Slaying the Dragon (Deception Duet #2) (46 page)

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Frankie! She has
everything
to do with this. I’ve been looking forward to this day for years. I thought I’d be happy knowing you were dead, and I was, but it faded. I’ve tried recreating that high for years now.
Years
! Nothing’s worked. And I know there’s only one thing that will! Finally killing you isn’t enough. I need something more! An eye for a fucking eye, Frankie!” he screeched out in a shrill voice.
 

“You already killed my wife! Let Serafina go and take me! Then we’re even!”

“No! As long as she’s still alive, we’ll never be even! Did I forget to mention that my wife, the love of my
fucking
life, was pregnant? I will never have peace in this world unless I do this,” he said, the blade pushing into me even harder, drawing blood.

“You won’t be able to walk away from this,” my dad said, trying to rationalize with him, but I knew it was useless. Richard was mad, completely irrational.

“I don’t care about that! I don’t want to walk away from this! I should have died in that forest, but I was sentenced to live a life without my soul mate instead! I welcome death at this point. But, first, I need to make this right! I need to restore the natural order of things!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him raise the knife. Fear washed over me as it closed in on me once more. Time passed in slow motion and my entire body trembled, the blade growing closer with each drawn-out second.

I met my father’s eyes, wanting the last thing I saw to be one of love. “
Lo siento
,” he whispered as a loud gunshot echoed.

Stunned, I looked down to see blood streaming down my chest as I fell to the ground.

Tyler

“W
HERE
IS
HE
?” I hissed, pressing my gun against Ranko’s throat as Eli drove through the streets toward the hotel Richard ran. I still couldn’t believe he was behind it. I had done background checks on the guy and came up empty. He was clean… A little too clean, which should have been a giant red flag. Instead, I chose to believe he was simply a man who had never done anything to bring attention to himself. It was eating me up that this had gone on for months when the answer was right under our noses.

“What makes you think I’m going to tell you?” he spat out in a thick accent, his blue eyes narrowed on me in a malicious way. “Go ahead and report me to immigration! I know people who have been waiting for their hearing for years! You don’t scare me!”

“You’re absolutely right. Deportation is one thing. You could sit in a holding cell for months, maybe even years, while your removal hearing is pending. So threatening deportation won’t really work, will it? But imagine if you get a visit from Emil Kovac, your old boss, who you stole… How much was it, Eli?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder as Eli continued to drive.

“My sources say it was over a hundred million.”

I whistled, smiling coyly at Ranko. “That’s a lot of green. I’m sure Kovac is just itching to get his hands on you. From what I’ve heard, he’s a bit of a sadistic fuck, isn’t he, Eli?”

“Sure is. I heard he hooks up electrodes to his victims’ testicles. He likes to watch them suffer, usually for days, before finally killing them.”

“Days…” I shook my head. “That’s a long time to have to suffer through that kind of torture, don’t you think?” I sighed. “So, what’s it going to be? You can tell me where your buddy, Viktor, is. Or you get to enjoy a few hundred volts of electricity running through your balls. Your choice.”

Sweat dotted his brow and his body began to quiver. “Hibiscus,” he said softly.

“What was that?”

“He owns a vacation rental on Hibiscus. He asked me to meet him there this afternoon, said it was very important.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he answered quickly. “He doesn’t fill me in on any of the details. He just tells me where I need to be and when, and what he expects me to do. All I know is he was planning something big today.”

“Something big? Like what?”

“He said this was the end game.”

“Shit,” I muttered just as my phone vibrated in my pocket. “Eli. Step on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Keeping my gun trained on Ranko, I fished my cell out of my pocket, a number I didn’t recognize flashing on the screen.

“Burnham here,” I answered curtly.

“Tyler?” Jenna’s small voice sobbed out. My face immediately paled, knowing Mackenzie was supposed to be having coffee with her at this precise moment. I hated that I had insisted they get together at her place, the home she shared with Richard, instead of somewhere else. I convinced her to go right into the lion’s den.

“Jenna, are you okay?”

“No! Richard, he…”

“What happened? Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she choked out. “I was getting ready to go into the restaurant this afternoon, and he was crazed. Manic. I had never seen him like that before. I tried to get away, but…” Her voice became strained, her cries growing louder. “He attacked me. I thought he was going to kill me. The last thing I remember was him slamming me against the wall in our bedroom. The next thing I knew, I was being woken up by the head of housekeeping. It’s Wednesday, and she cleans our condo every Wednesday. God knows how long I would have been locked in there if she didn’t come. I didn’t know where else to go so I went to Brayden’s, but he’s still at work. I’m just really scared to be alone right now.”

“Jenna, did you text Mackenzie today and ask her to meet you for coffee?”

“What?” she asked, sounding confused. “No. Why?”

I let out a long breath and tried to control my nerves. “Don’t worry about it. Have you gone to the police?”

“Not yet. I didn’t know what to do so I called you first.”

“Good. I’m going to text Martin to come get you. He’ll bring you to my place and make sure nothing happens to you.”

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“No,” I said dejectedly. “I don’t think so.”

Eli turned onto Hibiscus and Richard’s car, as well as a dark sedan, came into view, parked a block ahead of us.

