I could see my breath in the cold night air, but I was numb to the chill attempting to distract me.
Beside me, dressed in black from head to toe just like me, including the paint on his face and the hood over his blond hair, Jet gave me a nod.
I glanced at the night sky again. It was cloudy, keeping the moon at bay and offering us cover from the enemies within the multimillion-dollar mansion in Eureka, just two hours from home. Static filled the earpiece linking me to my MC brothers, Ciro Donati, and Cristiano Vitucci.
Both men had wanted to be there when we took down Fontana. They showed up with ten of their own men, ready to help us destroy the motherfucker who had caused us all so much pain and grief in the last few months, but even more over the last three weeks.
Three weeks since Tanner and Warder met the Angel of Death from the bomb Fontana hired one of our prospects to hide in Matt’s truck. Then the bastard shot up the bar and cost us Uncle Chaz, sending Uncle Jack into a massive heart attack that killed him almost instantly.
And Fontana shot Lexa.
My rage was already burning bright, but remembering how my baby girl caught a stray bullet because of that motherfucker had me craving blood.
“Move in on my command,” Vitucci’s voice growled in my ear. “Three, two… Let’s go, boys!”
I kicked open the side door to the mansion. The place was unimpressively secure for a man who should have been counting down to his last heartbeat. He should have known that I would come for him, that I would kill him with my bare hands if I got to him first.
Instead, he’d been shacked up in this mansion on the California coast, with only three other men to watch his back. No one patrolling the grounds. One lousy camera overlooking the garage, and windows wired with alarms. It hadn’t made sense when Colt first reported what he found when he, Jet, and Spider followed Hank Badcock here the week before to find out if Badcock’s lead was correct. But after stalking the house for days now, no one could figure out why the place was so insecure.
Like they wanted us to blow in.
Like they wanted us to show up on their doorstep looking for retribution.
Or they were cocky as fuck.
Lucky for us, Colt’s woman’d had people in higher—or maybe even lower—places than we did. Badcock had come to check on her and brought us the little gem of information about Fontana’s possible location.
There was no one in sight when Jet and I entered the house from the side door. No sound meeting our ears except for the heavy breathing of the others or the kicking in of more doors. The artillery in our hands went unused as we cleared room after room, looking for signs of Fontana and his men.
A gunshot filled the air from above on the second floor. Hawk cursed in my ear then laughed wickedly. “This one’s gone,” he muttered.
Two more shots, then all was quiet again.
Only three?
Where the fuck was Fontana? The others would have said something if they’d found him first. They knew he was mine. That I wanted to do to him what Adrian Volkov had done to his brother.
“Fuck.” I heard Donati growling. “Made it to the basement. Get your fucking asses down here.”
“Oh fuck,” someone groaned before the distinct sound of puking filled my ear. “That smell,” he gagged. “Is he dead?”
Cautiously, Jet and I made our way downstairs. Harsh gasps in my ear followed by curses loud enough to be heard without the aid of the device greeted me with each step we descended. When we got to the last step, we found at least fifteen men in the basement, some of whom were standing in puddles of their own vomit.
All of these men had seen some heavy shit in their lives without flinching. What was so bad that they lost their stomachs over it now?
The scent of their bile hit me, but I ignored it, pushing past my MC brothers, two of my brothers-in-law, and some of the men Vitucci brought with him.
I stopped before I reached Donati. I hated the bastard—even now jealousy churned in me as I remembered watching him on his date with Raven all those years ago. But in this kind of situation, I trusted him.
The look on the man’s face in that moment, however, gave me pause when our gazes locked. Blue eyes the same shade as Flick’s darkened in a way that confused me. Since when did this emotionless monster have compassion in his soul?
Then his gaze moved, sliding to the table behind him, and almost helplessly, my eyes followed. The first thing I saw was an IV dripping from a coat hanger. My eyes traced the line to an arm that lay at an awkward angle. It was obviously broken, and in more than one place by the looks of it, but the bruises were so bad on the man laid out on the table, I couldn’t even tell what ethnicity he was.
A new scent that wasn’t vomit hit me when I took a step closer, and I suddenly understood why there were so many puddles of puke on the floor.
Rotting flesh was one of the worst smells on the planet, and right then, it was coming off the man on the table in waves.
The poor fuck.