Chad's Chase (Loving All Wrong Book 2) (38 page)

The idle cars Chad had passed on the way here were not men of Rafail’s. They were of Org’s. And they’d been ordered, by Chad, to keep tail on Sambo the minute he left with Jhay.

Rafail wouldn’t have come there by car, because he was a fool who thought of himself bigger than he really was. Always drawing attention to himself. Chad knew without a doubt there was a helicopter out the back, pitched on the acres of land surrounding this house. Which explained how they got inside the residence without a code to the front gates.

Weapon in the back of his waist, Chad eyed the gun in his father’s hand, then all the areas he suspected the other men were. Two thick logs serving as decorative columns, parallel to each other. Hiding spot. A bookshelf on the far wall behind his father. Hiding spot. A storage room to the left of him. Hiding spot. An indoor tree plant to the right. Hiding spot…Chad kept eying them all.

When he brought his shrewd, prudent gaze back to Rafail’s, the slight widening of his father’s eyes told him he’d guessed all the spots correctly.

Understanding the peril, Rafail spared no more seconds, and time slowed as he flexed his index finger on the trigger.

With each step Chad had made earlier toward his father, he’d calculatingly, undetectably, shifted half an inch to the left, which manipulated Rafail’s aim a quarter of an inch off Chad’s right temple. Knowing the man would be too unassuming, unskilled, unaware, to even notice what Chad was doing.

Watching the finger on the trigger, Chad concentrated, and one, two, three seconds before Rafail fully pulled back, Chad smoothly tilted his head to the side as if dodging a bee, and the bullet that should have pierced through his temple whizzed by in a glint of heat and grazed the top of his ear.

Without giving Rafail the chance to realize he’d missed, Chad dove to the side while simultaneously whipping out his Walther from his waist, but landed solidly hard on his side before he could fire.

Frantic, Rafail popped off another wild shot as he shouted, “Kill him!”

Before any of the men could emerge from the peep spots, Chad aimed precisely and unambiguously, capped his father in both knees, swift and easy, then quickly rolled behind a long leather couch.

He upturned the thing just as bullets started flying his way. The couch could be his shield for no more than a few seconds.

He had one gun. A Walther P22. A magazine with eight rounds left. Eight rounds he had to use economically and efficiently.

Judging by the gunfire, experience told him there were exactly five shooters. None of those five shooters had hit him yet, which meant they were keeping a distance.

Straight-up cowardice.

Reaching for his mirror aviators hooked on his front pocket, he angled the thing slightly above the couch to check where each man was situated. The nearest shooters to him were the one who’d been in the storage room, and the one who’d been behind the tree plant. The two from behind the log columns were taking baby steps towards the couch, while the fifth was guarding a prone Rafail.

A bullet slapped the aviators from his fingers.

Fuck. He loved those.

Reinforcing his grip on his P22, he decided to take out the two nearest shooters first. With his free arm, he gripped under the bottom of the sofa and flipped the thing over in one direction while he dove in the opposite direction, which landed him by the fireplace.

When the shooters predictably began blasting bullets at the innocent couch, in that split second before they could realize his tactic, Chad fluently took out the man beside the tree plant. Pop—one bullet through the neck. Thud—down he went. Then the other from the storage room. Pop—one bullet through the eye. Thud—down he went.

As the shooter guarding Rafail popped two embarrassingly off rounds at him and missed, Chad decided this rookie didn’t deserve the beloved bullets in his gun, so he instead reached above him for the fire poker from the fireplace and adeptly speared it straight at the guy. The fire poker unerringly pierced right through his heart. Thud—another one down.

Before Chad could think to take cover from the other two down by the log posts, he heard the unmistakable sound of a suppressed gunfire.

Thud—down went man number four.

Another suppressed fire and, thud—man number five down.

The fuck?

Chad hopped to his feet, and all of a sudden Org’s men, who he’d specifically instructed to follow Sambo, were in the house.

No.

The light from the front door shifted, and Chad glanced over to see Org standing there.

No.

If they were all here, then… “Where the fuck is Jhay?”

