"Good," Kyan ground out, drawing my attention back to him and his phone conversation. "I'll call you about where to meet us when I know the details." Kyan hung up and I wondered if that was really the best way to treat a man who he had declared a criminally insane psychopath on more than one occasion. But apparently he gave no shits about that and I just had to hope that Niall O’Brien was still on our side despite his nephew’s rudeness.
"He's in," Kyan said, tossing his cell down on the table so that it slid across the polished wood and smacked into the side of Saint's laptop. "Tell me when we're ready to leave."
He stalked away without another word and headed down into the crypt where a bellow of rage escaped him, echoing off the cold stone walls down there before the predictable sound of him beating the shit out of the punching bag came a moment later. He’d managed to split two of them in the weeks that Tatum had been missing, spilling sand all over the floor while he stood there sweating and panting over the carnage, barely even seeming human anymore as the rage in him burned freely.
"I'd better make sure he puts gloves on," Monroe grunted after a few moments passed of us listening in to Kyan's pain in physical form. "If he fucks his hands up before we head out, he'll be no good to her."
Her.
No need for any of us to mention her name. There was only one woman in our lives. Only one. She was the spider that had lured us all in and bound us to one another within her web. We may have been close without her, but with Tatum at the heart of us, we were an unstoppable force. We only needed a direction to point our fury in and we'd be ready to tear the world apart to return her to her rightful place at the heart of us.
Monroe stalked away to join Kyan and I expelled a hard breath as I tried to contain my own frustrations.
"Anything?" I demanded while Saint just continued to stare at nothing on the fucking laptop screen.
"Yes," he replied scathingly, his voice dripping disdain. "My contact within the FBI already traced that motherfucker's number and sent me over all the details. I chose to continue sitting here and not to react in any way because clearly, I don't give a fuck about the welfare of our queen. Perhaps I'll go and take a nap before opening the email."
His cold gaze slid to me for a single second before he went back to staring at his fucking screen, waiting for that email to come in for real and I felt the weight of that look like a fucking sucker punch.
"Alright, alright," I replied, raising my hands in surrender and apology. "I'm just desperate to get out there and find her."
Saint exhaled slowly and nodded once. "We are all equally shattered by our separation from her. Our enthralment with the girl we made our own is something quite astounding, wouldn't you agree?"
"Not really," I replied. "You only have to take one look at the girl - a real look, beyond the fucking stunning exterior to the richness of her soul beneath it and the power she commands without even trying. Once you see that, I don't think anyone would be surprised that she caught the four of us under her spell. I mean, shit, that girl deserves a whole hell of a lot from this life and if we can even begin to give it to her then I'm all in."
The sound of Kyan and Monroe arguing about his lack of gloves called up to us, quickly followed by the sound of the two of them fighting each other. I wasn't worried about them injuring themselves in any lasting way though. Neither of them would want to render the other useless once we found out where we needed to go. The four of us would need to be on top form to rescue her.
"She's the light to our dark," Saint said when I'd just about given up on getting a reply from him. "I just hope our corruption doesn't taint her soul too much."
I scoffed dismissively and he raised an eyebrow, deigning to look at me once more.
"That's not the way this works, dude, haven't you figured that out yet?" I asked him.
"What?"
"The corruption. It's not us darkening her soul, it's her lightening ours. She's more powerful than any of us and the deeper we let her into our hearts, the closer I think we move to salvation."
"Salvation?" Saint asked before shaking his head. "No, I don't believe we are about to become reformed citizens, Blake. I think we have become her creatures. We are still the dogs of war, dark, desperate and ruined as we are, but she is our master. She won't remove that stain upon our natures, but she will show us where best to aim it. And I for one am ready to let her."
I swallowed thickly as I considered his words. Had I hoped that being with her might reform me? Mould me into a better man than the one I was? Perhaps. But maybe he was right. Maybe I shouldn't have been trying to use her to drag myself up out of the dark. Maybe I should just embrace my shadows and use her as a guiding light for where I should aim them.
Saint somehow managed to straighten further even though his spine was ramrod straight to begin with and he quickly leaned towards the laptop, tapping a few keys before his eyes scanned back and forth across the screen. I watched with my heart pounding, hoping against hope that Saint's contact had come through for us. That that number Tatum had called us from was the breadcrumb we'd needed and not another loose end.
"Got him," Saint purred, pushing to his feet and stalking away from the laptop.
I leaned in instantly, needing to see it for myself and I smiled as I found the registered owner of the cellphone we'd received that call from. Jonas Barrow, thirty-nine, single, clinical assistant at Serenity Pharmaceuticals. His address was listed too alongside a recent photograph which I guessed was from his driver's license. Tatum had given us the name Jonas before her earpiece had died but we’d had no other leads to go on until now. I hated him on sight, from his wispy brown hair to his patchy attempt at a beard which looked more like someone had glued clumps of pubes to his face in random places.
"Wait," I called, just as Saint made it to the foot of the stairs which led up to his bedroom. "There's no address here for his place of work. We already knew Serenity Pharmaceuticals were the ones holding her, but they have countless buildings and offices around the city, so how-"
"We're going to pack up our shit and head to Mr Barrow's house," Saint said, an evil glint in his eye. "And then we're going to wait for him to head into work and follow him."
"Just like that?" I asked, wondering if there weren’t more layers to his not-so-diabolical plan.
"Never forget, Blake, if you have a vermin problem there is no point taking out a single rat. You need to lie in wait, watch it return to its nest then you can strike at the whole lot of them. Complete annihilation. True victory."
He turned and continued up the stairs and a slow smile spread across my face. This was it. Finally. We were really going to get her back.
***
Jonas Barrow's home turned out to be a nice new house out in the suburbs with pink roses growing in the garden and kids playing loudly within the neighbouring houses, no doubt sending their parents batshit after months of lockdown with no end in sight. Still, better safe than sorry I guessed. I certainly would rather have been locked in a house with my mom for months than to have lost her like I did.
It was a bright and unseasonably warm day and it seemed like almost everyone on this cosy little nowhere street had decided to open their curtains wide and sit by their windows to enjoy it.