The Red Ledger: 8 Read online

  Only then do I realize one of the screens in the top corner is blacked out. Beside it, another seems to be pointed down a length of hallway, but the camera is aimed too high to capture anything.

  I roll the chair out and sit down at the enormous desk, scrambling to figure out the controls. With trembling fingers, I punch in the code from the screen into the keyboard in front of me and tilt the joystick. The view pans to the right, revealing more of the empty hallway.

  “Where the hell are you?” I grit the words out, as frustrated with him as I am fearful for his safety.

  Why did he have to leave? We should have stayed together. Instead, he’s left me in the dark to worry and wait.

  I shift the joystick down until I can see the floor.

  Then I freeze.

  Someone’s unmoving arm reaches out into the hallway, resting in a puddle of blood that seems to be growing.

  “Tristan. Oh my God, Tristan, no.”

  The nausea in the pit of my stomach grows. I jump up from the chair and mold my hands against my temples.

  Think. Isabel, think, goddamnit.

  Twenty-six years of living a normal life shoves the idea of calling the police to the forefront of my mind. No. The police can’t help us now.

  Mateus is still here, though. We exchanged numbers back in Miami in case we got separated on Simon’s yacht. If I call right now, Knight might suspect something, but I’m running out of options.

  I scan the screens once more, hoping to see Mateus again with Knight. But they’ve disappeared too.

  A cold sickness spreads through my whole body.

  The helpless panic I’m used to fighting begins to change into something else. Something primal. Something bigger than the emotions ricocheting through me. It fuels me as much as it frightens me.

  I look around the control room. In the corner is a desk covered with stacks of paperwork. I go to it and slam open the drawers one by one, finding nothing useful except a long, thin letter opener with a hammered bronze handle. I take it. It won’t stop a bullet, but it’s better than nothing.

  TRISTAN

  The man at the bedside is dressed in street clothes, but this is a hospital. Right? He wipes at the crook of my arm with a patch of gauze, then tapes it in place.

  My vision is blurry at the edges. Plain white walls. Where am I?

  I’m on a metal hospital bed, my arms strapped down tight. I struggle against them, but I’m too weak to fight the restraints. This isn’t right. In the corner is a metal chair with the same kinds of straps. No one else is here. Where are the doctors? The other guys?

  I squeeze my eyes shut and think about the last place I was.

  Gunfire. Sand and dirt and blood and Brennan’s face in mine, so scared, telling me to hang on. Help is coming. Who came for me?

  The man stands up and reaches over me to secure a plastic mask over my face. I suck in a panicked breath. A metallic taste fills my mouth when he flips some switches on the machine that’s beeping at my side.

  “What’s that? What is all this?”

  My voice is muffled by the plastic barrier, but I know he hears me. He pats my leg absently.

  “Time to take a little nap. Let the medicine do its work.”

  The placating rasp of his British accent is the last thing I hear before I plunge into sleep.

  I blink rapidly and swallow hard. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.

  This was the place. This was the room.

  As bare and basic as it is, the memory of it feels more like a shockwave than an echo. I don’t have time to piece the rest together. I just killed a man, and things are a long way from being right.

  I step over the guy who was guarding the door, with the barrel of my gun aimed at the tall blond woman standing behind Crow.

  Tears stream down his face. His dark eyes are swollen, like maybe he’s been this way for hours, strapped to a metal chair in the center of the room. If I hadn’t heard the faint sounds of his agonized screams through the thick door, I may not have found him. What I’m seeing is so disturbing, I almost wish I hadn’t.

  “Back away.”

  I bark the order at her, but she doesn’t budge. No introductions are needed. I know she’s Kolt’s mother. They share the same baby-blue eyes, shadowed with entitlement and spite. I can see Vince in her too and immediately enjoy the satisfaction of knowing I killed him. He was a cold and vicious predator. I’m certain Isabel wasn’t the only one to discover what he was truly capable of.