Org tutted. “Oh, Shadreek. Ever so discourteous. How about you start with, ‘
thank you for saving my life, Org
’?”

Chad felt like his heart was going to implode into a red splatter of blood and arteries. “You gave me control over them. I told them what to do.
Why
are they here?”

“To save you,” Org artlessly replied.

“I don’t need fucking saving.”

There were only two people in this world who could break Chad’s calm and make him so fucking infuriated he felt like he would poke his own eyeballs out or bite off his own tongue. And those two people were Jhay and Org.

Like father, like daughter.

Org entered the house, stepped over Clementine’s body like she was just a twig in a dry forest, and headed for the one good sofa chair in the room.

Org was a tall man. Over six feet four, with a full head of white hair and emerald-green eyes, exactly like his daughter’s. Six years Rafail’s senior, he’d inherited his seat in The Organization since age nineteen. Three years prior to Jhay, he’d gotten a son. This foolhardy son had volunteered to be an assassin for The Organization, only to end up dying on his second assignment.

Jhay was all he had left, a daughter he searched a dozen years to find. Never married, he’d only ever loved one woman, Jhay’s mother. Aside from that love, Org was an emotionally detached, heartless, cold, inexpressive man, who had some serious fucking issues. He didn’t care to let his daughter know the truth, that he was her real father. He only wanted her to remain alive and safe, and Chad presumed this was so she could carry on his legacy.

No other reasons. Not because he loved her. Not because he was a father who cared about his long-lost daughter.

“You know, Shadreek,” Org began once he was settled in the sofa chair, “for years you have been acclaimed as ‘the best The Organization had ever seen’. But after today, I have to say differently; you are the stupidest man I have ever known.”

Chad opted not to respond to that, because he knew where he was going with this.

“You told me what you discovered about Sambo and Rafail,” Org continued, “and I gave you complete control of my entire team. Instead of using this power to your advantage, all you did was hand your woman over to another man, and hand your life over to your power-hungry father. I do not understand this.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Because he was a selfish headfuck who thought only of himself, and had he been the one in this position, he would’ve risked Jhay’s life to save his own skin.

Chad, on the other hand, wanted Jhay as far away from this scene as possible. He never told her about this, because if he had, and told her he didn’t want her there, she would’ve told him she wasn’t a little girl and insist on staying and facing Rafail with him. And if he’d allowed her, then she wound up dead in the process, he never would be able to live with himself.

His ordering Jhay to stay in the car was a test to prove to himself that he’d made the right decision shutting her out. Her inability to do as he’d ordered told him he had.

Yes, he knew she was a badass who could fight her boots off and hold her own, but she needed a fucking break. She’d had enough shit handed her already. So if he could fight their war for both of them, that’s what he’d be doing.

Sambo, he would deal with later. The guy had banked wrong in believing Rafail would let Jhay live. Sambo knew Jhay was Org’s daughter, but what he didn’t know was that Org named Jhay as the inheritor of his seat as the Pinnacle in The Organization. Had Sambo known this, he would’ve detected right off the bat that Rafail was spitting shit.

Rafail’s main goal was to steal the Pinnacle’s seat in The Organization. And as long as Jhay was alive, that seat would never be his.

“You don’t need to understand,” Chad retorted. “
Where.
Is
.
Jhay?”

Org looked away, eyed a wounded Rafail, who was watching them with obvious confusion, then back at Chad. “I am letting Sambo keep her.”

Wha—?

Faster than he even knew he could move, Chad was looming over Org with the P22 pressed to his forehead. “What did you just say?” His words were a hoarse whisper.

From the periphery of his vision, Chad could see the men around them raising their weapons up and down, up and down, unsure whom they were supposed to defend. And that in itself befuddled Chad.

Why would they question who their commander was?

Org didn’t even flinch, raising his bored eyes to Chad’s. “I am letting Sambo keep her because I am naming you instead of her as the inheritor of my seat. I do not want my daughter in this life anymore.”

Struck speechless, Chad removed his gun. “W-what?”

“That is preposterous!” Rafail barked from the floor. “He is not your blood. He cannot supplant you.”

