Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (39 page)

              Still.
Fast
applied here too.

              She sprinted, sucking cold air down into her lungs, her coat flapping wildly around her like a cape. Despite the landscape lighting at the foot of each building, and around the pool, this patch of grass was dark, and her imagination conjured countless terrors.

              Lights came on in the guest house.

              She kept running.

              “Hey!” someone shouted.

              She kept running.

              The fence reared up, closer than she’d thought, and she found the place where Fox had blow-torched a gap. She turned sideways, leapt through it, and landed with a gasp in the leaf litter of the woods beyond.

              She was off the property.

              But that didn’t mean she was safe.

              Sam scrambled to her feet, dragged in a deep breath…

              And was promptly lifted right off her feet, a pair of arms like steel bands closing around her and swinging her up off the ground.

              Before she could scream, a warm, familiar voice spoke in her ear. “Hey, it’s me.”

              Mercy.

“Jesus,” she hissed, and he set her down. She whirled to face him, so relieved, so thankful, so pissed off that he’d scared her like that.

Ava’s husband loomed colossal above her, another man beside him nearly as tall. His brother, Colin, had to be. It was dark, but the moon glimmered down the steel handles of the sledgehammers they carried.

“Aidan and the guys inside?” Mercy asked.

“I just left him,” she said, nodding, trying to catch her breath. A runner she was not. She clutched at her side. “Ava told you?”

“Yeah.”

“My God, I’m glad to see you guys.”

Fast gleam of white as he grinned. “And we brought the whole crew.”

That was when she heard the crunching of footfalls in the leaves. Lots of footfalls.

Mercy turned and pointed up the hill with his hammer. “Sam, run up there. Littlejohn’s waiting at the top of the rise. Stay with him, and if shit goes too south, y’all run like hell for the truck, okay?”

“Be safe,” she countered, “okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, chuckling darkly.

She ran up the hill to Littlejohn.

~*~

There was a hallway, Greg had told them, that ran a wide loop around the first floor of the mansion. The door to the basement was on the far side from the sunroom, beside the entrance to the kitchen. The door looked like it opened into a closet, he’d said, but if you walked all the way in, you found the inner door. It required a key card to gain access – a card Greg himself hadn’t been in possession of. Which meant they were going to have to snag a card off one of Ellison’s men.

              The least of their worries considering they couldn’t go any deeper into the house without revealing themselves. Better to go in guns blazing than risk starting a firefight.

              They paused in the sunroom, and Fox’s blue eyes gleamed with a preternatural light in the incoming fall of moonglow. He looked at each of them in turn.

              “No hesitating,” he whispered. “You kill, and you kill quick. I don’t wanna see no shots in the legs or arms, yeah? Center of mass, or in the head, boyos. Let’s get this done.”

              Aidan pulled in a deep breath, held it…and felt something dark and sinister lock into place inside him. Every house raid he’d ever conducted had been accompanied by shakes, chills, quick bursts of nausea.

              Not this time. In this moment, a solid ball of hate coalesced in his belly. His hands were steady as he double-checked the silencer on his gun one last time. “Yeah,” he told Fox. “We’re ready.” He had no doubts about his performance, no matter what was about to unfold.

              Killing made him sick? Was watching the people he loved put in the crosshairs somehow less sickening?

              No. Not at all.

              Fox pulled at the Velcro straps of his vest and nodded. “Okay. Move.”

              With quick, fleet-footed steps like police ghosting up to a scene, they slid through the sunroom and out into a lounge area tricked out in white on white, a fire crackling. There were four men, and all of them were greatly distracted by Jasmine, who stood in the center of the room, her jacket in a puddle at her feet, as she reached to untie the neck of her halter top.

              She heard them come in – a little twitch of her shoulders to show she was startled – but she didn’t turn toward them, didn’t betray them. Good girl.

              Aidan was on the left, so he aimed at the man on the far left, and dropped him with one shot.

              Low gasps of sound, as the silencers did their work.

              One of the men managed to turn toward them, eyes wide with shock, but Fox put him down before he could reach for his own weapon.

              Jasmine snatched up her jacket and rushed toward them, her expression wild with fright. “God.”

              “Go.” Carter caught her quickly around the waist, kissed her forehead, and shoved her toward the sunroom. “Follow Sam, go!” he hissed, and she went, high heels louder than their gunfire had been.

              “Kitchen,” Fox said, striding across the room. “I see it.” He leaned toward one of the fallen bodies without breaking stride and swiped the ID card from his jacket pocket.

              As they walked, Aidan registered a loud thump from the floor above them. “We’re gonna have company in a minute.”

              “Then hurry.”

              Greg – bless his stupid, mildly-evil dead heart – had told them the truth. They found the closet, and the door within it. Fox slid the card through, and the lock flashed a green light and beeped. Disengaged.

              “Thank fuck,” Carter muttered.

              The door swung inward, and cold, damp air rushed toward them. A steep set of concrete stairs led downward, bare bulbs in cages providing overhead illumination.

              “Shit, it’s like out of a movie,” Fox muttered.

              Before they could head down, Aidan heard the sounds of pursuit: thundering footsteps, alarmed shouts. The bodies had been found, obviously.

              Aidan started to turn back the way they’d come, and Fox laid a hand on his shoulder. “Go get your mate.” His face was absolute granite. “I’ve got this.”

              “Charlie–” Aidan started.

              “Go!”

              Shit…but he couldn’t argue. “You heard him,” Ian snapped, and he plunged down the stairs, the other two chasing at his heels.

