Part 25 (1/2)
He moved forward, striding briskly but quietly across the room, ducking and weaving in and among the planes.
Rene, wait. Brandon followed, his footsteps nearly silent against the smooth concrete floor.
No way, pet.i.t, Rene replied, his brows furrowed, his mouth turned down in a frown. That son of a b.i.t.c.h isn't getting away. Not again. Not this time, G.o.dd.a.m.n it.
Rene, wait, Brandon said again. Something's not right. I can feel it. I just- As the younger man thought this, they rounded the tail of one of the charter prop planes, just in time to see Martin Davenant emerging from the jet. He started to walk down the steel steps while speaking to someone, a man who stepped out of the plane almost immediately behind him.Rene froze and heard Brandon skitter to a halt behind him, his breath cutting abruptly, sharply short. Another man stepped onto the stairs leading down from the jet behind Martin, then another and another and another-ten of them altogether, all men in their late forties or early fifties dressed nearly identically in dark, well-tailored, crisply pressed suits.
Oh, Jesus, Brandon gasped inside of Rene's head, his voice shrill and panicked. Oh, Christ, oh, f.u.c.k me, Rene-it's the Elders!
For Christ's sake, run!
Rene whirled just in time to see Brandon take off, racing across the hangar floor away from the jet. He followed, hoping like h.e.l.l his prosthetic knee didn't fail him now as his feet slapped a heavy, hurried cadence against the floor.
Rene, come on! Brandon reached the door first and shoved against the bar, spilling a broad beam of daylight in as he pushed it open. Jesus Christ, Rene, we've got to- He turned around and Rene shot him.
The nine-millimeter slug caught him in the right shoulder-almost exactly where he'd been shot only weeks earlier-and knocked him a good foot and a half backward, if not more. Brandon floundered, his knees buckling, his hand darting to his chest, and he blinked at Rene in wide-eyed, openmouthed bewilderment and shock.
”I'm sorry, pet.i.t,” Rene whispered.
Brandon gasped soundlessly, crumpling to the ground, and then the Elders were upon him, moving impossibly fast as they whipped past Rene, all of them grabbing hold of Brandon, tussling with him from all sides.
Brandon tried to fight them, but it was useless. Rene watched as one of them hauled him up, clamping a hand about his throat, and slammed him back against the wall, pinning him with his feet off the floor.
One of the Elders had lagged behind the others, standing with Martin Davenant at the base of the stairs leading from the jet while his fellows had pounced on Brandon. Now he walked forward, the soles of his polished leather shoes sc.r.a.ping softly against the ground, his pace almost leisurely. He watched Brandon's struggle with cool detachment, as if the young man whose blood was splashed all over the concrete was nothing to him, less than a stranger.
He had long, pale hair that hung past the middle of his back in a smooth, heavy sheaf. His face was strikingly handsome, similar in features to Brandon, but colder, harder, as if etched out of a block of granite. Rene knew him; had seen him once before in what at the time had seemed like a dream.
”You and me, we're square, no?” he said to Augustus n.o.ble, drawing the man's gaze. How his grandson and granddaughter could have such warm, wonderfully expressive eyes while his own-the same color, same shape, nearly identical in every way-could be so icy, almost dead, was beyond Rene's understanding.
”Oui.” Augustus nodded once, watching as Brandon gargled helplessly for breath, slapping vainly, feebly against the hand that strangled him.
”You got what you came for,” Rene said, cutting a painful glance at Brandon. ”You'll leave them alone-Tessa and the bebe?
They're free now. For always.”
”You're going to call Augustus n.o.ble,” Rene had instructed Martin after untying him in the watch house. ”You're going to tell him his grandson Caine is dead. Then you're going to broker a little deal for me.”
Martin had been thumbing through the stack of incriminating invoices and bank statements Rene had given him. ”And why the f.u.c.k am I going to do that?” he'd asked, to which Rene had smiled wanly.
”Because if you don't, mon ami, I'm going to send the rest of the s.h.i.+t you kept tucked in that ledger directly to his G.o.dd.a.m.n front door, certified and hand delivered,” Rene had replied, tossing him a cell phone. ”Do you think I'm really f.u.c.king stupid enough to just hand it all over to you and trust you won't screw me? Now make the G.o.dd.a.m.n call.” Martin had taken a little too much pleasure in the part of Rene's plan that had him clubbing Rene in the head with the pistol. He'd knocked the senses momentarily from Rene, sending him cras.h.i.+ng to his knees, his scalp split open, his ears ringing.
”Nice doing business with you, mon ami,” Martin had sneered, lending particularly snide emphasis on the French words as he'd tossed the Sig Sauer on the floor beside Rene. ”You f.u.c.k with me on your end of this, and I'll come back and bleed you dry. You and that G.o.dd.a.m.n c.u.n.t I married.”
He didn't know Tessa's baby was a boy-none of them did-and Rene sure as h.e.l.l wasn't about to tell them. He was going to force Augustus n.o.ble to his G.o.dd.a.m.n word and keep him there, no matter what.
Augustus cut those black, fathomless eyes his way and it felt for all the world as if he'd physically reached out, clamping his hand against Rene's throat. ”We had an agreement, boy,” he said, his voice low and even, yet still tinged with a brittle undertone of malice. ”And you've kept your part. Now I'll keep mine.”
Rene thought of the dream he'd had, when he'd somehow been inside of Augustus's mind, when he'd seen the images of two young boys-Augustus and Rene's own grandfather-sealing their friends.h.i.+p in a bond of blood, juxtaposed with the horrific sight of an enormous house ablaze, the people trapped inside shrieking.
”You know me,” Rene had told him on the cell phone from the watch house in the woods. ”You know my name-Morin.”
”The world is full of names, boy, and yours-like you-means nothing to me,” Augustus had replied.
But as Rene looked now, he could see that wasn't true; he could see the thin pale strip of scar cutting a diagonal path across the older man's right palm. Augustus n.o.ble had lied; he'd indeed known Michel Morin. Even if the other Elders hadn't somehow realized who Rene was-what he was-Augustus n.o.ble did. And oh, Christ, I think he killed them-killed them all. He burned my family alive.