Hunted Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Eight (6 page)

Leave him?

After everything that’d happened, he was asking her to leave.

She glanced at the limping women and girls the other Rangers were leading away from the barracks. They needed her help.

Others could catch Rossi. She didn’t have to do that. But she didn’t want to leave Viper.

“Golick, Hannah’s with you,” her mate shouted, pushing her gently toward the Ranger before he turned and took off after Duke.

Hannah watched until he disappeared into the trees. Every fiber of her being screamed to follow him, but logically she could do much more good staying with the injured than joining a hunt for a psychopath.

“Hannah.” Golick waved, urging her toward him.

She nodded and plodded the short distance between her and the Ranger. She side-stepped a couple of bodies and did her best not to look down at the vacant faces.

Losing patients hadn’t happened often back home. Seeing so much death made her soul hurt. What had these men already witnessed in their lives? What horrors had her mate locked away in his mind? How did they deal with it?

“Try not to think about it,” Golick said when she reached his side.

“What?”

“I see you trying not to look. The only way is to wrap into a box and shove it into the back of your mind. Eventually it grows cobwebs.”

Hannah swallowed. “I’ll never be able to—”

“Golick,” a familiar male voice shouted, bursting from the trees along with several other rangers.

Rain.

“Duke and Viper?”

Golick pointed across the clearing. “Pursuing the final target, Commander.”

“Keep these girls moving. Make sure you get them all to the boats. And tell them we’re going to get their children.” Rain signaled to the men who’d appeared with him to help herd the sobbing groups of women.

Golick’s face darkened, but he nodded.

“Hannah.” Rain grabbed her hand. “I need you to come with me. The bunker is full of children—babies. I don’t know what we’re walking into, but you’re the only one who would know what to do if he’s…” His voice trailed off, unable to say what he feared.

She’d told Viper she’d stay…well technically she hadn’t verbally agreed. It was more like he asked and she hadn’t run after him. Hannah glanced at the women.

“They can handle the girls, Hannah.”

Hannah nodded. “Let’s go.”

V
iper ran after Duke
, pumping his arms and legs so hard, he might lose control of them. Even with his NODS down, he couldn’t see much, other than Duke’s blond head, and he couldn’t help thinking they were running into a trap. Just trees and brush and Duke and nothing.

A crazy guy in a manbun and a loincloth runs into the forest. Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie.
Following him blindly didn’t seem like the best plan, but it was the only plan.

If there was a way to find Rossi, they had to chance it.

His lungs burned, they’d been running so fast for so long. The moon was behind them, which meant the beach was behind them, and it seemed like they were near where the back of the island should be. Were they going to run off a cliff at any minute?

Duke ducked to the right, suddenly breaking his forward motion, and Viper followed, slowing a bit. They ran for a short distance and he honed his hearing, trying to sense how close they were to the ocean.

He could hear his buddy’s heart pounding, and a little way ahead of him, another heartbeat, and then another, and another, but he couldn’t concentrate hard enough to hear farther.

Then, like a low thundering, he could hear the waves, and the farther they ran, the louder the crashing. They couldn’t be far from the cliffs, on some side.

The ground gave way a bit more underneath his feet, and it was suddenly harder to take each step, like they were in soft grass.

Ahead, something glinted light and he pulled up his NODS to rest them on his forehead. But in the night, whatever had been reflecting the light was too dark for his eyes to see.

A voice ahead swore, and Viper picked up his pace, grabbing at the M4 he’d slung over his back. After a few seconds, he ran out into a clearing behind Duke. in roughly fifty yards, was a raised platform with a helicopter parked on it.

Trees rounded the clearing, until what must’ve been cliffs on the other side. He could hear the waves much louder.

Tarzan lay in the grass with Niko on top of him and Dani gulping huge breaths of air, standing over them both. The islander was wrestling at their hands, but they pulled him to his feet.

“Just…” Dani panted, “Just wait, Gabriel. Let us help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Tarzan snarled. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Sure you are.” Niko’s voice was soft, but he held the bigger man’s arms in a locked grip that said he was in control. “We’re just offering to help.”

“You don’t understand.” Gabriel tried to wrench free. His voice broke, “No. It has to be me. I need to kill him.”

Viper’s insides cracked in half at the desperation in those words. He recognized the adolescent version of himself in Gabriel’s anguish. Heard the despair, the guilt. All things he’d carried around for years before he was able to rid himself of the man who had terrorized him for his entire life.

“Let him go, Niko.” Viper pulled out his M9 and slapped it into Gabriel’s hand. “Do you know how to use this?”

“Vipe,” Duke said, reaching for the gun, but Viper shot him a hard look.

“If we don’t arm him, he’s going to get himself killed.” He glanced back at Gabriel and repeated in Spanish, “Do you know how to use this?”

