On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (37 page)

“Come on,” she said, propping the pillows up so they could stretch out side by side. “Come and lie beside me. Tell me stories of us, so when we’re on the plane tomorrow, I’ll know I’m truly headed home.”

Kragen undressed, stripping down to a pair of white silk boxers, his erection tenting the material. His body was fit, but he didn’t carry the height, the density of muscle, or the tree-trunk thighs Zeus had.

She prayed for the hundredth time that he was okay.

* * * *

“Basir Ahadi’s estate,” Price said, pulling the Suburban to a stop.

“Fucking Basir’s estate,” Big Country mumbled in disbelief.

“Didn’t I say that New Prophet-Messiah bullshit sounded like some serious Jim Jones crazy for the twenty-first century?” Lynx asked as he leaned forward in his seat.

Zeus looked at the expanse of manicured lawns and hedges illuminated by track lighting. A multileveled mansion was the crown jewel of all the splendor.

“You sure she’s in there?” Coen asked Zeus.

Zeus stared at Coen. If he wasn’t conserving energy, he would have been inclined to stab the other man in the throat. He was feeling just that provoked.

“Body language translation: hell yes, dipshit,” Lynx said.

Zeus pointed to the house, refusing to acknowledge what the trembling in his hand meant.

“Lots of bodies in there, people. Well over thirty,” Big Country said, looking down at the infrared image of the house’s structure on his laptop screen. “Smallest number on the third floor, largest on the first and second floors. There’s a basement level, but I’m only showing one reading there. We got patrols around the perimeter of the house and lands. Waiting on Terry to upload the floor plan.”

Zeus laid his head back and closed his eyes. The clicks of Big Country typing rapidly was the only sound to fill the silence.

“Got it. Merging the specs with the live imaging.” After a few more clicks on the keyboard, Big Country grunted. “Looks like we got a party going on. My guess, Sabrina ain’t the one in the basement. Kragen wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“Maybe he’s got her chained or caged or something,” Lynx said.

“No. He’ll keep her close,” Zeus said, opening his eyes as he reached for the door.

“Hold up,” Big Country cautioned. “Look at this.” He extended the laptop forward so Price and Coen in the front seats could see as Lynx and Bride leaned in from the back.

“This is the patrol’s pattern. Based on their route and the amount of time it’ll take to get to the house, that point right there,” he said, pointing at the screen, “is the best point of entry. Won’t have more than three men close if we time it right.”

“That’s the fucking front door, man,” Lynx said.

“Hey, I didn’t hire the idiots doing security. That spot right there is the point of least resistance.”

“Stealth mode or
Set It Off
mode?” Lynx asked as he opened his door. Battle adrenaline energized the already excitable man’s voice.

“Why would we go on a rescue mission in
Set It Off
mode, Lynx?” Coen asked.

“To honor one of my favorite movies ever?”

“Only one person in their crew survived.”

“As long as the one person who survives in real life is me, I don’t give a shit.” Lynx smiled as he stepped out of the truck.

Zeus opened his door.

“He stays here,” Coen said to Price. “He’s beat up to hell and back, and he’ll only slow us down.”

Zeus reached for his blade, and they all readied to take him down. He couldn’t afford the delay a fight with the other Brood members would cause. He settled back in his seat, laid his blade across his lap, and closed his eyes. “Bring her back safe or there will be hell on earth.”

“Like his forest,” Lynx whispered.

“To hell with the forest, son. You see what I saw up at Kragen’s place?” Big Country asked.

“Trying to forget. Desperately trying to forget.”

Zeus heard the trunk open, heard the team suit up. He knew there was enough firepower between these five people to level Basir’s home.

“Zeus, bring Bertha around if we call for pickup,” Price ordered.

He didn’t open his eyes, nodded.

“And, Zeus, one dent, one scratch on my ride…me and you gonna go round and round.”

“Not healthy to have that kind of attachment to an object,” Zeus said, paraphrasing words Sabrina had once said to him about his blades.