  In this moment, though, I’m beginning to wonder if Gillian Mirchoff is worse. Her sleek bob frames the strong set of her jaw. Her chin is high, and her hands rest over Crow’s broad shoulders almost affectionately. Except a long, clear bottle, its contents half gone, hangs perilously from her gloved fingertips.

  “This isn’t your business,” she hisses through gritted teeth.

  Crow got himself into this mess with a little help from me, but she’s not wrong. Their desire to dispose of Crow is Company business. He more than defected. He betrayed them. I shouldn’t care, but the puckering acid burns spidering across his chest have my normally ironclad stomach clenching. His tears are warranted. God knows how long she’s been torturing him like this.

  She shifts her weight, eliciting Crow’s desperate whimper.

  “Red, please. I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry I shot at you. I’m sorry about Jay. All of it. I was stupid, man.”

  Gillian’s nostrils flare at the mention of Jay. I’m a threat to their operation. Crow is an irritant. But Jay is more—the real treasure trove of damning information they don’t want anyone else to have.

  “Things are really falling apart here lately, aren’t they, Gillian? First me, then Crow. Now Jay and Townsend. Hard to know who you can rely on when the going gets tough.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m getting a pretty clear picture these days. Pull strings at the ports and lay out bribes at the border so you can push your poison on to people. You and Simon have it all worked out, huh? All the while Daddy Dearest is laid up in bed waiting to take his last pathetic breath, and no one even knows about it. How long have you been running the show anyway?”

  “Long enough to appreciate what’s at stake. We’ll help more people than we kill.”

  I let out a rough laugh. “Yeah? Is that what you said when you had Townsend melt my fucking brain so you could use me to do your dirty work all this time?”

  Saying it out loud is like acid on my soul. I’ll never show her how much it hurts, but being here now is an ice pick in the wound.

  “Is this where you play doctor on people? Mix up your potions and see what works?”

  She shakes her head. “You were the first one. The only one. You’d been through severe trauma—”

  “I know what I went through!”

  She flinches when I raise my voice. I force myself to keep my head. I can’t lose control here, but my curiosity is running rampant.

  “How long did you keep me here?”

  “I don’t know,” she says quietly. “You weren’t really on my radar until you started causing problems.”

  Until I stopped being a good little soldier and refused to kill Isabel. Until I decided the Company was the real enemy.

  “Where’s Simon?”

  “You’ll never find him.”

  “I found him once. I can find him again.”

  A faint line forms between her eyebrows. She doesn’t know I was close enough to kill him in Miami. As close as I am to her now.

  “Why are you in Paris?” I press.

  “We just had a little mess to clean up. Isn’t that right, Lorenzo?” She squeezes his shoulder. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish cleaning up. If I were you, Tristan, I’d start running. There are cameras all over this facility. The authorities will know your face in a matter of hours. You’ll never get out of the country if you don’t leave now.”

  “What makes you think I’d let you live?”
r />   “Because if you kill me, Simon will never stop hunting you down. He will find you, and when he does…” She sweeps her turned-up hand over Crow’s ghastly wounds.

  “He hasn’t found me yet. He must not be looking very hard. Or maybe I’m a lot better at this cat-and-mouse game than he realizes.”

  “We’ve been a little busy,” she utters, her tone hostile. “And quite frankly, it’d be easy enough to forget about you altogether if you would do us the honor of disappearing for good. You served the Company well. Simon knows this. If you agree to leave now, leave gracefully, and we can forget you ever existed.”

  “That’s a tempting proposal, but I doubt you’d honor it. You’ve been trying to hunt me down since Rio. You haven’t let up. You just ran out of leads.”

  She’s too quiet. I know it’s true. They thought they had us in DC. Then New Orleans… They almost won.

  “What a waste. You had something good with the Company. It’s only just beginning, and you gave it all up for her.” She laughs weakly. “Better you than my son, I suppose. Her family is a curse. Every last one of them. Every tragedy that’s ever fallen upon them, they’ve brought upon themselves.”

