Surviving Raine 02 Bastian's Storm (21 page)

For the first time, I considered that I may have been duped. He might have just lured me here to kill me, but as soon as the thought occurred to me, I knew it wasn’t true. If he wanted me dead, he’d just put a price on my head, and it would eventually be collected by someone. He wouldn’t have any need to go through an elaborate plot or involve all these people if my death was his goal.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned close to me.

“
You were a bad boy, Mister Stark.”

I swallowed.

“
Yeah, I know I was,” I said quietly. “It was a mistake, obviously.”

“
A mistake because of what you tried to do,” he asked, “or because it didn’t work?”

I took in a long, slow breath. There was definitely a right answer to his question and a wrong one, but the words he wanted to hear weren’t readily apparent.

Clearly, I cannot choose the glass in front of you…

I went for honest.

“
It didn’t work,” I said.

He laughed, clasped his hand on my back, and turned to one of the goons next to him.

“
You hear that, Nathaniel?” he said. “Here’s a man who will let you know right where you stand.”

“
Yes, sir!”

“
Don’t you
yes, sir
me, you little shit,” he yelled so loudly and without warning that I had to take a step back. “You can’t give me a load of pleasantries when you’re skimming my profits!”

A moment later, a shot rang out, and Nathaniel lay on the floor near Landon’s feet. While my ears rang, Franks placed his gun back in its holster at his side and turned back to me.

“
He tried to fuck me over last year,” Franks said with a shrug. “He had his one chance, but he tried to pull that shit again. You understand what I’m saying here, Stark?”

I looked into his steely eyes and nodded.

“
Yeah, I get it,” I said. “I’m not a problem for you.”

“
Good!” he said, all smiles again. “Now let me get this party started.”

Slightly shaken, but unwilling to show it, I moved off a little and watched as the body was hauled out of the back door of the barn. Landon looked over at me, and for a moment, I thought I saw relief in his eyes, but it was probably just the long halogen lights, hanging bare from the ceiling, playing tricks on my perception.

As I stood off to the side of Franks’ group, I checked out the final set of Chicago-based mafia cohorts—Rinaldo Moretti and his crew. There were several of them, including three bodyguards and a woman who must have been his daughter, Luisa. The guy with Rinaldo Moretti was an interesting one. Slim, wiry, and tall, he looked more like a schoolteacher than someone mixed up with organized crime. I was too far away to hear what they were talking about, but whatever it was, Moretti kept glaring at him. I didn’t pay much attention, though—my focus was on the other person standing with him.

Evan Arden.

I knew him both from the picture and from our brief encounter at the beach. He stood near Moretti at attention with his hands clasped behind his back. There was a shoulder holster over his arm, but it was empty. From the look of him, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t need a weapon if push came to shove. He wasn’t anywhere near my size, but he was a well-built guy—lean and muscular. I had the feeling that wherever he’d been hiding out, he’d kept up on his training.

Unlike I had.

I remembered Landon’s instructions about doing what I could to mess with Arden’s head. I thought about how he had looked on his knees with his hands bound behind his back as the guy next to him was shot in the head. He’d been a POW, and I wondered if bringing up the video might throw him off or if that was something he’d heard often enough already. I thought about what else I could say to him.

Not a fucking tongue-twister, that was for sure.

Franks called out to the room, and all six families gathered around the large table in the center of the barn. The three Chicago-based families, the reason we were all here, sat as far away from each other as possible. Gavino Greco and Rinaldo Moretti I knew from a multitude of tournaments, but the two Russian guys weren’t people I had seen before today. Igor Severinov and the other, Sergi Dytalov, had taken over when the Russian mob’s predecessors had retaliated against a stolen shipment of caviar by invading Moretti’s home. When the invasion turned into a bloodbath, people on all three sides had been killed, and the tension in the city had escalated to war.

I could feel the hatred between them anytime one of them made eye contact with another.

The six contestants, myself included, sat next to their bosses. I was between Franks and Landon. John Paul stood off to the side, watching intently, as Franks got the meeting started.

“
This is going to be a little different, boys,” Franks said.

Maria Hill, the leader of the LA outfit, sat on the far side of the table and raised an eyebrow at him.

“
And ladies,” he said with a smile.

“
Oh, no,” she said sarcastically, “I’ll just sit over here and look pretty for you, how’s that? No, not too likely, huh?”

Franks ignored her and her tone.

“
You’ll each be dropped with weapons in hand,” he said, “weapons chosen by your bosses and ones you’ve proven to be most effective when using.”

It was unusual to start a tournament armed, but not unheard of. There were many times when there were weapons to be found around the tournament grounds, but being dropped with them wasn’t usually part of the plan.

“
Arden will have the firearms of his choosing,” Franks said as he looked over a list in front of him. “Dytalov, three Kunai throwing knives and a Busse Combat Team Gemini.”

He stopped and looked up at the dark-haired man near the Russian group.

“
Whatever the fuck that is,” he added.

“
You want me to go get it and show you?” Erik Dytalov volunteered.

“
Shut your mouth,” Severinov said, “or I shut it for you.”

“
Mister Hunter will be armed with a compound bow in addition to a handgun,” Franks said, “and Reaper will have her brass knuckles.”

He looked over to the woman sitting next to Chambers.

“
Is that all?”

“
I don’t need anything else,” she responded.

Hunter laughed.

