Take him anytime. We don’t need him, Ice. He’s low level. Doesn’t know shit about the top dogs. Czar gave the order.
Consider it done.
That was Ice. A glacier. Czar and the others could watch through the camera as Ice came out of the shadows right behind Swey just as the man jumped up and started to pace. Ice matched his strides exactly. Three steps in, Swey glanced at the wall to see his shadow cast against it. Right behind him was a second shadow, and in the hand reaching toward him was a very wicked-looking knife.
Swey gasped and started to turn. Ice locked the man against him and jabbed the knife deep into his jugular. “For all those kids whose lives you destroyed, you sick fuck.” He whispered it into the man’s ear and then stepped back, letting him fall.
Swey writhed on the floor, blood pouring onto the thick, luxurious and very white carpet. Ice stood watching with a cold, detached expression.
Incoming, Absinthe reported. Sheriff SUV coming up the drive. Can’t identify the driver or if he’s alone in the vehicle.
Lightning forked across the sky, lighting up the darkness, throwing the night into stark relief. Storm’s work, Czar was certain.
Harold McDonald, Absinthe acknowledged. He’s alone.
There was Absinthe. Like Ice, Storm and Alena, he’d been exceptionally beautiful. Sorbacov had seemed to find the children that suited him most. Absinthe had had an older brother, one he’d adored and looked up to. Absinthe was a beautiful soul. All of them could see that. Sweet, compassionate, not at all suited to live like a wolf, planning out kills meticulously and carrying them out. He was brilliant beyond measure. And so very talented.
Sometimes the planning to kill each individual pedophile had taken weeks, or even months, depending on how difficult it had been to acquire the information needed to be successful. Czar hadn’t taken chances. They had been little kids and they could never have been seen or heard. Suspicion couldn’t have fallen on them or they’d have all been killed outright. That had been where Absinthe came in. His gifts were extraordinary, and he’d practiced all the time.
Absinthe could remember conversations. He could read lips. He could influence with his voice. He could read others when touching them. That was both a gift and a curse. Somehow, he’d learned how to crawl inside minds, and when he did, he could wreak havoc. He was a human lie detector. Over the years those gifts had become even stronger. He’d grown quieter. Czar, like all of Torpedo Ink, worried about Savage the most, but Absinthe was a close second. He was too quiet. Too apart from them.
Czar sighed and shook his head. He had a lot to answer for. He’d turned those children into killers in order for them to survive. That was their only way out, but one didn’t come back from that or the things done to them.
There were two teams. Steele, the vice president of Torpedo Ink, ran the second. They always held one team back if possible, in order to have a full team to get one another out of trouble if it was necessary. Czar didn’t leave anything to chance. Each team had nine members. They were so used to working together, just like that wolf pack, each of them had a specific role, and they carried it out with the ease of practice.
Together, they were a well-oiled machine, working off a careful master plan that was always fluid, but they never deviated from the safety rules put in place. It was better to walk away before they had completed their task than to die. They were patient, impassive, never bringing their emotions into play if it could be helped. They didn’t make mistakes. They had learned from the experience of losing other children that even a small error meant death.
Harold McDonald, still in his sheriff’s uniform, parked his SUV in the covered parking spaces just to the left of the front door. The roof ran straight from the parking area to the porch, so no one would ever get a drop of rain on them if they didn’t want to. Harold didn’t want to.
He strode straight to the door and pulled out his phone. “Yeah, I’m here. I’ll keep David here. He’s such a coward whenever there’s a storm.” There was a bit of a sneer in his voice. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
He listened for a moment, his hand on the knob of the front door. “Yeah, okay, but Avery, get here.”
He yanked open the door as he shoved his cell phone into his jacket. He stepped inside and closed the door. “David.” Moving quickly, he hurried through the great room to the wide hall. “Where are you?”
The house remained eerily silent. A slight breeze ran down the hallway, bringing a chill with it. The wind outside picked up. Howled for a moment. When it did, it brought the sound of a child crying with it. Harold halted abruptly and looked around. He put his hand on the wall.