  The mention of Isabel makes me want to press the trigger before another word can leave this woman’s lips.

  “Every tragedy that’s fallen upon them came at the hands of your family, starting with you killing her sister. What kind of monster kills a sick kid to send a message?”

  “Why do you care? How many people have you killed? And for what, money? We were protecting our family. Our legacy!”

  I shake my head, pushing down the unpleasant truth. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t get to talk about her. Ever again.”

  She tenses a little. “If she means that much to you, disappear with her. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that why you won’t give up? You have my word. You can walk away right now with a clean slate.”

  A clean slate? Funny. That’s how I left here last time. Didn’t work out so great. The prospect of walking away with Isabel and leaving all of this behind is everything I want right now. Unfortunately I don’t believe a word out of Gillian’s mouth. Her promises are sweet lies.

  She’s studying me, trying to unravel my intentions. “Just walk out the door, Tristan. No one’s going to stop you.”

  Crow starts crying again. “Red, no. You can’t leave me here. She’s going to fucking kill me.”

  I used to be immune to people begging for their lives. Crow’s been nothing but a thorn in my side from the day he barged into Mateus’s house, hoping to finish the job I refused to. I shouldn’t care about his gory wounds or his desperate pleas, but I do.

  Because I hate this woman more than I dislike Crow. If I shoot her in the head right now, Crow’s going to get a lapful of acid, which is the only thing that’s kept me from ending her.

  “Gillian?” A man’s voice echoes from down the hall.

  One set of footsteps.

  “Sounds like your friend’s here to save you,” I say lightly, all my senses on high alert.

  Her pupils dilate, making her eyes seem bigger and darker. “You have a choice, Tristan. Make the right one.”

  Then the footsteps stop.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Isabel

  I turn the corner and freeze. At the other end of the hallway, Davis Knight stands at the edge of the bloody puddle, his mouth agape with shock.

  “Gill—” He looks up and stops. Light from the room illuminates his face.

  “Shoot him, you idiot!” a woman screams.

  I jolt at the shrill and sudden sound. Knight fumbles under his suit coat.

  I don’t think.

  I run.

  I run through fear and the sense of self-preservation that should have led me straight out of the building the second Tristan told me to get out. I run knowing there’s a chance Knight could turn and use his weapon on me as soon as he sees me coming. I run because somewhere deep down inside, I believe there’s a chance I won’t let him.

  My footfalls are loud. Cool air whirs over my skin.

  He sees me. Surprise and then recognition mark his features. Then a teeth-baring sneer as he twists his body toward me. He swings his arm. I see the gun. A flash of silver meant for me. I measure the seconds I don’t have to reach him in time.

  A frantic breath fills my lungs. A prayer forms without words. Then an ear-shattering bang corresponds with the sharp jolt of Knight’s body against the wall. The gun flies from his grasp and lands with a clatter.

  I skid to a stop and pick it up.

  “Oh shit,” he says. His eyes go round as he brings his hands to his chest, touching the place in the center that’s started to seep with dark red. He slides to the floor, leaving a bloody trail behind.

  Nothing seems real. Not the corpse on the floor who definitely isn’t Tristan. Not the man slowly dying beside me. Not the wild-eyed woman I glimpse through the doorway who looks like she’s been melting the skin off the man in front of her.

  I’m pretty sure I know her name, but she doesn’t need one. I already know she’s a monster. She’s one of them.

  I’m still running on adrenaline. Fearless determination chugs through my veins as I lift the gun, aim, and breathe out.

  The force of the gunshot jerks me backward. High-pitched panicked screams penetrate the pulsing of my eardrums.

  The man strapped to the chair fights his restraints with vigor. “Not my dick! Red, fucking get it now. Hurry up.”

