SWNOVELS Ruthless Heir: Chapter 34
There’s nothing.
No sound. No light. No pain.
Only a strange warmth that carries me forward, off into some endless void.
It’s almost peaceful.
… Until the drums start.
Like mallets pounding against sheepskin, a chaotic rhythm rises up through the darkness. The beating pulse echoes off the walls of infinity.
And then, suddenly, I’m ripped from it all.
The warm current gives out beneath me.
My feet hit something solid. Something tangible.
The emptiness is replaced by a searing pain. A struggle to breath. An aching heart.
“Get him down from there!” a voice shouts.
It’s barely discernible from the roar of gunshots.
A jagged breath cuts through my splintered throat. My eyes flicker halfway open.
There’s no focus to my vision. Everything is blurry. My brain is foggy and distant. But even through it all, the chaos below is instantly clear.
Black silhouettes dart across the floor. Glass shatters. Something crashes to the ground.
There’s more yelling.
“Fuck! He’s getting away!”
Is that who I think it is?
My noose creaks and my body rotates just enough to see a new hand on that all-important lever.
It takes a second for my oxygen-deprived brain to recognize the new hulking figure now pulling on the wall-mounted crowbar, but when I do, I find myself calling to him.
“Rian…”
It hurts to speak. But the pain is nothing compared to the sudden burst of hope.
All of the near-death ethereal bullshit evaporites. My mind focuses.
Bianca is alright.
She must be. Her family wouldn’t come get me before they rescued her. They just wouldn’t.
But my hope falters as a bullet rips through the wall just over Rian’s shoulder. He’s forced to duck to the ground. The lever jerks up. The bleachers pull down. My feet are suspended in mid-air again.
The noose digs into my neck.
“Someone go after him!” I hear Rian yell.
Desperately, I try to rip apart the rope tied around my wrists. But it’s impossible. Especially now. I’m so weak.
I feel myself fading again.
No.
“Choose!” I hear another voice yell. Is that Ray? “Drago or Gabriel. We can’t hold them off much longer.”
A frustrated roar erupts from the lion’s chest as he makes a decision.
I don’t see what that decision is.
All I can do to keep from dying is try to take one more breath. But I can’t even manage that. The noose is too tight.
And then, suddenly, I feel relief.
Just like that, the taut rope goes limp, and I start to fall. But before I can hit the ground, someone catches me.
The restraints are cut from my wrists. The rope is torn from around my neck.
“Are you alive, you fucking bastard?”
Rian slaps me so hard that I have no choice but to wake up.
“What are you doing here?” I cough, my voice a raspy mess.
I can practically taste my internal bleeding.
“Isn’t it fucking obvious? We came to save you.”
“Why? Is Bianca alright? Where is she?”
“I’m only here because I don’t know the answer to those last two questions. Does that answer your first question?”
My burning heart drops.
“You think I know where she is?”
Fuck. I have no fucking idea.
“You better,” Rian grunts.
Digging his shoulder under my struggling ribcage, the lion lifts me up to my feet.
My head rages. My mind struggles to stay present.
I can hardly grab onto a single thought. Still, my numb fingers curl into fists.
Bianca is still in trouble. I need to focus.
“How did you find me?” I manage to ask.
“I’ll explain later. You’re—’
“He’s fucking gone!”
Somehow, I immediately recognize Maksim’s voice.
The gunfire has died down. Only a ring and a fading roar echo around the gymnasium now.
Taking a deep, slow, jagged breath, I look down onto the carnage.
The basketball court is littered with corpses. Maksim is by the double doors at the far end of the room.
He looks pissed.
“There must be some other way out of this gym,” Rian grumbles. “Gabriel, tell me you know another way out of here.”
“I don’t,” I admit. Still, I search my aching mind for an answer. “Why?”
“Drago managed to slip by us. It looks like he’s escaped.”
When we hit the bottom of the bleachers, Rian lets me go, and I fall to the hardwood floor.
