On The Rocks (45 page)

Wow, Lennox really had left her again. That
shouldn’t have bothered her. She knew how he—

Rook darted across the road; a figure
flashed in the windshield, waving maniacally. The man spun out of
the street just as the cottage behind him exploded.

Eyes wide, Kizzie slammed the brakes and
jerked the wheel hard, barreling toward the hillside to avoid the
flaming house.

Something flared in the headlights; a steel
bar shot across her chest.

And then the world went black.

ARMED WITH A submachine gun, Abrahan tore
through the party, cutting a wide path through the dancers as he
went. His clothes were disheveled, his hair was a mess, and there
was blood on his shoes. But none of that mattered now. He had a man
to find and kill.

Sanzio.

This entire ordeal, start to finish, was his
little brother’s fuck up.

Zio had lied about not taking that woman
back to his house, and as it turned out, she was not Metis, but a
spy. The leak the
real
Metis had warned him about.

Because of Sanzio, Abrahan’s beautiful house
was now in shambles, with panels of glass shot out and shattered.
Plus
he’d cost Abrahan the NOC list, and four million
dollars of his own money instead of Duquesne’s.

And now his men had lost Xander, his wife,
and that bitch he’d been with.

Abrahan’s brow lowered and he ground his
teeth. Since they were kids Sanzio had been fucking up. But no
more. He was well and truly done with his brother this night.

As he marched over to the stairway,
shouldering through the few people crowded near the doors, a new
thought entered his mind: Had Sanzio set all this up? Had his
brother intentionally brought the woman here so
he
could
steal the NOC list? Were they in on this together from the very
start?

Sanzio was jealous of him. Had been his
entire life. He wanted what Abrahan had but didn’t want to do the
work. Could his baby brother have finally bested him?

He chuckled. That would almost make all this
worthwhile.

But it would also mean his lazy, shiftless
sibling would have to apply himself. Sanzio was too dim to come up
with a plan so elaborate. Now he just needed to find him and chew
him out.

A hand clapped over his good ear to dampen
the noise still pounding not far away, Abrahan rushed down the
flight of stairs. He jogged through a short hallway and arrived at
his brother’s bedroom door.

“
Maninho!
” Without knocking he threw
the panel wide and pulled up short.

The lights were on, illuminating the
beautiful room and revealing the poor state it was in. Cheap
clothes and flip-flops littered the marble floor. Empty bottles of
liquor lined the dressers, as well as trash— a candy wrapper here,
a napkin there.

The comforter was shoved to the foot of the
king-size four-poster, the silk sheets tangled, the pillows
dangling. And the wall of glass was smudged and grimy, marring the
most gorgeous view of the endless black sea painted with a strip of
shimmery moonlight.

Abrahan sighed heavily. The disarray was
typical of Sanzio, everything out of sorts. But one thing was
missing. Noise. That chaos Sanzio was never without.

He wasn’t here.

Spinning on his heel, he marched down the
hall toward his bedroom, checking each room in between to no
avail.

Where was Sabine?

He should have a guard check to be sure his
wife was all right. He’d completely forgotten about her in the
ruckus.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and
dialed 1.

“
Alô
?” his guard said almost
immediately.

“Check to—” Abrahan stopped in his tracks.
“No…” The phone slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor,
splintering apart.

There, just outside his bedroom door, Sanzio
laid face down on the floor. A puddle of rich red blood surrounded
him, the raw, meaty scent infecting the air.

“No!
Maninho!
” Abrahan rushed over.
He dropped to the floor and set the gun down, flipped his brother
onto his back.

“Please! Please, help! Somebody, help!” He
dragged his brother’s limp body onto his lap.

Sanzio’s bright eyes were dull black beads
in his head. His mouth was closed, that loose black hair slicked
back with blood.

Abrahan dragged in breaths through his nose,
forced them right back out the same way. Over and over.

His body shook with fear.

With rage!

He would kill Duquesne for this.

He would kill them
all
for this!

“Please,
maninho
,” he begged, his
voice low and small. Tears fell from his eyes as he cradled his
brother’s cheek to his own. “Please don’t be dead. Please…”

Quiet.

