Page 65 of To Claim A King
The rugged mountain valley was beautiful in twilight, but the setting of my homeland was lost on me. My mind was still and focused, my training kicking into full force on the precipice of battle.
I raised my right fist in a stopping motion once we made it over the ridge. The tiny cabin sat on the crest of the hill beside a narrow riverbed, looking as innocent as a fairytale illustration, complete with a thin trail of smoke rising from the brick chimney.
“It is a shame we must cover it in blood, no?” Aaron mused idly as he stepped up beside me. His sweeping gaze assessed our surroundings. “We will return to the mountains when we are not on killer missions. I would likeMi Reinato enjoy our country.”
Before I could reply with my agreement, my satellite phone buzzed in my pocket, the signal Hillary had arrived at their destination, just beyond a smaller ridge less than a quarter mile away. We’d all worried the hike would be too hard on her feet, but the woman’s stubbornness could rival mine, and she wouldn’t listen to a damn word we said. She wouldn’t complain even if she were in pain, just to prove the point, but I’d be checking her over later—whether she liked it or not.
My companion adjusted the Velcro of his Kevlar vest and spun the silencer onto his favorite pistol, but the plan was not to need it at all. I too had Old Faithful locked and loaded with its own silencer, but the last thing I wantedwas a quick bullet to Antonio’s head. If my luck held tonight, the man would suffer.
“Ready,compañero?”
Rough fingers interlaced with mine, the grip of his familiar hand solid and warm. I gave it a firm squeeze, letting its comfort wash over me before dropping it.
“Ready,” I confirmed, and the fierce heat of incoming retribution rose to the surface of my skin. I tapped out a quick message to the other half of our team—the signal we were going in.
We moved in unison, maneuvering down the rocky terrain on quick feet, using the limited cover to hide us within the shadows of dusk. When I reached the small wooden door at the front of the cabin, I waited until Aaron was directly behind me with his pistol cocked before bursting through the door.
Before I could blink, a bullet rocketed into my Kevlar right at chest level. I stumbled backward to the ground at the impact, my chest burning with the hit, even though the force of it had been mostly absorbed. Angry shouts flew over my head as Aaron’s returning fire elicited a male scream from somewhere within the cabin. My gaze darted to the bald man—his favorite guard—now dead on the floor from a perfectly clean shot right between the eyes.
My body begged me to catch my breath, but there wasn’t time. Antonio stood at a two-person dining table, dressed in a casual linen shirt and a pair of chino shorts, eyes widened in a rare expression of surprise. He spun in place, gaze searching for a weapon of some kind. I spied a steak knife on the counter. I wouldn’t let him get the chance. This man wouldn’t hurt another person I loved—another person ever—again.
Before he could grip its handle, I summoned the energy to aim my gun at the soft, fleshy tissue between his thumb and forefinger, and fired.
Blood spattered from the wound, and trails of thick viscous liquid oozed down the front of his shirt as he cradled his hand against his chest.
My father’s scream of pain echoed through the open door and into the mountains, disturbing nature’s peace. It would be the first of many.
“Check the bedroom,” I ordered, and Aaron rushed past me with his gun raised to kick in the small door to the left of the kitchen. I aimed Old Faithful at my father’s head and glowered at the miserable sack of shit.
“Sit.” I waved my weapon toward the vintage teak and leather chair in the center of the room. Antonio’s returning sneer spewed visceral hate, but with the threat of a bullet in the brain, he reluctantly sat, dark eyes calculating how he would work his way out of death, but he refused to say a word.
Aaron returned a moment later, a pretty dark-skinned woman draped only in a towel on his arm.
“She says she is a prostitute from a nearby village.” He spat in disgust, but not at the woman’s job title. Antonio’s incessant need for sex and dominance couldn’t even be curbed on a remote mountainside in Colombia. The man was truly pathetic.
The woman cowered in terror, shaking within Aaron’s loose hold while muttering prayers of forgiveness in Spanish.
“Let her go.” I nodded my head toward the door we’d just entered through. “We don’t need any more blood on our hands today.”
Aaron led the woman to the threshold and released her into the twilight. She stumbled off in the direction we’d come, her sobs of thanks to her god echoing over the mountain.
Without needing my direction, Aaron stalked to Antonio and wrenched his arms in front of him, ignoring the latent scream of pain as he intentionally gripped the gaping holein Antonio’s palm. Blood dripped down Aaron’s hands as he quickly tied Antonio’s arms to the wood of the chair legs in front of him with cable ties, the awkward angle hinging him forward.
I maintained my stance, aiming my gun at Antonio’s temple, while Aaron reached down to tie each ankle to the legs. Then, he removed four thin razor blades from a clear container in his pocket and inserted them beneath the ties, right at the junction where his veins met plastic.
As he stood, he brought his lips to Antonio’s ear. “Should you choose to move,Carechimba, you will create great pain, but it will take hours for you to bleed out.”
Sweat beaded along Antonio’s brow, but he clamped his lips shut, motionless for the moment.
I whipped around at the sound of rustling behind me. “We’re coming in, Viking!”
Hillary and Lauchlan strode through the open door, guns raised and on alert, dressed in Kevlar and blood.
“We ran into a few goons on the way up,” Killer explained with a casual shrug. “Took us a second to throw their bodies over the cliff.” She assessed our surroundings with a shrewd stare, the blood spatter on her face making her look like a Viking Queen coming from battle. As much as I didn’t want her here for this, that look—the fiercely protective one for the people she loved—tweaked my heart with gratitude. This woman never failed to have my back.
“Heavy fuckers,” Lauchlan grumbled good-naturedly, eyeing up Antonio’s position in the chair. He let out a low whistle. “Nice one, mate,” he said, nodding at the razor blades against our victim’s skin. “You’re a sick feck, aren’t you?” His grin toward Aaron said the opposite; he enjoyed Aaron’s darkness as much as the rest of us.
Lauchlan turned his attention to me. “Set up two cameras just now. If we get any company, we’ll know it. So you can”—he gestured toward Antonio’s mute form—“do all your murdery stuff withoutinterruption.”