Price muttered more threats before slamming the trunk. Not long after he and the rest of the Brood had melted into the darkness, Zeus sat silently inside the truck’s interior. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and unzipped the bag he’d brought with him. He grabbed his ax and secured a few more blades to his body before exiting Price’s Big Bertha. It had taken about an hour to reach Basir’s residential compound from Kragen’s craggy cliff house, yet the night air was warmer, the sky clearer. Stalking toward Basir’s home, Zeus accepted the possibility that if the spirit of his blades demanded it, with the exception of Sabrina, very few people inside the house would make it out alive. And, if they tried to interfere, Mama’s Brood included.

Chapter Nineteen

Sabrina fought, pushing against Kragen’s shoulders and chest, turning her head to the side in an attempt to avoid his mouth locking on to hers. He licked the area between her shoulder and neck before grabbing her wrists and securing them over her head as he forced his hips between her thighs. He ground his erection against her, and she cried out when he savagely bit down on the flesh he’d just licked.

She had been delusional to believe he had truly cared for her sister, that she could use his supposed love to bide her some time and avoid this moment.

Kragen lifted his head away from her shoulder and gazed down at her. His mouth peeled back in a savage smile. His free hand pushed beneath the waistband of her yoga pants and stroked her over her panties. She cried out in rage, bucking and twisting so violently she was able to free one hand and rake her short nails over the side of his face, drawing blood. Kragen hissed, but her actions only seemed to fuel his pleasure, because he grinned down and stroked her faster.

“I always loved how you resisted. Always, the harder you fought, the harder I took you, the harder we came.” He groaned against her ear. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, Sabrina.” He attempted to work her pants down her hips from the inside.

“Get off!” She bucked and tried to roll to the side.

“Soon. I promise.”

Sabrina fought yet got nowhere. Panic and fear mounted as she lost the battle against both Kragen and her emotions. Kragen slid one finger inside of her, and she screamed with disgust and helplessness.

“Stop!” she cried out, but her words were ignored.

Stop, Sabrina. Just stop, she said to herself. She had to control her reactions, because all efforts to affect Kragen led nowhere.

Kragen struggled, one-handed, pushing the barrier of her clothing down her thighs while his mouth rutted, almost in a frenzy, against her bra-covered breast. Her eyes focused on the ceiling, traveling the length of the burnished-gold crown molding. She imagined Zeus, pale golden-bronze skin, unsmiling, mercurial eyes locked on her as a blade danced in his finger.

Stretching her free hand overhead, she freed the only part of him she carried outside of her heart. She pressed the top of the ornate chopstick and saw a cylindrical sliver of metal push out the narrowest end. She would have laughed at her man’s ingenuity, but Kragen had gotten her pants and panties to her knees and was attempting to work his underwear down around his ass. Fueled by vengeance, she tried to ram the weapon into his carotid artery, but it landed in the trapezius muscle close to his throat. He howled and rolled out of her reach, falling ass first on the other side of the bed.

The door slammed open, and Reed loomed, his tablet in one hand and a gun pointed in her direction in the other. His gaze flickered to Kragen on the floor, bleeding from the wound she’d inflicted. She slipped the chopstick back into her hair and righted her clothing. She slowly moved off the bed and stood near the window, believing Reed wouldn’t shoot unless Kragen ordered him to.

“Sabrina. Sabrina Samora. Age thirty-seven years. Daughter of Teresa Samora and Henry Danielson. Younger half sister to Samantha Redding. You were orphaned to foster care at age eleven.” Reed walked to Kragen. “Are you all right, sir?”

Kragen grimaced. “If it was up to my beloved, I think I’d be dead. She stabbed me with something.”

Reed sat the tablet on the bed and checked out his boss, gun still pointed at Sabrina.

“Puncture wound. Bleeding, but not too bad. Should I have Basir bring in medical supplies?”

Kragen lifted his gaze from the screen and frowned at her. “No,” he said, looking at the tablet again before he tapped the screen. “Seems I’m always getting stabbed when I’m around you, Sabrina.”

“You can thank Zeus for that.”

“Well, no I can’t. Being he’s dead.”

He handed the tablet back to Reed. With assistance, he stood tall when all Sabrina wanted to do was sink to the floor and curl up. She placed her hand against the wall to steady herself. She was an idiot to believe Zeus could survive when she
knew
he could barely walk, let alone defend himself. She had sent him out there to die and…

Oh, God.
Zeus is dead, she thought, sobbing.