The man’s hand closed around the weapon and he nodded. “I used to be one of the guards.”

A momentary pang of regret stole through Viper’s chest.
Used to be
. “So you know how to use the safety? And how to fire?”

“Yes.” Gabriel shrugged off Niko’s last hand and looked at the helicopter. He pointed with the gun. “There’s an entrance to the bunker on the other side of the chopper pad.”

“Bunker?” Viper said. “Why is there a bunker back here?”

“It’s where he keeps the children.” Gabriel took a deep breath.

Everything seized inside Viper’s chest, and he couldn’t breathe.

The children.

This was the one camera feed they’d had where there was evidence of children, but after having heard from Maggie about the basement of the villa, the Ranger team had assumed it wasn’t on the island.

They’d never seen any of the guards there. There had only ever been two women on camera, and no windows. It’d been that sight that had first prompted Viper to volunteer for this mission.

It made his blood burn through his veins just to remember seeing the crying, neglected children, trapped in their rooms or sobbing in the big room with no windows.

It made him want to kill Adrian Rossi.

It made him want to kill everyone on the island.

But Gabriel had carried the same emotion in his voice. And he’d been a guard, probably for most of his life. But yet, he wanted to murder Rossi. Just as much as Viper did. Maybe more.

He put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and squeezed, pulling the man forward. “Look. I know what you’re feeling right now. I get that you want to kill him. But it looks like that bunker has one entrance and we don’t know who else is down there. You need to let us help you so we can get all of those children out of there without getting any of them hurt.”

The man tried to pull away, but he gripped harder.

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Gabriel snarled. “You want to take him alive. I heard the woman say they needed him alive.”

He took a long breath, looking from side to side. Niko and Dani were part of the group who wanted him alive. Hannah’s group. But Viper was the one who had been told to use
lethal force
.

If he blurted that out, they might head in, half-cocked, trying to get ahead of the bullets.

He shook his head. “Here’s what I know.” Viper turned his body, like he planned to tell Gabriel a secret, even though he knew full well the rest of them could hear him. “I know what it means to want to kill your father. And I know what it feels like to do it. I know that guilt, that desperate drive to right the wrong.” His mouth went dry and his hand flexed on Gabriel’s shoulder. “But there’s no use getting yourself killed in the process. Or getting those kids killed. That’s what we’re here for.”

“But
I
need to kill him myself.” Gabriel glanced around. “You understand.”

“How about this?” He met Duke’s eyes and nodded. They just needed to neutralize him. “How about you let us go in first and secure the place, and then you can come in behind us, and we’ll let you make the kill shot.” Viper looked down at the weapon he’d put into the man’s hand. “I armed you. But let me secure the place first. We need to protect those kids.”

Gabriel followed his gaze down to the gun and squeezed the handle. He shrugged off Viper’s hand. “Yes. You secure. I kill.”

With a hand signal to Duke, Viper took off, walking out into the open field toward the helicopter pad. They checked around the base of the pad, where the stairs up to the landing were, but there was no sign of an entrance.

Niko and Dani jogged after them. Viper pointed at them, “You two, stay behind me. We’re going to find the entrance and go down.”

They nodded uneasily, but stayed back.

Viper rounded one side, and Duke the other. The bottom of the pad rose up out of the ground like the grass had grown around it. There was no entrance he could find, until he saw Duke waiting along one side, and kept running along until he met up.

Dani and Niko stood behind Duke, and Gabriel behind them.

He saw what’d caught Duke’s attention, when he came alongside his friend. They lifted a thick panel that looked like it might’ve hidden electrical panels, but instead, it opened up into the base of the landing pad.

The entrance looked like an old Kansas tornado shelter, with steep stairs that weren’t meant for regular use. There was a rail, and the entrance was just wide enough for one person.

The sound of the ocean was louder than they’d been nearer the forest. Viper dropped his NODS for a moment and looked around. The grass ended abruptly about fifty yards away, and the drop off must’ve been right there.

He shifted the gun into his hands and put the NODS up. “We’re not far from the edge here. If we come out hot, we’re gonna have to watch our footing.”

“Noted.” Duke’s nod was short and fast. “We’re going in blind.”

“I know,” Viper said, his heartbeat ratcheting up.

“I’ll go in first,” the team leader said, and pointed along the near wall.

“Copy.”

“What about us?” Niko asked, stepping forward. “We have weapons. We can help.”

Duke’s sigh was heavy. “I’d rather you didn’t come down until we know the coast is clear.”

“I can’t hear anything down there,” Dani said. “Are you sure he’s really there?”

“You won’t be able to hear anything until we get past the walls,” Gabriel said, coming over Dani’s shoulder with his gun and pointing to the right. “I’ve seen into it, once, and I know there’s a hallway that way. But I patrolled this island for years before I knew this was here. None of us had ever been in there.”

