Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(148)

All those feelings, all just because he had been programmed . . . ?

No. He shook his head. “It’s a lie. Why mount those huge attacks? Why not have her drug me while f*cking me? She had opportunities. There was no reason to risk your people like that, if Lily was—”

“That was a miscalculation,” King said gravely. “I wanted you alive, for the purposes of my research, ad I wanted to perpetuate the fiction that Lily was an innocent victim under your protection for as long as possible. Had I known how difficult you’d be to subdue . . .” He shrugged. “By all means, I would have done as you suggested and had Lily take you out herself. Live and learn.”

“No.” Bruno just kept shaking his head, but King was laughing. He’d felt the impact of the barbs as they hit. He knew he’d won.

“I have some things to attend to right now, Bruno, but I see you are upset,” King said. “If you like, I could pronounce a phrase that will put you into a deep sleep, until I choose to wake you. What’ll it be? Sweet oblivion? Or would you prefer to writhe in agony in a locked room, contemplating how you doomed yourself for the sake of a traitorous bitch like Lily Parr?”

The words exploded out of him. “Go f*ck yourself.”

King chortled. “Ah, Bruno. Why am I not surprised. Just like your mother. You don’t know when to stop. Hobart, Julian, take him away.”

They cut the bindings, fastened his legs to his hands. The hood swallowed him, drawstring pulled choke-tight. They dragged him somewhere. A door opened. He was flung onto a wooden floor. The door scraped shut. Locking mechanisms turned, clicked. He tried for oblivion himself, by sheer force of will, but his brain, flash-fried on stress hormones, didn’t have that setting available.

Which left him with only writhing agony as an option.





32


Kev hit the floor. He saw Petrie lunge across Zia Rosa’s lap. The picture window was shattered, glass everywhere. Coffee table, too.

Kev looked around for Sean across the carpet strewn with demitasse cups, spattered co





ffee, broken cookies, shattered glass.

And blood. Costantina sprawled next to the upended metal frame of the coffee table, mouth gaping. Her throat was a raw, bloody mess. Blood pooled behind her head. Her tangle of knotted gold jewelry was like a red wet noose around her neck.

Sean poked his head around the couch. Their eyes met. Zia was yelling. Kev could barely hear it. Deafened by gunfire. The yelling was a good sign. At least she was alive. Petrie still lay across her lap, hand pressed to his side. His hand was red. Ah, shit. Not a good sign.

Kev pointed to himself, gestured toward the foyer. Pointed to Sean, then toward the shattered picture window. Sean nodded.

Kev writhed on his belly over the rug. Don Gaetano lay on his side, each breath a labored whimper. Flecks of blood spattered his lips and chin. He clutched his gut, his hand dripping. Shot in the belly, and it looked like he’d taken one in the thigh, too. Kev was sorry, but he kept on crawling into the foyer. Couldn’t see out the windows this low, couldn’t tell how many assailants there were, where they were shooting from. He slithered up the stairs to the first landing, peeked between the banister slats, through the high, towering windows.

He saw nobody on the lawn. He kept looking, waiting . . .

There! A spot of green, shifting and moving against the rosebushes in the fountain. Darting behind the door and coming this way. Kev clambered up onto the banister, poised himself. Leaped into empty space. He caught the huge wrought iron candeliera, hung on like a monkey. It swung through the air like a pendulum, creaking madly, the bolts sunk into the wall straining. He willed m to hold.

He careened in wide, lazy arcs, trying to drag himself up into a ball. In the other room, he could just barely see Sean crouched near the picture window. His brother peered past the drapes swaying in gusts of wind. He looked up, shook his head. Kev jerked his chin at the door.

Sean positioned himself, drew his weapon. The candeliera’s swinging was slowing, but it creaked and cast a moving shadow. Slower . . . slower. Swaying. Kev held his breath. The handle turned.

The barrel of an assault rifle preceded the guy into the room—no. Not a guy. They were slender, brown female hands that held the M4. An emaciated woman in combat gear, a drab green cap on her head.

She looked up to see what the shadow was. Bam, Sean squeezed off a shot. She stumbled back, and rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, pumped more rounds into the living room. Kev prayed she hadn’t hit Sean, Zia, or Petrie, but he was airborne now, heading for the killer like a sack of cement—

Thud, he hit her. They slammed to the ground together.

Kev had his Beretta 8000 under the woman’s jaw before she could recover. She was dazed and unresisting. Sean scrambled in on his belly.

“That’s the one who came at us at the cabin,” he said, yanking plastic ratcheted cuffs out of his pack. “I saw her through the scope. Are there more?”

“Don’t know yet. Didn’t see any.”

Sean fastened the woman’s hands behind her back. Then her feet.

“One more look,” Kev said. “I take the door, you the window?”

Sean nodded. He crawled on his belly back to the living room while Kev edged closer to the gaping door. On his feet. Back to the wall.

He spun, Beretta at the ready . . .

No one there, just the wind, sighing, whipping the trees. He took a step out onto the porch. A nondescript white Volvo sedan idled on the street. No backup. She’d come alone? What the f*ck?