The pain hardly concerns me.
Bianca is in danger.
Drago got away.
He’ll make her pay for my insolence.
Fucking hell.
“What the fuck is going on?” I choke, blood dripping from my lips.
“My aunt slipped a tracking device on you back at the bridge,” Rian says. Taking out his gun, he marches up to a body that isn’t quite dead yet. Half a dozen bullets burst from the lion’s muzzle. The body goes still.
I watch as my blood pools on the hardwood floor. I try to think back to the meeting on the bridge. To the hug I shared with Bianca’s mother.
I don’t remember feeling anything unusual. Usually, I’m pretty fucking adept at knowing when someone is trying to slip something onto me.
Was I just distracted by the emotion in Bianca’s pretty blue eyes? Or is Francesca a badass after all?
Shit. I don’t know. But one thing quickly becomes clear.
Bianca’s mother saved my life.
If she hadn’t slipped that tracking device on me, there’s no way these guys would have gotten here in time.
“They’re almost all dead, sir,” I hear Maksim announce. “They had this place fucking surrounded. We were too busy carving through them to keep an eye out for Drago. He must have slipped out while we were distracted.”
“How is it that everyone is dead except for the one fucker who can tell us where my daughter is?”
I’ve never heard such unfettered rage in Ray Byrne’s voice before. The whole fucking gymnasium seems to shake.
But my own fury is quickly growing too.
“Why the fuck didn’t you go find Bianca first?” I heave, my chest pounding as my heart twists into one giant knot. “Why the fuck did you come save my worthless ass while she’s still out there?”
In response, Rian turns around and picks me up by my tattered collar. The anger in his eyes is infinite.
“Aren’t you fucking listening, asshole? We don’t know where Bianca is. I only saved you because I thought you might have a clue.”
“You idiot!” I roar. “You must have fucking seen me run from that helicopter and it’s machine gun. You just saw the state I was in. What makes you think I’m in on this?”
“I don’t think you’re in on this,” Rian barks. “That’s why I chose to save you instead of going after Drago…”
Trailing off, he pushes me back.
The edge of the bleachers catch the back of my knees and I’m pulled onto my ass.
“Fuck me,” I growl. “I’m useless. I don’t know where the hell Bianca is. But Drago does. You should have gone after him. You should have let me fucking die!”
“You’re right, I should have,” Rian sneers. Turning back around, he fires six more bullets into the long-dead corpse at his feet, then he storms away.
But I’m not left to wallow in my self-pity for long.
Ray suddenly appears before me.
“You will help us find Bianca,” he orders, reaching out a stiff hand.
But I don’t take it.
“Why didn’t you put a tracking device on her too?” I bite. “Why follow me and not your own fucking daughter?”
“We did put a tracking device on her,” Ray snaps back. Despite the fire flickering through his words, his arm remains outstretched; his hand remains offered to me. “But her device obviously isn’t working. It must have gotten fried in the water after you fell from the bridge. Somehow, though, yours survived. Your signal was coming in loud and fucking clear.”
I don’t know if my skull is cracked or what, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. Most trackers I know of are water resistant—or have I just been spoiled by Roz’s cutting-edge inventions?
“Show me how your following the signals,” I demand, trying to push myself off the bleachers. But a skull-splitting flash of pain sends me back onto my ass. “I can call someone who could help.”
Pinching my nose, I try to swat away the agony.
Roz will be able to help. Even if she’s in Poland. She can give me advice.
“You don’t know anyone who can deal with that shit better than I can,” I hear Rian return.
“Now isn’t the time to be so fucking arrogant,” I grumble. “Your pride doesn’t matter. Neither does mine. Bianca is in danger.”
“Why do you care?” Rian yaps. Lunging up beside his uncle, he covers me in his shadow. “She’s my cousin. She’s his daughter. She’s Maksim’s goddaughter. Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m her fucking husband,” I shout back. “I’m her man. Her lover. I’m… hers. Just fucking hers. And she’s mine. And don’t think for a second I won’t tear through all of you just to make sure she’s safe.”