  “Stop moving. You’re going to spill it.” Tristan runs to him but pauses, looking around frantically. He goes to the wall and rips down a handful of surgical gloves that he then uses to carefully wrap around the glass bottle tilted precariously against the other man’s groin.

  Once it’s safely away, Tristan unstraps him from the chair.

  The man lets out another painful sound, somewhere between relief and pure anguish. His hands are shaking. More tears pool in his eyes, which are already swollen and red. I can’t even begin to comprehend what he’s been through.

  For a split second, his horror is enough to distract me from what I’ve been through. I just killed Kolt’s mother.

  And just like with Bones, I didn’t think about it. I’m not sure if I would have had time to, but maybe I should have.

  Jagged cracks in the window behind her spider out from the hole where the bullet passed through. Her lifeless body rests on the floor in an ugly splatter of blood—her blood. Her limbs are twisted unnaturally.

  I did this. She did this.

  I’m still shaky and unsteady as I step over the mess in the hall and enter the room. “Are…are you okay?”

  He gulps over a swallow, seeming to pull himself together.

  “What was that? What did she put on you?”

  “Acid. Motherfucking acid.” He stares down at his marred chest. If he weren’t such a brute of a man, I’d worry about him passing out.

  “We need to get you to a hospital,” I say.

  “Can’t go to a hospital. I’m not even supposed to be in this country. Fuck, I’m not even supposed to be alive.” He winces. “I need water. I need to rinse this shit off me before it kills me.”

  I move closer, even though I can’t do much to help him. He’s twice my size. “Can you stand up?”

  “Yeah.” He swallows hard, pinches his mouth tight, and straightens slowly and soundlessly, though I imagine not without great pain.

  The three of us maneuver to another room with a sink, but the rinse brings him little relief based on the sounds he’s making.

  I look to Tristan. “I really think he needs a doctor.”

  “I’m good,” the man says breathlessly. “I don’t need a doctor. I need a fucking drink.”

  “This is Crow, by the way,” Tristan says. “And for once, he’s right. We can’t take him to a hospital if the authorities might be looking for him soon.”

  Crow. The assassin. Lorenzo Generazzo.

  I blink up at him, taking in his dark
features. He’s much bigger than Tristan, but I’m guessing not as skilled.

  He tried to kill us both back in Brazil. He kidnapped Jay and ignited Townsend’s hunt for vengeance. Then he turned on the Company with less care than Tristan would have liked.

  How do I feel about Crow? I can’t begin to unpack it.

  All I know is that he’s just been through hell.

  He catches my stare. “You’re Isabel.”

  I nod.

  He offers a pained smile. “Nice shot.”

  I blink again and realize his fate could have been different if my aim had been a few inches off. I silently thank Tristan for everything he taught me, even though I was barely thinking when I got the shot off. Crow is lucky indeed.

  “Mateus is waiting outside with his driver.” Tristan looks up from his phone. “Knight ended the tour early when they heard a gunshot.”

  “What are we going to do about all this?” I gesture to the hallway, where just beyond our view lies all the evidence of tonight’s violent bloodbath.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Crow says with finality.

  Tristan holds up his hand. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to take care of anything but yourself.”

  “Fuck you. I said I’ll take care of it. Sweep the building. Make sure there’s no one else here. I’ve got it covered up here.”

  Tristan’s hesitation could mean anything. Distrust, disbelief, or pure curiosity. I get the strong feeling their mutual hostility is normal, though.

  “The building is empty,” I say. “I checked all the camera feeds. There was just the driver in the back.”

  “I’ll deal with the driver if he’s still around. Meet us out front in five minutes,” Tristan says.

  We leave Crow and take the elevator down. I brace my hands on the metal wall behind me, hoping to ground myself as quickly as possible. Tristan looks me over, his expression pinched. He doesn’t try to touch me. I’m not sure I’d know what to do if he did. I’m wound too tight. Too scared. Too numb.

  “Are you okay?”