“What did they do with the bodies of your fallen comrades in Liberia? With the body of the Silencer...your brother?”
The mention of my team...of my brother, pulls at my sanity. Weakens my resolve.Why would they even ask this?Their bodies couldn’t be recovered.We had men outside who got those of us they thought could be saved.Some of us made it. Some didn’t. Abel, Parker, Jackson, and Samuel were all already dead when they came for us. Most of us were unconscious during the extraction and heard about it days later. The extraction crew had to fight to get even those of us they were able to save. These men likely accessed government records using hackers of their own, butwhy mention it now?
“That look. I like that look on your face. This is what it looks like when the ghosts of your past come to haunt you. Eh, Post Man?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but, if you’ll let Vaughn and Grizzly go, my men will leave with them, and I’ll stay here with you. If we continue to fight this out and I get killed, I can’t imagine you’ll be happy about returning that thirty million you’ve already collected on me.”
Their warped grins bring on a new terror and a sense of uneasiness.I was wrong. Wrong about everything.
“The thirty million wasn’t for you.”
He pauses to let that sink in, but I had already figured out this part.
“That was for your brother. The Silencer himself.”
My eyes strain to stay focused on Juris, but the image has blurred. My mouth goes dry, and my legs threaten to give out beneath me. Pins and needles in my fingers.
“We sold him to the Russians for thirty million dollars. We were due as much. We nursed him back to health, after all. He had to be kept in a coma for several months. Then there was all the rehab, of course, and the prosthetic leg. Not cheap. He had to train on that for quite some time before he was ready for the hunt. We plan to ask more for you since you still have all your limbs.”
The hunt.That does it. I turn and fall to my knees, vomiting up the contents of my stomach and then dry heaving, trying to purge my body of this pain.
My heart.It’s in pieces on the floor.Abel was alive? He was a hostage of these sociopaths for months. Maybe a year. Then....fuck.I can’t think about that. I can’t think about how he was sold and then set free so that some sick fucks could hunt him.A prosthetic leg. How much of a disadvantage was he given?My mind is faltering, trying to catch up to this new world. This world where Vaughn is going to be sold. A world where my brother needed me and I didn’t come for him.
Distantly, I hear a voice come over the radios that some of my men still have at their hips. I must be losing my grip because I would swear that it was Abbi’s voice. She says, “Let loose”.
Just then, as she speaks, a man steps out from the upper landing behind Juris and Aleksandrs. Their remaining men turn their weapons in that direction just as bullets fly from several directions. All six men drop like dead weight.The roof shooters, but Vaughn.The man on the landing holds out two guns and, with expert precision, shoots Juris and Aleksandrs through the backs of their heads. The bullets both shoot clean through, and one nicks Grizzly in the ear.
A shot like that...so precise.So quiet. He even knew the exit point and didn’t seriously harm either hostage.Who the fuck shoots like that?
I remain on my knees, broken and more confused than I’ve ever been, when the man pulls down the gaiter that covers the lower half of his face. He’s wearing some sort of toboggan that covers his hair and forehead. He was almost completely covered until now. Until he reveals my face, just slightly changed. It’s like looking at myself in the mirror. Only now, my face is slimmer, and there’s a scar across my cheek.
“Abel.”My brother. He’s here. He’s alive.
Chapter 43
Elijah
What am I seeing?
I can’t move. I don’t know what to say or think. Peripherally, I see Eve run to Vaughn.
“V! You’re okay. You’re okay.” She’s checking her over, but Vaughn’s eyes are glued to me. The pull I feel toward her is agonizing, but I can’t look away from my brother. He’s coming toward me. He has a mild limp.Of course he does. He’s missing all or part of his leg. He lost it to save me.Then, I left him to die.To be taken. Probably tortured and then...hunted.
Wait...how is he here if he was sold and shipped to Russia to be hunted? How did he come here and save my ass again?
He’s right in front of me, and I’m still on my knees staring up at him with my jaw on the floor.My big brother.
“Hey there, little brother.”
“Abe.” The name is a broken whisper from my too tight throat. Spoken across the rocks and glass that seem to be stuck there.
His hand is extended to help me up.How could he want to help me? How could this be the way he chose to spend his time? Saving me when I left him.
The next thing I see takes the remaining breath from my lungs. They walk in through the big hole in the side of the building. Long range rifles slung over their backs. Roman, Dusty, Nick, Matteo, and...Abbi. They’re talking to one another like they’re friends.It was Abbi on the radio.She was signaling that Abe was coming out. That’s why they started dropping the remaining bad guys. They were distracting from the real threat on the landing.My brother. Deadly as the plague. Quiet as the night. The Silencer.
Tears start falling unbidden from my eyes, and all I can do is hug my brother’s knees, begging for forgiveness. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I would’ve come for you. I would’ve come for you.”
“Get the fuck up.”