Fuck my pride.
Taking Ray’s hand, I use it to pull myself up and face Rian head on.
The Irish lion looks like he wants to take me up on the challenge.
But then something seems to click, and he backs down.
“Fine,” he grumbles. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a cell phone. “Take a look at the signal. You won’t be able to figure shit out. No one will. It’s all scrambled.”
Even before the phone hits my hand, a light bulb goes off in my shattered skull.
“Scrambled?”
“That’s right.”
Fuck.
“I think I know where she is.”
“It takes a lot of balls to bring me back down here.”
Rian’s deep voice echoes through the overgrown tunnel as we quietly step through the puddles and over the rusted tracks.
“If only you knew how close you were to death the last time we were here,” I remember. Still, the memory is fuzzy against the agony of my throbbing skull. “I saved your ass. You were walking right into a trap. ”
“And you were leading me there.”
“No. I was already splitting with Drago by then,” I tell him, omitting the part where I had only returned to him and Ray in the first place under Drago’s orders. “I was trying to help you get rid of him.”
“Then why did you run away once those fucking gas bombs hit?”
“Because a friend appeared in the shadows. He told me Bianca was in danger. I went to go save her.”
“You didn’t think I could fucking help?”
“It was a personal matter. You would have just gotten in the way.”
“That’s rich coming from a guy who would still be hanging from the rafters if I hadn’t come cut him loose.”
“Things have changed,” I grumble. Sharp pain flashes through my body with every brittle step I take. But I bite through it. “There are no teams anymore. Just two sides. The side that cares about Bianca, and the side that wants to use her.”
“Don’t think I’m welcoming you onto our side so quickly,” Rian huffs.
“I don’t need your permission to save my girl,” I reply, before posting up against one of the leaking subway walls. “Let’s stop here. Check your phone. Make sure everything is in place.”
“I don’t need to check. I know I did everything right.”
“This isn’t the time to—”
“Don’t fucking lecture me,” Rian snarls.
Ripping his phone out of his pocket, he opens up the screen.
Looking back the way we came, I see the forty or so heavily-armed silhouettes we’ve brought down into the tunnels with us. Maksim is dead center among them.
Ray is above ground, directing the troops we’ve set up around every possible exit.
We may be walking into Drago’s trap. But he’s already stuck in ours.
Not that it matters.
The slippery fuck always seems to find a way to escape danger. And as much as I want to kill him tonight, I know my choice is simple.
Nothing matters except for Bianca.
My only focus is on getting her out of here, safe and sound.
Though, a close second on that list is dealing with Krol.
That fucking bastard.
My pounding heart clenches as I try not to imagine how scared Bianca must be right now.
If she’s even alive.
No. I want to fucking punch myself. How dare you think such a thought?
She’s still alive. I know she is.
I would be able to sense it if the love of my life had been ripped from this earth. I’d be able to tell that all hope was lost.
But the hope is still there. Pounding painfully behind my chest.
Bianca is alive. And she’s being guarded by a monster.
We have to be careful. We have to do whatever it takes.
Hell, on our way here, I even messaged Roz, asking her how to level the playing field. She was the one who helped design most of Drago’s security measures, after all.
Her reply came just in time.
I can’t say I understood much of her text, and not just because my brain was still desperate for oxygen. That technological babble is just so far beyond my grasp.
But when I showed Rian the schematics, he was immediately engrossed.
“So far, so good,” the lion grumbles from beside me, his face flickering in the pale glow of the phone screen. “It’s not like I had a lot of time to put this program together. But it’s doing its job. The files your friend sent to us are nearly decrypted.”
“Then we can’t push ahead yet,” I curse. “If we attack too soon, Drago’s going to have the jump on us. We can’t have that. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not scared,” Rian sneers.
“I don’t mean it’s too dangerous for us.”
