22
MAD LOVE
* * *
Pushing through the busted front door of my home, I nearly dropped my rifle at the sight I found.Alongside all the destruction, the recognizable body of a large man was lying face down on the hard floor of the foyer, the back of his head surrounded by a puddle of blood.
Walking around the body, his face was turned to the side with a gunshot wound planted in the middle of his forehead.The dead eyes of the man who had worked tirelessly by my side for close to a decade stared up at me from the cracked floor beneath him.
Scott.What the fuck.
Of all the people I had ever worked with, Scott had been the most dependable, and the most formidable.There wasn’t much to know about his past, mostly because he had nearly all of it scrubbed from the world.All I knew about him was what he allowed me to learn, which was very little.No family.No relations with anyone.The man was practically dead to the world before he found me.A chance encounter that resulted in a shoot-out of epic proportions, and he just happened to get caught in the crosshairs at just the right time.
That was when I saw what he could do, right after he was done risking his life to save mine.I knew military training when I saw it, but this was something different, something much darker than the shadow operations of an unchecked government.This was a war machine in need of a new home.
Standing over the bodies he had piled up next to mine, I offered Scott a job on the spot.He accepted, no questions asked, and together, we restructured a kingdom into a global empire that was now officially on the brink of fucking collapse.
If Scott was dead, then Sloane and Jaden were on their own.I had to hope Sloane had done her fucking job and gotten Jaden out of the house long before Scott had finally met his end.
I pulled out my phone and called the emergency cell phone that was included in the bugout bag at the boat house down the way where Sloaneshouldhave taken Jaden.But the line never even rang, which meant it hadn’t been activated yet.
Shit.
They must still be in pursuit.
Pocketing my phone, I gripped my rifle and moved through the darkened house, witnessing the wreckage of what was left of my childhood home.The devastation was great, but nothing was irreparable.Once the heat of this day was finally over, I would rebuild anew.
Nearing my office, I peered around the corner to see the doors had been blown apart.The bodies of every one of the syndicate families trapped inside were strewn about, blood and severed limbs discarded in all directions, while the remains of my office were left in tatters.My desk looked like it had eaten a grenade for lunch.The cleanup over this would be massive, but the upside was that all their territories were officially up for grabs.
Leaving the mess behind, I continued down the hall toward the ongoing noise, rounding the corner only to stop completely in my tracks as a face I hadn’t seen in almost a year abruptly cleared through the wreckage.
Matt swayed to a wobbly stop among the damage and destruction he had facilitated in my life, the side of his face coated in blood and bruising on his skin.Despite the fact that he looked like he’d been hit by a truck, he still managed to sport a look of disappointed arrogance on his face.
“Well, I see Jason is just as fucking useless as I always thought him to be,” he commented as he looked me up and down with distaste.
“Was,” I corrected, returning the same assessment of him.
Matt snorted, a low chuckle climbing up his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck.“Well, that saves me the trouble then, I guess.”
I cocked a brow.“The trouble of what?”I shot back.“It seems to me that betraying your longtime partners is of no trouble to you at all.What did Jason promise you in return for your help, Matt?Was it Kayla?Don’t tell me you’re actually that stupid.”
He had to have known there was no way Jason would have handed Kayla over to him in exchange for a partnership, not with his annoying-ass hero complex.Matt and Jason probably both had the same plan to kill each other once their business with me was done.Too bad they were never going to get the chance.
Matt glared at me as he took another step closer over the wreckage strewn across the floor.“Patience over petulance, Darren.You taught me that.And it’s the only fucking reason I’m here.Because I am fresh out of patience,” he growled through gritted teeth.“I came here to finally collect the rest of Daniel’s head, but a little bird told me you already took care of that.”
Unease seeped under my skin at the mention of this little bird, spilling dangerous secrets to dangerous men that were supposed to remain buried with the dead.
“And what little bird would that be?”For all I knew, Scott could have been that damn little bird.
“You’re lying bitch of a wife,” Matt spat.“So, you can imagine why?—”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish his sentence before I was gripping his vest and shoving him into the wall.“Where the fuck is my wife?!”I roared into his face.“If you touched her?—”
“I don’t know where the fuck she is, you crazy prick!She took off somewhere after a Hummer crashed through your house.”
What the fuck?A Hummer?Was Jaden actually still here?
Seizing on my moment of silence, Matt shoved me away.“Now, is it true?Did you really kill Daniel?After fighting me so damn hard to keep him alive?”
