Page 5 of Act of Brotherhood
It was perfect.
“Did you finish the sweep of the lower level?” asked Garth as he began the process of taking down the case with the sword. He fully intended to take the weapon with him as a parting gift. After all, he’d been serious. He owned its sister sword and wanted to reunite the pair.
Hans paused in the doorway and ran a hand through his shoulder-length black hair before letting out a long breath. That wasn’t normal for the man. He was generally the poster boy for stoic expressions. “Captain, there is something you should see.”
“If it’s more stuffed bears, we’re gonna want to look away when Rurik has a word with the dick in cuffs in the van,” said Gram, rubbing Rurik’s shoulders as if he were prepping a boxer for another round. “I cannae be certain but from the sounds of it, some of Rurik’s extended family members now decorate a den here. This is goin’ to end with dead guy bits on everything. I’m sure of it.”
“That is not humorous,” said Rurik in a deadpan voice. “He has pictures of himself next to dead wolves. That should makeyouwant to eat him too.”
Hans didn’t budge from the entranceway, nor had his body language changed. Something was wrong. “Captain.”
Garth stopped his attempts to get the sword case off the wall and focused on his teammate. “What is it?”
Moisture coated Hans’s eyes and his gaze darted to the floor. “I don’t have the words to describe it. Landros radioed for a team of medics and additional transportation. It is bad enough that he didn’t wait to talk to you first.”
Team Eight had been paired with another team for the mission. While both teams worked for PSI, one was full of shifters and the other was full of vampires. Philandros “Landros” Mires was one of the vampires. He was also high up within PSI. Garth had known him for centuries, though there had been a time when they’d stood on opposite sides of the battlefield. Those days were long over between them.
The same could not be said for Auberi Bouchard, another member of the Crimson Ops Division of PSI, or Fang Gang, as they’d been nicknamed by the shifters in the organization. The two sides made mocking one another an artform. It was mostly all in fun.
“Captain, this is bad,” said Hans.
Gram stopped smiling. If Hans was saying something was serious, that meant something huge had happened. Hans was famous for his understated responses. Germans were known for such things. Whatever was happening was big enough that it shook a man who generally didn’t show emotion.
Garth wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know what Hans and the others had evidently encountered while clearing the lower levels of the estate.
Chapter Two
Garthand the others followed behind Hans as he maneuvered through the aftermath of the fight they’d first encountered upon arriving. There had been a lot of gunfire, claws, teeth, and pure alphaness going on—and it showed.
Garth even had a few cuts and bruises. Nothing serious. And he liked a good fight, and wasn’t squeamish, so the aftermath didn’t bother him.
The dead bodies had been removed from the premises, but the cleanup teams had not yet arrived to handle the rest of the mess. That meant it looked like a horror movie had been filmed there. Hans had managed to walk around the pools of blood left behind without stepping in any, despite his obvious emotional state.
The artwork on the walls was gaudy and the dirtbag had more than likely overpaid for it all. Garth wasn’t exactly up on the arts, but even he knew the paintings were terrible and there wasn’t a huge market for them. A small laugh bubbled up from him as he spotted blood splatter on one of the atrocities masquerading as art. It was a painting of one of the guy’s fancy sports cars.
It screamed douchebag.
The entire house seemed to have been decorated by the same person. Whoever they were, they had no taste. Frankly, Garth was shocked he’d not, as of yet, come across any floor-to-ceiling velvet prints with naked ladies on them. He’d not been through the entire home, so anything was still possible.
They went down two flights of stairs, and then entered a small room that didn’t seem to hold much of anything of significance. In fact, the only thing in it was a serving table pressed against the far wall. Two gold vases sat on the table, one at each end. On the wall behind the vases was a portrait of the dirtbag in the van. His smile in the painting was as smug as the one he’d worn when Garth had put the cuffs on him.
Yep. Total douchebag. Just seeing the painting made Garth reconsider allowing Rurik free access to the man.
“Is it me or does this guy have shit taste?” asked Garth as he realized the gold vases had what looked to be phallic shapes etched on them. He’d never seen dicks arranged in a way that resembled flowers from afar, and he’d thought he’d seen just about everything.
Rurik grumbled. “It’s not you. He does have shit taste. He decorates with dead animals.”
Gram eased up behind Rurik and shot Garth a hard look. “You had to go there again.”
Hans said little on the matter. It was easy to tell his mind was on something else and not on jokes.
A second before Garth was about to ask what was so important that he’d needed to come at once, Hans reached up and pushed a small button on the wall. The button had been installed in a way that could have made it easy to overlook, as it blended perfectly with its surroundings.
The next thing Garth knew, a panel opened in the wall and he found himself staring into a stainless-steel elevator.
“Well, I wasnae expectin’ that,” said Gram from behind Garth. “I may put in a bid on the place too. I do nae have a secret elevator in any of my homes. I want one.”
“Where does it go?” questioned Rurik. The edge he’d had to his voice upstairs was gone. Evidently, he felt something big was coming as well.