Sanzio was quiet…

Abrahan
screamed
until he was heard
over the crash of waves on the rocks.

Screamed
until he was heard over the
four winds residing on these cliffs.

Screamed
until his voice was but a
whisper in his throat…

Until silence was king.

And that noise would reign in his head
forever.

29

“SHIT,” XANDER MUTTERED. His head hurt.
Shoulder too. And he was dizzy as all get out. But since he’d used
his skull to stop from going through the window of a sports car,
feeling slightly concussed afterward was a given.

Straight ahead, a solid tree trunk was where
the center of the hood should be. It had stopped their forward
progress pretty handily, and also prevented them from sliding down
the side of the hill. Compared to the sheer cliffs, the grade here
was gentle, but after an accident a slip and slide would just be
piling on the salt.

Still seeing Tweety birds, Xander winced as
he turned his head slowly toward the driver’s seat. Kizzie’s head
was on the deflated airbag. Did his own airbag even deploy?

He couldn’t be sure. Also unknown, was that
whirring sound the motor still running or his brain shaking
loose?

He did get an answer to the shoulder issue.
His arm was extended, pinned beneath Kizzie’s chest. He’d thrown it
out to keep her back and the odd angle put a strain on his joint.
Grimacing, he tugged and tugged until his arm was free.

“Hey,” he said thickly, his voice sounding
slurred and far away. “You all right?”

Silence.

As his brain came back online, he did an
internal assessment for pain; moved a bit to check for breaks. Gave
his shoulder a gentle roll and it crunched like it always did,
those little chipped off bone fragments grinding as they grated
past one another. There was a pain in his side from a gun digging
into his hip, but apart from that he couldn’t find anything else
immediately pressing. Tomorrow he’d be sore all over, but he’d had
enough accidents to know that, short-term, adrenaline worked like
morphine.

Working slower than he’d like, Xander
unbuckled his seat belt, reached over to get Kizzie’s free.

Both of them unclipped, he ran his hand over
her head. Down her neck and shoulders.

“Kizzie.”

She was so still.
Too
still.

His heart kicked up a notch, but he kept his
mind on task. Panic wouldn’t help her if she was injured. He felt
for her pulse and found one. Gently prodded her head for knots.

“Baby, are you hurt?”

Eternity came and went before she answered,
her voice just a low whisper. “Ouch.”

A laugh scraped from his throat in a hard
burst. It hurt to smile, but he had confirmation that brain of hers
was still sending snark to her mouth.

She turned to him, her gorgeous face twisted
into a grimace. “See? Told you I could drive a stick.”

On a deep breath, Kizzie pushed back from
the steering wheel and gingerly rotated her neck and shoulders.
“You okay?”

“Can’t lie,” he said. “It’s been a rough
night. Glad this isn’t my ride. Insurance is gonna skyrocket.” She
chuckled softly and he smiled a little. “Wanna get out of
here?”

“Dunno. Kinda cozy all crunched up like
this.”

Cozy was one way of putting it. But he
needed to hold her, like being connected from hip to heart would
ensure that she was okay. Couldn’t do that inside a compacted
car.

“Come—”

Her door flew open. One moment Kizzie was
beside him, the next she was being sucked out the driver’s side,
screaming.

Xander popped the handle on his door but it
didn’t budge. Again, this time with his good shoulder in it, and
still no dice. The windows were low-slung, and not an option for
his large frame. He crawled over the mangled center console head
first, slithering out through Kizzie’s door on his hands. His long
legs and feet dragged behind him until he was completely free of
the car, and then he scrambled to get vertical.

Took a couple tries.

In the glow of the raging fire, Kizzie
struggled against the man hauling her away. That got Xander’s feet
working just fine, and as his anger rose he started moving in her
direction.

“Goddammit, Lennox,” Kizzie screamed, “let
me go!”

Hello, DEFCON 1!

“We gotta move,
chuchu
,” Lennox said.
“You gotta trust me on this.”