With a wearied wave of his hand, Org ordered, “One of you, put another in his leg and shut him up for me, please.”

Even as his father’s shout rang out from the silenced slug to his leg, Chad didn’t look. He couldn’t. Just shooting him alone made him feel like a traitorous asshole.

But what he planned for dear old Daddy, was that any better than a cap to the leg?

Ignoring Rafail’s Russian curses, Org continued, “When I get rid of your father, Shadreek, you will inherit his seat. Now, if while alive and in a sound mind I name you as my inheritor with indisputable reasons why you are better to lead The Organization than anyone else within, no one will mind that we are not blood. Reason one, you are the son of a previous Height. Reason two, you were once an unfailing assassin for us. In fact, I have already discussed this with the six high-seats—excluding your father—and they all think you will be perfect for supplanting me as Pinnacle. The gavel is yours.”

Chad tightened his grip on his gun, and if the thing weren’t steel, he was certain it would be crushed to dust.

“You will stay, and govern. The authority I gave you over my men does not expire until you die. My army is now your army. They do as you say.”

“No,” Chad declined, shaking his head and moving a step back. “I don’t want any of this. Let my father live. Let him have it. I don—”

“Your father deserves death!” That was the first time Chad had ever heard Org raise his voice. Like Chad, he was usually calm, cool, collected, unruffled and unemotional. “Time and time again he tries to usurp me and I spare him. Time and time again he breaks the rules, kills innocents, and
you
save him! Unless you kill me, Shadreek, you cannot save him this time. Why do you want him to live even after you found out he kept my daughter imprisoned for
twelve years
?”

“He’s my father—”

“A father who has tried a dozen and one times to kill you!” Org yelled, shooting up from the chair.

The tone of his voice, the emotion in it, was what Chad was searching for. Chad had suspected the old man cared for him. He had no idea why, but he knew.

Because the old man was so careful with his emotions, and his pretension that nothing mattered, Chad had decided he would manipulate him right into admitting it.

Org’s reaction right now…he was almost like a father protecting his son, wanting to avenge him. And this whole moment, the emotions, the display of humanity was what Chad had wanted out of him.

Org cared about him like a son.

“He will die by my bare hands,” Org roared on, acerbic, hateful, “for what he did to Isabel, for what he did to Jhay, for what he did to that innocent pregnant woman, and for what he did to you.”

“You are Org,” Chad said. “Your decisions are final.” Then he grinned at the old man, dropping the act, and revealing his true intentions, because fucking with people’s emotions got old sometimes.

“What is with the teeth?” Org asked, giving Chad the wary eye.

“I’ll not allow you to kill my father. And I won’t kill him either. But that’s not because I want him to live.” Chad tucked his gun in his waist. “It’s because death is too kind.”

“What does that mean?” Org asked.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get to watch.”

Ameliorated, Org nodded and sat back down, trusting him.

“But,” Chad continued, “I don’t care to be a part of The Organization.”

Org laughed, shifted his gaze to a resigned Rafail, and then back to Chad. “You already are, son. And when I step down, you will not be a
part
of The Organization. You will
be
The Organization. You will no longer be Shadreek. You will be”—a slow, arrogant grin here—”
Org
.”

As Chad made to protest again, Org pointed a stiff, bony finger at him. “You know how this works, Shadreek. Once you are named as an inheritor, you cannot run from your duties. Wherever you are in the world, you will be found, and you will be forced to assume your seat. Or die.”

Chad realized then that, even though he’d given up his legacy for his freedom, his freedom was never returned in its entirety, because his father had stolen it from him the second he named him as his inheritor.

True, he had no choice in the matter, because with his father out, Chad was already a part of The Organization.

However, if he would be forced to be a part of it, it wasn’t going to be how Org dictated.

Jhay would hold the gavel. It was rightfully hers, not his. She might not be qualified enough to lead, but he would be right there by her side counseling her.

Now, he just had to find her. Org was playing a fucking head game with him, and Chad wouldn’t be the one who lost.

“Okay.”

Org watched him with plain suspicion, questioning his sudden acceptance, no doubt.