              They encountered a man halfway down, another black-dressed goon. “What the–”

              Aidan shot him in the face, felt the hot splash of blood on his own. The man fell backward and slid down the stairs, thump-thump-thump, his head sounding like a hollow melon as it struck each tread.

              He slumped at a sick angle when they hit the bottom. Aidan leapt over him, and found himself in the middle of a nightmare.

              Cells. Like prison cells, with iron bars, overhead tube lights, stainless toilets and rock-hard cots. Three of them, stretched out before him. And in the first…

              “Oh shit,” he whispered, surging forward, wrapping his hands around the bars. “Tango? Kev!”

              His best friend looked small and frail, crumpled in a heap against the far right wall of his cell. His clothes were filthy and torn, his jeans hanging off his bony hips. His hair lay flat, dingy as straw on top of his head. And his face had been beaten badly…so badly. He would have been unrecognizable if not for the tattoos on his hands, and Aidan’s innate sense that this was one of his favorite people in the world.

              Ian came to stand beside him, breath catching audibly. “Oh, Jesus…”

              “Kev,” Aidan called again, and that was when he noticed there was someone in the next cell. Someone who was, best as he could tell, resting a tiny hand on Kev’s shoulder, through the bars. “Hey, who are you?” he called. Over his shoulder: “Carter, go back and try to find keys off that asshole I shot.”

              “Got it.”

              Aidan prowled down to the front of the next cell, and got a look at whoever was touching Kev.

              It was a girl, a small, trembling, dark-haired girl who didn’t look like she was out of high school.

              Aidan sighed and forced himself to calm. He could hear gunshots overhead, and he was panicking about Fox…but he had to be the good guy here. “Hey,” he said, softly. “Who are you?”

              She lifted her chin in defiance, but said nothing.

              He heard Carter coming up behind him, the rattle of keys the most beautiful sound in the world. “Sweetheart,” he said, even more gently. “My name’s Aidan, and I’m a Lean Dog, like Kev.” He was betting, given the way she crouched over him, that the two had shared personal details. “He’s my very best friend, and I’m here to take him home.”

              “Aidan?” Her expression changed, stark fear bleeding through the defensive mask. “Oh God. Really? He said…” Tears filled her eyes and she pressed her lips together.

              “Aidan?” Tango’s croaky, but unmistakable voice asked. “You’re there?”

              “I’m here.” He took the keys from Carter and tried one, the next… “I’m here, I’m here.” Ah, that one worked. The door slid back on oiled rollers and Aidan charged into the cell.

              Tried to. Ian crowded him, attempted to get in first. Aidan elbowed him roughly. “Stay back, asshole. He doesn’t need your shit right now.”

              A long-fingered hand clamped on his arm and he shook it off. “Carter, if that English prick touches me again, shoot him.”

              “I’d be glad to. But, dude, you need to hurry.”

He turned back to Tango, moved toward him once more. “We’re here to bust you out.” He’d meant it as a joke, but it fell flat, his smile unable to take hold as he drew close and got a good look at his friend.

              “God, what’d they do to you?” he whispered.

              Tango forced himself upright, teeth gritted, grunting with pain. Aidan knelt and helped him, arms looping around his ribcage.

              Tango’s eyes glittered feverishly through swollen lids, but his gaze was nevertheless steady. “What’s going on?”

              “Like I said. This is a rescue mission.”

              “The club…?”

              “Just me. And the kid. And Fox. You know how he is, crazy like a motherfucking fox, always looking for a good shootout.”

              Tango groaned. “You shouldn’t have…gone against wishes…”

              “Shut up,” Aidan said, gently. “You didn’t think I’d leave you here, did you? I’m trying to turn gay, remember?”

              “So not funny.”

              “Right. Come on, can you stand?”

              Tango flung an arm across his shoulders, but his eyes snapped wide – as wide as was possible, given the swelling. “Whitney,” he gasped.

              Aidan darted a glance to the girl, saw her staring at them with her lip caught between her teeth. “Is that you?” he asked her.

              She nodded.

              “I’m not leaving without her,” Tango said. “You get her out too, or you leave me here.”

              “Leave the little bint,” Ian said, sharply.

              Aidan frowned, but he wasn’t about to squabble over something as minor as one little chick. He jerked his head to Carter. “Get her.”

              Then he took a firm hold of Tango. “We’re gonna stand up, alright?”

              Tango nodded, and he tightened up in Aidan’s arms.

              “One…two…three…”

              Tango let out a strangled sound, but he managed to lock his knees and keep his feet.

              “You okay?”

              “Yeah.”

              Like hell, but there was no choice. Aidan began walking them slowly toward the door, knowing it was too slow, teeth grinding in anxiety. How were they ever going to flee like this? How could he get Tango through the hole in the fence? Up the hill? Shit, Carter would have to help carry him. That was if Fox wasn’t already dead and could provide cover.

              Ian came around to Tango’s other side, drew the guy’s arm across his shoulder. When Aidan saw his expression, the absolute devastation of it, he felt a little guilty for what he’d said before. Ian Byron was a lot of things, but his feelings were genuine. This was as difficult for him as it was for any of them.

              Carter had gotten the girl – Whitney’s – cell open and she rushed now toward Tango, face creased with worry.

              “Oh, he’s hurt so bad,” she said, voice choked with tears.              “He’ll be fine,” Aidan said, thinking that was probably a lie. But he didn’t have time for truths. “Lead the way up,” he said to Carter. “Let’s see if our fox is still alive up there.”