Xander homed in on the asshole with his paws
on his sub. He’d been on edge all night, and now he didn’t have to
hold back.

Especially not with Lennox Tate.

Lennox had taken one of the few people on
earth Xander loved. Had changed his life forever. Hacked out half
his heart.

And he wanted blood.

Anything that resembled pain gave way to
rage. More than rage.

Madness.

Xander let the feeling take him over, let it
propel him across the grass and debris that littered it. Controlled
Dom was gone and there was nothing but a savage in his place.

Kizzie reached for him and he pried her out
of Lennox’s grip. Practically tossed her aside.

She landed with a hiss behind him, and
though the thought crossed his mind to check on her, it was
outvoted by the hard right he landed on Lennox’s jaw.

The man’s head snapped to the side, but not
hard enough to kill him as Xander had hoped. Xander let another
fist fly, and Lennox dodged it, threw a jab of his own that caught
Xander in the stomach. The wind shot out of him, and then a knee
was coming up fast. Xander dove forward before it could connect. He
yanked Lennox off his feet and slammed his back to the ground.

A grunt barked out of the other man’s throat
with the impact, and Xander seized the moment. He angled away and
threw another hammer that opened up a cut over Lennox’s eye.

The sight of blood made the rage more
potent, the savage hungrier. Xander struck him again, and again,
working that spot until the pain in his heart was so intense he
thought he’d die from it.

Killing Lennox wouldn’t be enough. He had to
suffer.

Xander reached back again, ready to let go
when a weight made it impossible for his arm to move.

“…
Kill him, X!”

That’s what he was trying to do.

“Stop, Xander! Stop!”

Breathing hard, he whipped his head up and
glared at Kizzie through the thick anger in his eyes. She glanced
down at Lennox, then back at him. Her hand came to his face, her
palm too soft for this violence. “You’re going to kill him.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a
statement, more like a warning. Like she thought he didn’t know how
much damage he was causing.

But until Lennox was dead, no damage would
be enough.

Once Lennox was dead, would
that
be
enough?

A flash of fear beat through his chest but
Xander kicked it back. Reached for the gun at his hip. Pushed to
his feet just as Lennox moaned.

Did the man even remember him? He had to. It
was imperative that he knew what he was dying for.

Who
he was dying for.

That’s all that made Xander pause.
Otherwise, Lennox’s life would have ended then and there.

Lennox blinked his eyes open. Looked to
Kizzie. Came back to him. “What the fuck…” he muttered.

He tried to sit up but Xander stomped his
side. “Stay down, Tate.”

Clutching his ribs, Lennox frowned up at
him. “Do I know you?”

Xander kept the gun aimed at the man’s heart
and crouched low enough for Lennox to see him better. “You tell
me.”

It took a minute, but when the recognition
hit, Lennox’s entire face blanched.

Good. He did remember…

This could end now.

Xander stepped back. Cocked back the
hammer.

“
This
is the someone,
chuchu
?
Him
?” Lennox asked through bloody teeth. He shook his head.
“Oh, you fucked up big, Kizzie. You fucked up so big. It all makes
sense now.”

“What makes sense?” she asked. Xander had
almost forgotten she was there. “What the hell are you talking
about, Lennox?”

“I killed you. I know I killed you. How the
fuck are you still alive, John?” Lennox asked, ignoring her.

“Could ask you the same thing, except,”
Xander lined up the muzzle with the man’s head, “in a moment, you
won’t be.”

Lennox laughed. Then he laughed some more
until the ridiculous sound of his giggling echoed all around
them.

“Go ahead, John. Do it. Shoot me in front of
her.” Lennox shifted his gaze to Kizzie. “Kill me the same way you
did— What was her name?”

“Martina.” Saying the name shot a dose of
white-hot rage up Xander’s spine and down his arm. His finger
caressed the trigger lovingly, but he wanted this to last. Like
edging with anger, he waited for that first wave to subside. The
next would be stronger, and harder to push back.

But the release would be so sweet.

He could feel Kizzie’s gaze burning into his
face. He risked a glance her way and sure enough her eyes were on
him, wide and confused.