I nodded and a couple of seconds later, we were treading the warm, blue water. Any other day and it would be perfect for chilling with a few friends. I was a good swimmer, but the way Zayne cut through the water, was like watching an Olympic swimmer hitting that home stretch knowing the gold medal was his. When we reached the water’s edge and made our way over the moss covered, black boulders, he stopped to take a breather.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I glanced around the cavern in the mountain which looked like it went right under the fort above it.
“Come on.” He guided me toward a wall and climbed up onto a ledge which was wide enough to hold two people walking tightly beside each other. As we moved further in, it got darker and more difficult to see. “Just hug the wall and you’ll be fine,” Zayne called over his shoulder. We stopped a couple of meters in before he pulled out a flashlight and disappeared into a hole in the wall. I followed, taking in the rough stair structure cut into the wall. “Take these stairs up to the top—”
“Wait.” I breathed. “You’re not coming with me?”
He shook his head. “I need to keep guard and if anything happens to you, I need to bring in reinforcements.”
Reinforcements. Fuck that made this sound like some covert military operation. For a moment I felt as dumb as the stunned expression on my face. How the fuck did I end up in this situation again? I was about to place my life in danger, and I hadn’t a clue what I was walking into. Then as if I had a light bulb moment, memories of my kidnapping flashed through my mind. If I could survive the Rossi brothers, I sure as fuck could do this. Zena was depending on me.
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“A passageway opens to your right. Follow it all the way to the end and a door will lead you into the cellar. Once inside, a stairway will take you into the main house. From there, you’re on your own because I can’t say for sure which room they’re keeping her in or if she is being allowed to wander around freely. You’ll have to play it by ear and avoid the guards, there’s plenty of them. Understood?”
Unable to swallow past the lump in my throat, I nodded. Zayne opened his bag and handed me my stuff. “Would you rather I do this, Rayden?” he said after a moment of silence.
Would you?I wanted to say. Then shook my head. “I’m good.” I dressed, hating the idea of wet briefs under my jeans, then asked, “can I just ask one question?” He nodded. “On a scale of one to ten, ten being my body melting in a drum of acid, how dangerous are these people?”
He stared at me, then chuckled. “Where did the melt in acid thing come from?”
I frowned, recalling Lorenzo’s threat. “I heard it somewhere, I guess.”
He shook his head. “They’ll probably starve you, then skin your body and feed you to the rats.” As if noticing my eyes were ready to pop out my sockets, his laugh was low. “It’s a joke, Rayden.”
“Are you fucking kidding me,” I hissed. “I’m about to walk into God fucking knows what and you’re making fun of me.” Fuck, I was so ready to pummel his face into the rocks behind him.
“I’m just trying to ease that tension off you face, boy.”
“Well, you have a twisted sense of humor.”
“Go.” He nodded his head toward the stairs.
“Do I just come back down here when I find Zena?” I asked, unsure if I was just stalling. He nodded. With one final deep breath, I climbed the stairs, not bothering to look back in case my nerves betrayed me.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I glanced behind me. Zayne nodded for me to continue. With one last look at him, I followed his directions and when I reached the landing that opened into the main house, I had swallowed a shit load of deep breaths before I could move any further. Keeping as close to the wall as possible like Zayne instructed, I followed the curves of the cobblestone hallways that seemed to go on forever. It felt like a scene out of aMission Impossiblemovie. Despite my nerves, I had to grin.
It was only when I climbed another three staircases that were long and frustrating, did the landing lead to a couple of rooms on my left and an open courtyard to my right. The surprising part was I hadn’t seen anyone yet. No people, no armed guards. Was I even in the right place? Maybe I’d journeyed to far into the center of the earth. Grinning at my stupidity, I moved further down. As I leaned forward to peek around the first doorway, a sound coming from the opposite direction to where I stood, startled me. Without thinking, I slipped into a room and stopped short.
I glanced around, taking in the décor. Two walls were painted with diagonal stripes of two different shades of blue and a third stripe in a light gray. The third wall was made up of wall-to-wall glass with a stunning view of the sea. A wall-to-wall white closet made up the last wall. Backing out of the room, I froze when my gaze landed on the bed near the window and its sole occupant stirred. Just a few more steps to go and I’d be out of there. I balked as the little boy opened his eyes, then rolled around until his feet sat flat against the glass. Only because I’d practically had a hand at raising Trent’s kids, I put the child around two, give or take a few months either side.
About to turn and walk away, I paused when he moved and lifted himself onto the ledge running along the window. Then pressed his body flat into the glass. Although the ledge wasn’t that high off the floor and the windows sealed, my insides tensed, suddenly afraid that he might hurt himself.
I shifted slightly, and slowly his head turned. Clear green eyes, almost the color of the sea in the window behind him, stared at me. I balked, chewing the inside of my cheek as panic took flight. If he screamed, I was done for.
He didn’t. Instead, he popped a finger in his mouth and reached out his free hand. “Baby up now.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant but I moved closer and held out my hands cautiously. I didn’t want to startle him and when I slid them around his waist, he let me. “Hey, buddy.” I carried him over to the white shaggy rug in the middle of the room and set him down among the scattered toys. When I tried to move away, he grabbed my hand. I crouched next to him and he fingered the leather band around my wrist. “You like that?” He sucked on his finger then looked up at me. “What’s your name, little man?”
“Jar...din.”
“That’s a cool name. Do you want to hear mine?” He nodded.
“Rayden.”
He blinked and then tried to say it. The first part got caught in his baby language and the latter came out as, “Din.” I laughed and said it again. He nodded his head and said, “Din.”
