“Boss? You okay?”
“Peachy.” Pushing off Isa, I tear the tape away from her mouth and give her body a onceover, looking for any sign of injury, or stray bullets. The only blood I see is the small bit that dripped from my shoulder onto her cheek, and the oozing wound at her ankle. The streak of red at my shoulder, without an actual hole, tells me the bullet only grazed me.
“Lucian,” she says out of breath, before breaking into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh.” I stroke a hand over her hair and kiss her. “You’re going to be okay. Relax, Isa.”
After checking my own body for sign of injury, I loosen her binds, and the sound of groaning from the other room makes me pause.
“You didn’t kill him?” I ask Makaio.
“You said you didn’t want any more investigations on your hands, so I shot him once in each leg. If you want, I can finish him off, though.” He lurches toward the man who sounds like he just got his ass handed to him.
“No.” Sliding my hands beneath Isa’s body, I lift her into my arms. “He’s her father. He deserves better than that.”
Makaio opens the front door of the cabin, and I halt at the approach of distant headlights. Ducking behind the adjacent wall, I dodge the bright beam crawling up the driveway and nod to Makaio, who slams the door shut.
“You’re fucked.” Boyd’s weak voice is broken by the hard pants of breath while he sits bleeding out of his bullet wounds. “I called … them. To collect her here.”
Teeth grinding in my skull, I lower Isa to the floor, my mind spinning with what to do.
“Want me to take care of them?” Makaio slides his gun from its holster and I shake my head.
“No. You’ll set off an investigation that I don’t need.”
Obnoxious laughter bounces off the walls, steeling my muscles, and I snap my gaze to Boyd, who’s undoubtedly trying to drum up as much noise as he can. Swinging my attention back to Makaio, I give a quick jerk of my head toward the noisy prick, and the hard thunk of a punch silences the man.
Crouching low to peer out through the window, I see the men haven’t yet exited the car. “There’s a window in the back room. Get the two of them out of here.”
I don’t yet have a plan in mind, all I know is, I’ll be the one leaving with Isa.
No matter what.
The tight clutch of my arm draws my focus to where Isa grips me. “I’m staying with you.”
“If they find you, you might as well be dead for what they’ll do to you. Go with Makaio.” Finger hooked beneath her chin, I press my lips to hers. “Now.”
With Boyd’s limp body hoisted over his shoulder, Makaio takes Isa’s hand, guiding her toward the back room.
After giving them a moment to break away, I swing back the front door to find three Blacksuits standing alongside the sleek black vehicle parked beside Boyd’s. Two of the men, I recognize as Dominic and Louis. Haven’t seen the elders since they visited my office two months ago. The other man I’ve seen a couple times, but never formally met. A tall, beefy guy who could probably rival Makaio in size.
“Gentlemen,” I say, stepping out onto the porch. “Good to see you again.”
“What are you doing here, Lucian?” Dominic asks, around a thick cigar that sticks out from between his lips, as he grips the porch’s handrail at the foot of the stairs.
I close the door behind me to shut out any scuffling sounds as Isa and Makaio make their escape through the back window. Not that the old man would hear much with his hearing aid, anyway. “Friedrich contacted me. Asked me to look into a call he received from Boyd.”
“Funny … he asked us to look into that very thing. Seems a bit redundant.”
Poker face in place, I nod. “Perhaps he thought I’d catch him first.”
“Catch him?” The dubious tone in Dominic’s voice plays on my nerves.
I could pull my gun and take my chances on killing all of them where they stand, but that would leave far too many questions for Friedrich to inquire about. “Seems he took off with the girl.”
“Now why would he do that when he was the one who contacted us?” The voice of the stranger has me lifting my gaze to where he stands next to Louis, arms crossed.
It seems he doesn’t yet know who I am in this Collective to speak with that level of contempt in his voice. “He has a long-standing history of molesting young girls. Perhaps he found her too tempting.”
“If you don’t mind, we’d just like to have a look for ourselves.” Dominic glances back toward the beefy guy and jerks his head.
As he passes me on the way inside, the asshole knocks me in the shoulder and my muscles burn with the urge to clock the bastard in the skull.
Louis stands off from Dominic, quiet as always, staring back at me, while my head spins with a few different scenarios on how this will all play out.
The beefy asshole shooting me in the back.
All three of them dragging me into the car.
Makaio jumping out from the shadows, killing them all, and me having to explain the shit to Friedrich.
Awkward silence hangs on the air between the three of us, while the stranger tromps through the cabin. When he appears again, his eyes are brimming with accusation. “There’s blood everywhere in there.”
“Yes. There is. It appears Boyd had a bit of a confrontation with an investigator who was after him. I suspect he might be the reason the two fled.” I nod my head toward the shallow grave just outside of the floodlight. “You’ll find what’s left of him over there.”
With jerky movements, the two older men twist around, and Louis hobbles over to the spot I pointed out, before he turns back to Dominic and nods.
“That’s all fine and dandy, but why do you have blood on your shoulder then?” If I don’t end up killing the bastard behind me tonight, it’ll be a miracle. “Come to think of it, why’s his car still here if he fled so quickly?”
I don’t bother to turn and face the asshole, and instead keep my eyes on Dominic. “Everyone on this island would recognize his car. Surely they’d take notice of a young girl after his many indiscretions, as well. Might’ve taken the investigator’s instead.”
“No.” He moves closer into my personal space and my fingers twitch with the compulsion to draw my gun and take my chances. “I think you’re lying. I think you know exactly where the girl is. Boyd, too.”
“Can’t say I give a fuck what you think.” Still keeping my back to him, I flex my fingers around the gun’s grip tucked inside my waistband. “And I’ll kindly ask that you back off before I teach you a lesson in boundaries.”
“I’d like to see you try—”
“Enough!” Tugging his cigar from his lips, Dominic glances over his shoulder toward Louis, and gives a silent nod that could mean any number of things, but I’m guessing it signals my death.
The moment I catch sight of Louis pulling his gun from its holster, I take hold of my own weapon, and feel the tight grip of my shoulders. In one sweeping move, I pivot just enough to aim the gun at the ribcage of the man beside me.
Before I can pull the trigger, the quiet pop of gunfire stops me short. The vacant, bewildered look on the beefy guy’s face seems a muted reaction for the hole in his skull that marks the bullet’s path. The grip of my shoulder falls away, followed by a hard thud, as he crumples to the ground beside me.