“I’ll be in touch,” I said quickly, then hung up.

Pinning my gun against Ranko’s temple one more time, I growled, “Stay here!” Jumping out of the car, Eli following, I tread carefully on the gravel driveway leading up to the simple one-story beach house Ranko said he was to meet Richard this afternoon.

Every crunch of rock seemed to be amplified ten-fold as I listened to two distinct male voices reverberating from inside the house, one with a thick eastern European accent that had to be Richard. I chambered a round and gingerly walked up the wooden steps and onto the porch, my feet light.

I peered into the window and my heart dropped when I saw Richard holding Mackenzie, a knife at her throat. I tried to see who Richard was talking to, but was unable. I feared the worst would happen if we went in through the front door. Richard would be able to see us and react before we could even get off a shot. Meeting Eli’s eyes, I signaled that we would head around the wrap-around porch and enter through the back door. Nodding, he followed.

My heart echoed in my ears as I turned the knob of the door, hoping the low click didn’t alert anyone to our presence. Before I could make sense of what was going on, a gunshot sounded and I snapped my head up to see Colonel Francis Galloway, Mackenzie’s flesh and blood, holding a smoking gun, both Mackenzie and Richard falling to the ground in a heap.

“No!” I bellowed, firing at Francis before I had time to figure out what just happened.

“Hold your fire!” Eli shouted when Francis fell from the two shots I was able to get off to his shoulder and chest.

“He killed her! It was him all along!” I ran to Mackenzie, cradling her in my arms, blood pouring from a through-and-through bullet wound to her upper chest.

“No,” she squeaked out, her breathing strained as her eyes met mine. “He killed Richard.”

“What?” I studied her, looking for an answer.

“He’s not a monster. He slew the real dragon. If he didn’t, Richard would have…” She swallowed hard, her breathing uneven as she shivered.

“I’m so sorry, Serafina,” I whimpered, her body growing limp in my arms. “I should have gotten here sooner.”

“No,” she breathed, grabbing my arm with her cold hand. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You gave me something I never thought I’d ever have.”

“What?” I asked, barely able to see through my tears.

“A home.”

I let out a loud sob, not caring that anyone saw me cry. I wanted them to see me like this, to see that I was human, that I couldn’t bear the thought of history repeating itself.

“Promise me one thing,” she said, her voice growing softer.

“What’s that?”

“Save our baby.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our baby comes first. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

I shook my head, refusing to listen. “Stop talking like that. You’re going to be fine. It’s just a shot to your shoulder. People survive those wounds all the time. It barely grazed you,” I choked out, staring at the blood covering my hands. I was more than aware that even typically non-fatal bullet wounds could become fatal if not treated in time.

A slight smile crossed her mouth. “You’re a horrible liar.”

“I’m not lying. I’ve waited my entire life for you. Do you think I’m just going to let you give up?”

“Please, Tyler. Promise me. If it comes to having to decide, you’ll choose our son.”

I continued to shake my head, the reality of having to make that decision gutting me.

“Please…” Her breathing grew shallow and I knew she was on the brink of losing consciousness.

Sighing, I nodded, although the thought of losing her ripped me apart. A content smile crossing her face, she closed her eyes as she struggled to breathe. Sirens grew closer and closer, but they still sounded like they were miles away.

“Chase the demons away, Tyler,” she whispered, opening her eyes once more, a lone tear falling down her cheek.

I lowered my lips to hers, wishing I could breathe life back into her. Kissing her softly, I sang the words to “Every Time We Say Goodbye”, barely able to get through the lyrics, praying this wasn’t the last time we would ever say goodbye.

Tyler

I
T
WAS
A
FRANTIC
scene as I followed the paramedics out of the ambulance and into the emergency room, nurses and doctors meeting us before we could even take two steps. They spoke in medical terms I couldn’t understand, and I had no idea what anything meant.

“Sir.”

I snapped my head up to see a woman with green scrubs addressing me.

“How far along is your wife?”

“Almost thirty-eight weeks,” I answered.

“Okay. She’s lost a lot of blood. If there’s any chance of us saving the baby, we need to perform a C-section, but that means we have to delay operating on her own wounds.”

I nodded solemnly, taking a deep breath as I remembered the promise I made to Mackenzie. “I understand. I promised her I’d save the baby.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile before following the stretcher through a pair of swinging doors, one of the nurses staying behind to ensure I didn’t follow. I retreated down the hallway, watching as the second ambulance arrived carrying Mackenzie’s father, the paramedics pumping oxygen into him as they ran him down the same corridor.

I paced the empty sitting area, time seeming to crawl as I desperately waited for someone to come to me with good news to put my concerns at ease. But I had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen.

Falling into a chair, I buried my head in my hands, trying to figure everything out. I had no idea how everything went down. How had Richard, or Viktor, gotten away with what he did for years? I feared the only people who could answer those questions wouldn’t survive, leaving the rest of us with more questions than answers.

“Tyler!” Eli shouted, snapping me out of my thoughts as he barreled into the waiting room.

I stood up and hugged him briefly before noticing the crazed look on his face. “What is it?”

“This,” he said, shoving an iPad at me.