best men are either dead or seriously wounded. And Kingsley is gone. I take comfort in knowing she isn’t dead – if they wanted her dead, they would have left her body behind for me to clean it up. No. This was something more. Someone had realized that she was more useful alive rather than dead, and so they had taken her.

“Tate,” Marco breathes, watching me carefully. “It could only be him. No one else has a reason to take her.” Marco circles back to what Tomas Wojcak told us. I’m not so sure that this is all Tate.

“This has Tate’s name written all over it. But he doesn’t have the kind of manpower it would’ve taken to execute this.”

“He’s got someone’s ear,” my father concludes, coming into the room. He is now officially out of semi-retirement. “These were mercenaries.”

I look at both men pointedly. My five minutes are almost up. It is all I will allow myself before I get back to work. The more time that passes, the further away they get. Although I don’t think Tate would be stupid enough to steal Kingsley back then hole up in her own home, he must know that eventually he’ll have to come out of his hidey hole and show his face. Just how far is he hoping to get after taking Kingsley back from me? We now know that he has tried to have Kingsley killed. The mere fact that she has been with me should have been enough to put the fear of God in him and prevent him from doing anything like this. That he has been brazen enough to take her back tells me the man is desperate. And he is either very foolish or exceedingly ambitious in his plan to take over Murray’s side of the state. In my estimation, the man is on a suicide mission. And for that, he needs Kingsley for some reason.

I continue to walk around the house, taking in the damage, my anger rising. I need it, this anger. I need it to remind me of the monster I have to be in order to claim back what is rightfully mine. I need it to bring out the monster in me and be able to do what needs to be done.

A dark cloud settles over me as I walk into Kingsley’s room and take a last look around the room. Someone has been kind enough to drape a cloth over Helga’s body. A thin braid peeks out from under the cloth and I have the oddest urge to cut the braid and keep it as a reminder of what has happened here and how Helga lost her life obviously trying to protect Kingsley from whatever transpired in this room. We are dealing with cold blooded killers, I have no delusions about that. Killers who have come to retrieve an asset that is meant to stay alive.

“Pull up the cameras and find out who owns that chopper,” I say, turning to Marco. My father, taken aback by my request, but not altogether unhappy, nods his head in satisfaction as Marco turns to leave.

“I’ll keep you updated.”

I turn to look at Marco as he leaves the room, giving him a pointed look.

“I don’t care if you have to burn this whole damn city down, you find that girl.”

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