“Fuck.”
The lion quickly seems to understand what I’m getting at. The first target in this battle won’t be either of us.
It will be Bianca.
“We need to try to do this quietly.” Lifting my hand, I give the signal for the soldiers behind us to stop.
They do as instructed.
“You’re going in alone?” Maksim’s voice crackles through Rian’s phone.
“Just at first,” I reply, leaning forward so he can hear me. “The second you hear a single shot, though, all of you come running.”
“Rian?”
“Do as he says.”
Rian doesn’t seem to enjoy saying that, but we’ve both come to the same understanding.
Now is the time to put aside our differences and work together.
For Bianca’s sake.
“Very well.”
Rian’s gaze stays glued to his screen as I turn and stare down the dark tunnels ahead. We’re back at the fork. I know which way Drago should be, but I’m not willing to risk anything.
Not when Bianca is at risk.
Sure, Drago admitted that he needs her alive, but he also left her with Krol. That fucker has killed more hostages than he has teeth.
My fingers tense around the gun in my hand. A furious rage washes through me. No matter how much pain I’m in, I can’t think of anything else.
Bianca is with Krol.
I know the kinds of sick and twisted games he likes to play with women.
I swear to God, if he touches a hair on her perfect body.
“Huh, that was weird,” Rian suddenly mumbles.
“What?”
“Uh… nothing. Never mind. The decryption process is done. Bianca’s signal has been unscrambled. I’m hacked into Drago’s security system.”
“Where is she?” I demand. But I lunge towards the screen a little too quickly. My head goes light and I feel like I might pass out again.
But then Rian grabs me by the collar.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks, holding me up in the roughest way possible.
“I’m fine,” I say, shaking the heaviness away. “Where is Bianca’s signal coming from?”
Rian trails his finger up the screen towards a blinking dot.
“She’s right here.”
My gut churns.
Drago’s office. That’s at the center of this twisted underground maze.
“What are all those other marks?” I ask, noting the fainter, unblinking dots slowly swimming across the screen. There are so many I can hardly count them all.
“I’m not sure,” Rian admits, before pulling up the schematics. “Fuck.”
“What?’
“Those are people. Patrolling soldiers, probably. This program picks up their heat signatures and turns them into tracking dots. It’s almost genius.” Cocking his gun, Rian tears his eyes off the screen and stares down the darkness ahead. “Looks like we’re going to have to fight our way through an army.”
Before he can take a step forward, I reach out and stop him.
“Let me try to sneak by first,” I urge. “If we go in shooting, Drago might take the opportunity to…”
I don’t even want to say it. But the implication lingers in the air.
If Drago won’t kill Bianca out of spite, then Krol certainly will.
I’m the one who needs to stop that from happening, no matter what that means for me.
Bianca is my girl.
There is no living without her. Not for me.
“What if you try to run off like last time?”
“Then shoot me along with everyone else.”
I can see Rian’s defences dropping as he begins to understand just how serious I am about his cousin.
“And what happens if they catch you before I can?” he asks.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. All that matters is that you get Bianca out of here safe and sound. Understand?”
Rian only hesitates for a second.
“Got it,” he nods
Sucking up the pain, I force myself to see through the thick fog pulsing behind my skull.
“We’re only going to get one shot at this,” I grumble. “Make sure Maksim and the troops are ready. Tell Ray to be on guard. I’m going to get Bianca.”
Pressing my gun to my forehead, I take a flurry of deep breaths, hyping myself up for what’s to come.
I’ve been in worse spots before. But rarely have I been this roughed up. And never have I been after more precious cargo.
I’m coming Bianca.
“Let’s do this.”
Lowering my gun, I take my first step into the darkness ahead.
“Good luck,” Rian calls after me, before catching himself. “Asshole.”
“See you on the other side,” I nod back to him.
“It better be with Bianca on your arm.”
“Oh, believe me,” I snarl. “I’m not coming out of this without her.”