Page 55 of The Fortunate Ones
I scrubbed my hands through my hair, allowing a moment to gain my composure.
“I have a cleanup crew on standby,” Luca finally answered. I could practically hear him pacing. I was glad Wes had chosen to stay. Luc and Diego were going to need him. “I’ll let them know there’s more than we expected. Can you get Brooks back to the apartment? I have someone I can trust that’ll meet you there.”
“Yeah, okay.” As much as I wanted to hurry and get Brooks checked out, logically it made the most sense to get back to our rental first. I trusted anyone Luca did, but the fewer people who saw this place, the better. There was nothing incriminating atthe apartment. “Also, there’s the guards,” I continued. Brooks’s eyes began to flutter closed again. Should I be trying to keep him awake? Fuck. I hated this. “They need to be dealt with. And we should probably search this place before we leave.”
“Make sure someone takes images of the captives,” Wes inputted. “That way Diego can do facial recognition.” If they were victims, like we strongly believed, we would try to identify them so their families could be notified and they could be laid to rest properly. Unfortunately, this shit happened so often that we were all familiar with the protocol, but it was still good to have the reminder. We were all reeling a little.
“Fuck this.” That was Skye. “He’s not saying shit, boss. Permission to kill him? I’ll drag the guards in and deal with them and the cleanup crew after, if you wanna get Brooks out of here.”
I didn’t like the idea of separating, but there was merit to it. We couldn’t leave this house of horrors the way it was, and we needed to get Brooks help.
“Everything is quiet there,” Diego relayed, probably sensing our hesitation, considering neither Luc nor I answered right away. “The cleanup crew is on route. Tanner didn’t activate any silent alarms that I could tell. It should be safe.” Plus, Skye was able to protect himself and knew what to do in this situation. Even if he preferred not taking the lead, he was perfectly capable. Diego didn’t add any of that, but we all knew. It didn’t mean that I liked leaving one of the men I loved alone.
Finally, Luca cursed under his breath and made the decision for us. “Kill him, Skye. We’ll get the information elsewhere. And yes,if you can stay and coordinate with the cleaners and search the place, I’d appreciate it.”
“Roger, boss. Sorry, asshole, time’s up.” He opted for a knife, not one of his guns, and even though I was used to it, I winced at the sound of Tanner’s life ending in my ear.
Then it was over.
Skye came up a minute later, blood splatter and a grin on his face. He was buzzing, the adrenaline still pumping through his veins, which confirmed that it had been the right decision to let him finish up at the house. I was fucking exhausted.
Before we left, I quickly helped get the three guards inside so they could be dealt with. We didn’t want to kill them. We doubted they had any idea who they’d been guarding. But Skye would confirm our instincts, and if they really were innocent, then he’d give them a nice bonus to assure their silence and send them on their way. Diego would have to monitor them for a while, but money and a little light blackmail worked wonders.
By the time that was done, Luca confirmed the doctor would meet us back at the apartment.
I met Skye in the kitchen, where he was drinking fancy bottled water that had come from Tanner’s fridge. He smiled at me. “Want some?” I grabbed the bottle from him and took a few sips. It tasted like water.
“I wonder how much this shit costs?”
“Ask Luca, he’s probably bought it before. It’s probably in his mini fridge in his office.”
“I can hear you still, you know,” Luca grumbled, making us laugh.
“I know, boss.” Skye laughed and took another sip.
“I’m taking Brooks back. You’re good?”
Concern dripped on his face. We’d all been hurt on a job before. Concussions and broken bones weren’t anything new. It was why we could be so casual and calm and handle business, but we were still all worried. Concussions weren’t something to play with, and I couldn’t imagine the pain Brooks was in.
“I’m fine. Take care of our boy.”
“I will.” I leaned in and kissed Skye quickly but fiercely, a thousand feelings in that one caress.
Then I left to go take care of our man.
Brooks would be fine. He had a concussion and bad bruising, but thankfully there were no fractures in his face or nose. He’d be swollen and black and blue for a while, but that would heal. We had to monitor the concussion, but there was no sign of memory loss, and Brooks could speak coherently and carry on a conversation. Besides a bad headache and vomiting, it looked like the thing causing him the most pain was his shoulder.
The doctor was pretty sure there was a broken bone and possible ligament or muscle damage. He wouldn’t know the extent of it without imaging though. So for now, he gave Brooks the good pain meds, put him in a sling, and we got him set up in the middle of the bed the three of us were sharing. We’d have to see how he was feeling tomorrow to determine whether we’d try to get him home and to our doctor before the testing or if we’d have to stay here longer to take care of it. The doctor warned me he might need surgery, which fuck, I really hoped not. Brooks was too out of it from painkillers by that point to care, so I worried for him.
After the doctor left, there was nothing I could do but pace the floors and wait for an update from Skye. Brooks was asleep. Skye was still neck deep in the bullshit at the house. I was getting updates mainly from Diego and Luca, as Skye was focused. He had found . . . a lot. It seemed Tanner had been gathering information on pretty much everyone. While he had been holed up in France and raping and hurting innocents, he’d also been stacking up every piece of evidence he could manage to find on anyone and everyone. I had no idea exactly what Skye had found, but it was too much for him to go through on his own. He had begun taking pictures of as much of it as he could while Diego worked on hacking into Tanner’s personal computers to get whatever he had there.
I felt useless. I wanted to be with him, helping with the work and dealing with the guards and the cleaners and whatever other bullshit might come up.
But I also needed to be here for Brooks. Yeah, he was sleeping, but I had to check on him every hour, and he was still vomiting fairly often . . . and fuck I was spiraling. Ihatedhaving nothing to do.
“Alright, I’m disconnecting our comms,” Wes announced after a couple of hours of me nagging and Luca bossing everyone around. We were all getting snappy and reaching our limits. “We need to step away. Mav, Diego is still monitoring the situation, and if something happens, he’ll call. He has a million alerts set up. But everyone needs to back off and get rest. Now.”
“Skye—”