“
I got somethin’ else you need.”

“
Bring it over here,” she challenged with a flash of her dark eyes, “I’ll show you just what I can do with it.”

“
Enough,” Chambers said quietly. The guy was always as cool as a cucumber, even in the past when I’d just walked out of a game with his guy’s blood all over me. He’d hand over his cash with a slight smile and not another word.

“
Tyrone Chimes will have a variety of blunt objects, and Mister Sebastian Stark…”

He looked over to me and smiled.

“
Mister Stark will maintain a single weapon—the garrote.”

No guns, no knives, nothing but a fucking piece of piano wire.

Maybe he does want me to lose.

There were a few murmurs from the group before Franks continued.

“
Your location,” Franks said, “is Buckingham Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It’s about as unfriendly a place as you can imagine, but we don’t have to worry about you running into any tourists. It’s about six miles across in the center, and you’ll be dropped around the floes near the southern tip.”

“
This will have to be a fast one,” Greco commented. “Everyone will freeze to death if it takes too long.”

“
True,” Franks said. “Consider it added incentive to stop warring with your neighbors.”

Greco glared but didn’t comment further.

“
Some weapons don’t function well in the cold,” Evan Arden remarked.

I watched him closely. There was no concern in his eyes; he was just stating a fact.

“
Then you better have a backup plan, Mister Arden.”

I couldn’t see any reaction in the eyes of Moretti’s hit man. He was completely calm and expressionless. Both Hunter and Reaper smiled nasty little smiles in his direction, but Arden didn’t seem affected by that either.

Fuck me. He wasn’t going to be easy.

I considered the location of the fight and understood the choice of weapons for me. For one, I had been damn effective strangling people in past games. Moreover, it wouldn’t require any additional or complex equipment—nothing to misfire, no bolts to lose, and no possibility of it getting jammed in the cold. In fact, it was nearly the perfect weapon under such extreme conditions. I could use it without the loss of dexterity the others would experience through gloves and heavy clothing.

Maybe Franks wanted me to win after all.

I looked around the table to see the reaction from the others to the location. The Russians seemed pleased, Moretti and Greco annoyed, Chambers unaffected, and Hill downright pissed.

“
The Arctic Circle?” she inquired. “Really? This is your best idea for the games? I mean, it’s not like the closed circuit is going to work too far a distance, so we’ll all be freezing our asses off. Oh, and let’s not forget surfer boy, here.”

She indicated Tyrone.

“
He’ll lose his tan during the trip.”

A few snickers rang out as the dark-skinned man looked over at his boss and raised an eyebrow.

“
She has a point about the closed circuit,” Moretti pointed out. “As Mister Arden said, equipment has a tendency to malfunction in extreme conditions.”

“
All taken into consideration,” Franks said dismissively. “You’ll find our accommodations most pleasant as long as you stay indoors, and you can rest easy about the mechanical concerns—we’re bringing in only the best. It’s designed to handle the environment.”

There were a few more grumbles from the bosses, but Franks answered all of their concerns quickly and efficiently. I could hear Landon in his words and figured they had rehearsed all of this. Landon was a planner, and he wouldn’t let any matter get lost in the details.

The meeting came to a close as each of the bosses was handed an encrypted thumb-drive with all the pertinent information on it. Franks and Landon moved off to the far side of the barn to discuss something. Hunter watched with narrowed eyes as John Paul moved quietly up behind Reaper and leaned close to her to speak. I couldn’t hear their words, though, and didn’t really care.

My thoughts were on my main opponent.

Following Landon’s instructions, I ignored the other fighters and made my way over to Arden. He was near Rinaldo Moretti, looking at the man intently and nodding his head every so often. I stood a little way away from them as they finished their conversation but was just close enough to hear the tail end of it.

“…
will have an effect on the weapons. Mountainous terrain increases the possibility of an avalanche when I fire, too.”

“
I can ask,” Moretti said, “but I think everything is set now.”

“
He’s done this intentionally to give himself better odds,” Arden replied.

“
Possibly,” Moretti agreed, “but there isn’t anything to be done about it now. It has to be this way, son.”

I took note of how Moretti addressed Arden and looked at both of them a little more closely. Moretti was short and stocky, whereas Arden was tall and sculpted with lean muscle. His eyes were blue, Moretti’s brown. Arden had light brown hair, cut short against the sides of his head in proper military fashion, and a slight, scruffy beard, but Moretti didn’t have enough hair to determine what color it might have been in his youth. I couldn’t see any resemblance, but that didn’t always matter.

“
I understand, sir,” Arden replied.

Moretti stood and headed over to the group that included Franks and Landon, and I took the opportunity to talk to Arden. He looked up as I approached, his face as passive as it had been during the meeting.

“
Mister Stark,” he replied politely. He stood and reached out to shake my hand then sat back down at the table.

“
I don’t really see Moretti as a bird-man,” I said as I sat down across from him.

Arden looked at me, and I saw him stifle a slight smirk.

“
Rinaldo’s more than he appears,” he said. “Like many people in this room, underestimating him is usually a mistake.”

“
You aren’t really his kid, are you?” I asked.

“
Not by blood,” Arden said simply. “Not that it matters.”

I nodded slowly. His loyalties were set, no doubt about that. He clearly wasn’t someone who was going to turn on his boss. He wasn’t in this because of blood or for the money but a deeper sense of commitment and allegiance.