“You promised you would let him go,” she said. She’d never see Zeus alive again. She could no longer pretend all her prayers had made a difference.

“I held my promise. But you, Ms. Samora. I thought you could fulfill my dream of regaining the love of my life. Regaining my soul. But I find you can’t possibly fulfill that dream because you’re not the woman responsible for creating it.”

“You don’t talk to me about love, you sick son of a bitch. You killed my sister just as surely as you killed all those other women. You’re not capable of love, and no sane person is capable of or
willing
to love you. You are just some sick demented
thing
that rapes and kills women who looked like Sam for your pleasure.”

Kragen looked at Reed. “So she knows about the other women. How is that, I wonder.”

“Give me a little time. I’ll take her to one of Basir’s specialty rooms and happily find out for you, sir.”

“That won’t be necessary just yet, Reed. First I want to know how you uncovered the truth.”

“She didn’t fit,” Reed said, looking at her as if she was the disgusting one. “From all your stories of her, I couldn’t see this woman as the woman you talked about. Time doesn’t change someone so fundamentally, sir. I knew you wouldn’t believe just my intuition without evidence to back it up. So I dug deeper.”

Kragen dragged a weary hand over his face. “Yet again, I’m humbled by your dedication and commitment to me.”

“The woman you remember was good. She was worthy of your love. From reports I gathered once I searched using her true name, she was kind and humble. This one is some piece of trash relation who probably dreamed of having her sister’s life. She’s been conditioned to bounce from one place to the next, never establishing roots. She’s been in relationships with men who are also insignificant, dead, or in jail. Not very different from her mother, actually. There is a man, though. Ernesto Diaz. He’s been looking for her a long time and is eager to have her back. I don’t imagine it’ll be a happy reunion if you choose to return her.”

“How did you know about the other women, Sabrina?” Kragen asked, standing at the foot of the bed.

She backed up into the corner near the bed’s headboard, needing the support of the wall to stay upright. “Detective Cassidy,” she lied. “When Zeus and I went to the station, he showed me pictures of a number of women who had gone missing. And they looked like me. Or, should I say, they looked like my sister. After you came to my apartment, I knew it had to be you. You killed them, and you killed my sister.
I
know the monster you are.”

He flinched when she slapped him with that knowledge.

“Your sister died in a fire,” Reed said. “Mr. Kragen wasn’t even in the country at the time of her death.”

“Sam killed herself. It was her second attempt. They ruled it an accident, but I knew better.” She wanted to fight the tears but let them flow. She let them honor her love for her sister. “When she came back from New York, she was broken, and I never knew why… I couldn’t understand why. Until you recognized this,” she said, holding up the pendant. “Even going to the grave, she couldn’t tell me what had happened to her. I kept this close at all times. She never realized…never realized how strong she was. She escaped you. She was strong enough to escape you and live all those years later, but she didn’t see it.”

Although Sam hadn’t been able to talk to Sabrina about what had happened to her, in her own way she’d left Sabrina a piece of the puzzle. “I’m so glad he never found you, Sam. I’m so glad he can’t hurt you anymore.”

“All my sins and secrets laid bare before you,” Kragen said to Sabrina. “Reed, can you retrieve something to patch up my wound? Any more stabbing and I’ll think everyone sees me as a human pincushion.”

“Sir…”

“Don’t worry, Reed. She won’t take me unaware again.” Kragen nodded toward the door.

“Yes, sir.”

“Samantha.” Kragen said her sister’s name almost experimentally. “A beautiful name. She was a beautiful woman, and we shared a wonderful fantasy, but in the end maybe it was just that, a fantasy. Nothing your sister and I shared was real. Not even her name. What exists between you and me is hard truth. Perhaps all these years of searching for a dream were fated to bring me to the one I was truly destined for. The one woman who sees me and refuses to cower or beg as all those others. Even at this very moment, you stand there, staring me down, daring me to be my best. For you, Sabrina, I will be. For you I will be what I am incapable of being for any other woman.”

It was amazing to witness just how fluid his reality could be.

“You raped her,” Sabrina said. “You held her captive and raped and beat and tortured my sister. If you think I’m going to lie down and let you do the same to me… Let’s just say it’s not going to play out the way you think.”