Page 145 of Tormented
FORTY-ONE
Sawyer
I left the damn bag behind.
A wash of panic makes its way from my head to my toes as the beep of the gate control echoes around my skull. Fuck.
Shouldn’t have let the girl distract you . . . .
Didn’t see you reminding me either, asshole.
I pocket the access card and slip toward the open gate, the crunch of my brothers’ boots on the gravel the only other sound. Floodlights click on in succession across the property, left to right.
We’re sprung, sooner than I’d planned.
Fucker really has upped his security since I broke out.
“No point fucking around now,” Tuck hollers. “Get inside. Shoot to kill.” He slips right to find safety behind a fountain in the middle of the lawn while he covers the rest of us.
I knew he wouldn’t go far. King told me the big secret—he’s dying of cancer—so I wouldn’t get mad if I saw him easing off.
Poor bastard.
Two guards come at us from the right, quickly taken down by our greater numbers. Three of Tuck’s guys head left to take on the rent-a-cops running in from behind the house.
I push harder, pumping my thick legs to reach the front door before any one of these paid monkeys manages to break through. My right foot hits the first step, and the enormous double doors swing open.
Three rounds later, I have two dead security personnel, a graze from a bullet on my left shoulder, and a VIP ticket to the main house. My father’s office lies to the left, but I bypass it, sure he’ll be in the heart of the property same as last time we did this dance, out of harm’s way as best he can.
The night is eerily quiet as I slip through the door from the entrance hall, out into the pool area. The courtyard sits encased on three sides by the house, partially barricaded by two stories of vine covered stone. When I broke out, it was here that my father hid from the carnage Hooch and the Fort Worth boys unleashed out front.
Tonight though, it’s empty. Not a soul in sight.
The pool glows blue, the submerged lights giving the still night an almost ethereal feel. I glance to the sky, frowning. Does she watch me, my mother? Does she look down on her boy with tears in her eyes, or proud that I’m still fighting for justice against the asshole who sired me, even after all this time?
Better keep focus, my devil warns, or you’ll be up there to ask her yourself sooner than you’d like . . .
I heave a sigh and backtrack, checking all directions and feeling increasingly uneasy the further I go in the house without any resistance. What if our intel was wrong? What if my father’s not here at all?
Fuck.
I make my way back through to his office, and find it empty as well. The sentimental part of me keeps my feet rooted to the spot a second too long, my gaze fixed on the very section of floor where my old man shot Dana, and killed her father, Hooch’s father, Judas.
The door hinges let out a single, split-second squeak behind me. My hand is on my gun in a flash, but I’m still too slow.
Cold metal bites into the back of my head.
“I’m going to count to three and then you’ll remove your hand from your weapon as I lower mine, okay?”
That voice—I know it. “Sully?”
“Three,” he says with a chuckle, pulling the barrel from my head. “Didn’t think I’d see you here again.”
“Likewise.” I turn and face the man who helped Elena escape, the same guy who’d help me sneak in and out when I was just a teenager living under this cursed roof. “I thought the asshole would have killed you by now.”
“Couldn’t prove anything,” he replies with a smirk.
“It’s still risky workin’ for him, isn’t it?”