It was hard to feel anything other than fury and fear right now. And I hadn't felt fear in a long damn time. I'd even begun to believe that I wasn't capable of feeling it anymore. But then Tatum Rivers had made me feel a lot of things I'd never thought I could feel.
She was the light to my dark, the hope in a world without any, the reason for my shackled soul to crave freedom. She'd given me dreams of a life with something more. So much fucking more. It was beyond anything I ever could have claimed to deserve but she'd given it to me anyway. Even after all the things we'd put her through when she'd first fallen into our lives.
But I should have known then what I did now. She was never just some girl, never a victim or a means to an end. She was the centre of us. The heart we never believed we had. She'd drawn four lost and hopeless souls into her orbit and claimed each and every one of us as her own, despite the dark and depraved beasts she knew us to be. Without her, we were nothing. I was nothing. Cast adrift without purpose or meaning. But that wasn't going to be my fate, because I refused to even consider the idea of it being hers.
I was terrified at the thought of her being taken from this world and while that could have been crippling, it was actually liberating. I had no limits left on me now. There were no depths I wouldn't stoop to. Nothing I wouldn't do and nothing I wouldn't sacrifice for her. So now that fear was my fuel, I was going to use every last drop of it in the quest for her safe return to us.
"Is everyone in position?" Saint's cool, level voice came through the earpiece as I looked towards the innocuous building we’d surrounded.
Unlike me with my emotions untethered and the constant edge I balanced on, Saint had lost every scrap of emotion since it had happened. He was a cold, hard machine of a man with one single goal only and I had no doubt that he would achieve it.
"I'm at the rear entrance," Monroe confirmed, his voice gruff and low. "It's locked up tight by the looks of things."
"Fire escape looks the same," Blake confirmed.
"On it," I growled, rolling the ski mask I had perched on top of my head down to obscure my features.
I didn't really give a shit about being seen and I'd told Saint as much, but he'd insisted we keep our identities hidden, not wanting his asshole of a father to realise that we were the ones on the hunt. We'd covered up our break ins to the other four labs and hospitals owned by Serenity Pharmaceuticals under the guise of stealing medicines. We’d also paid off contacts via my family to break into other similar places around the city to make it seem like a widespread series of attacks based on a need for antibiotics and the like in the face of the Hades Virus. Saint didn't want it getting out that we were the ones orchestrating it until it was too late and we'd rescued our girl.
I'd argued at first, having no reservations at all over the idea of letting Troy Memphis know that a member of the biggest and most ruthless crime family in the state was hunting him like the dog he was, but Saint had disagreed. He wanted us to use the element of surprise and keep our plan smart. If he hadn't pointed out the fact that his father could easily move Tatum out of the state or even out of the country at the slightest hint of a rescue attempt, then I'd have been more inclined to argue my point. As it was, I trusted Saint to know the best way to go up against his crazy fuck of a father, and if he was sure that this was it then I wasn't going to argue.
But my temper was running very thin. I wasn't coping. I knew for a fact that I was unravelling fast. On the days that I was forced to spend waiting for Saint to come up with our next target to hit, I was drinking heavily and chain smoking and basically falling into a pattern of self-destruction which I had no reason to fight against. But tonight wasn't like the others where I roared my agony and the loss of my girl to the sky and drowned my sorrows in a bottle of Jack until I passed out, murmuring apologies to the girl I was failing. No, tonight was one of the few nights where I could actually do something to help her.
In fact, I felt certain I was about to find her at last and pull her into the safety of my arms, never to let go again.
There wasn't a drop of liquor in my system. There wasn't a single, errant, distracting thought in my mind. I was embodying the monster I'd been raised to be. Every fucked up, horrific moment of my childhood had been specifically designed to mould me into the perfect kind of beast to get this job done. I was lethal, bloodthirsty and entirely focused on one goal.
I was getting my girl back. Come hell or high water she would be returned to my arms by the time the sun rose, and I'd worship her for the rest of my days like only a demon knew how.
I tugged the pair of black gloves on, concealing the last of my flesh within the dark fabric and flexing my fingers to make sure I could still use my hands properly inside them.
I slipped down a side alley to the right of the building, using the dark spots between streetlamps to creep closer to the research centre in the shadows.
The place was well guarded but only against people who didn't know what they were doing. I had no intention of heading in via the front door where the guards were waiting. I wasn’t a fucking amateur. I’d been trained in the art of criminal behaviour since I was a boy and I was a damn good study.
I crept quickly down the narrow alley, inhaling the scent of smoke on the air and glancing up at a vent which was churning it out from the third floor. The scent was slightly clinical, and I frowned towards the rising smoke for a moment before continuing on with the plan.
I had no time to hesitate, no moments to spare. My girl was inside this building. I could feel it in the depths of my darkened soul. My heart was thumping to a deep and sultry rhythm which could only be in answer to hers. She was close. She had to be.
I paused in the shadows as I looked up at the smooth wall beside me, spotting the air conditioning vent just where Saint had said it would be after he’d managed to get his hands on the blueprints to this place. Two floors up and bolted down as tight as fuck. Not that that would stop me.
When I was fourteen, my uncle Niall had started taking me with him when he went on jobs that required a bit of stealth. That fucker was the grand master of breaking and entering. He even had a reputation in some circles which claimed he could walk through walls. Everyone knew if Niall O'Brien wanted you dead, there was no escape. You'd wake up in the night with him looming over your bed - a garrotte or axe or sledgehammer in hand depending on his mood - and you'd leave this life bloody and screaming for a mercy which would never come.
Suffice to say, after having a teacher like him, I could break into this place no bother.
"The guards should be finishing up their patrol in seventeen seconds," Saint's voice informed me via the speaker in my ear.
"Most people don’t actually stick to your anal as fuck routines, you know," Blake muttered over the comm too and I almost smirked as Saint bit back at him. Almost. But there wasn't enough good left in me for smiles while my girl was gone.
It took a bit of doing to scramble up to the vent, but I made quick work of breaking in once I was there.
I grunted as I hauled myself into the shaft, my shoulders brushing up against the cool metal as I forced my broad frame into the tight space.
"I'm in," I murmured, pushing my tools back into my pocket and starting to wriggle forward on my stomach.