“There had to be twenty kids on the monitors when we saw inside his security feeds,” Duke said with a heavy tone. “How could we not hear twenty heartbeats?”

“I don’t know. But until I got past the door, I couldn’t hear anything.” Gabriel’s chest heaved. “This was where he caught me.”

“Caught you?” Niko repeated, raising a blond eyebrow.

A loud wave crashed off to their right and the whole group flinched.

Viper had been trying to tune out all the residual noise, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that the cliffs were less than thirty paces away anymore. On this side of the landing pad, the ocean was overwhelming.

“I led a revolt of guards, trying to free the girls, and we followed him out here.” The islander’s voice choked off and he sucked a breath through his teeth. “I found the panel open, went downstairs into the hallway, and then… black.” He touched the collar with the muzzle of the M9. “I woke up in the cage with this on, and I’ve been down there for nine years.”

Viper’s tongue snaked around his teeth as he tried to hold in his fury. Rossi knocked out his own son and let other people fucking hunt him. He had more of a desire to waste the man than ever before.

But he’d promised Gabriel.

“Look. We don’t know what’s down there,” Duke said. “Let us go in first and clear the entry. Then, we’ll worry about the rest of you. Got it?”

Dani and Niko shared a look, but nodded.

The team leader pointed to the door and went down first. He tried the handle and his eyebrows tented when it opened under his hand. He burst through the door and Viper was right behind him with his M4 raised and ready.

Duke slid to the right at the bottom of the stairs inside, and Viper went left. It opened into a long hallway. They tried doors, but all were locked. Finally, at the end of Duke’s hall, there was an open one and Viper heard the grunt and looked up just as his friend went through it.

A loud gunshot echoed through the low, dark hallway, and a single flash of light lit the place in white for a short minute.

Viper ran toward the shot, but Niko and Dani slid into the hallway ahead of him, coming down from topside. He didn’t see them on the stairs, and tumbled over Gabriel.

Niko raised a pistol and went through the door, yelling, “Get your hands up!”

“Stop!” Viper yelled. “Stop!”

Another shot sounded. Louder, closer. The sound of a body hitting the floor, and Dani’s scream followed. Her smaller pistol fired, and Gabriel climbed across the floor, toward the room.

Viper jumped to his feet and scrambled after them.

“Papa!” the half-naked islander yelled, with his gun raised. “It’s Gabriel! Don’t shoot.” He went through the door, but there was no shot.

Viper ran in behind him, grabbing at him, and found himself falling to the floor, tripping.

The body wasn’t moving.

In the dark, he couldn’t see who it was, but his eyes searched the room, looking for Duke, for Niko. For Rossi.

Through the dimmness, one light cut through. It was from the end of Duke’s M4, and it was coming from a low vantage point, like whoever held it was on their knees.

He switched his on as well, and in the apex of the two crossed lights stood an old man in a dark shirt and white pants, holding a young girl in one hand and a gun in the other.

Adrian Rossi.

“Niko,” Dani whispered from the floor behind Viper.

“Fuck,” Duke swore under his breath.

Viper glanced over to see a shadow of his friend on his knees. His head dipped and the gun’s light dipped with it. He moved fast and caught his friend before he hit the ground. “What’s wrong?” he hissed.

“He shot me.” Duke grabbed at his breastbone. “Caught me in the clavicle.”

Viper hit his comm button and gave his call sign. “Ranger down. I repeat, Ranger down. In the bunker.” He lifted his finger from the button and opened Duke’s pack. “Just let me find the woundseal.”

A calm laughter echoed through the dark room and Viper trained his gun back on Rossi.

“Your radios won’t work down here, American.” He continued to laugh, his shoulders shaking. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”

“I know you’re a bastard and a psychopath,” Viper snarled.

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Gabriel said. “I’ve got him. You take care of your friend.” The man in the loincloth stepped in front of him. “Make one move and I’ll put a bullet right in your brain. And you know I can do it.”

From the floor near the door, Dani’s sobs cut through the sounds of Viper pulling open the woundseal. “Niko,” she whispered. The emotion choked out her full voice. “Niko. Niko.”

He looked around, trying to locate her, and he finally saw her, crouched over the body he’d tripped over. Niko wasn’t moving.

“Just let me finish here and I’ll look at him.”
Dammit.
Where was Hannah? Why had he told her to stay behind?

“Niko,” she kept chanting through tears. “Niko. Shit, Niko. Say something.”

“Don’t you move,” Gabriel said from somewhere in front of Duke, but out of his beam of light.

Viper’s gun was hanging at his side, which put his light into the ground. Still, there was enough of the other to make out Rossi’s figure, holding the young girl with the blonde hair. She might be a teenager, but she was probably younger. Her face was so blank, like she wasn’t feeling anything.