RULES OF LOVE (A Navy SEALs Romance) (24 page)

He crept around the side of the house, unable to stop his body shaking from the anticipation of finally getting the revenge he’d been after for so long: Savage dead and Eddie bleeding out on the floor.

***

“Savage, lost them both,” Eddie whispered into her com. “Savage?”

“Little busy, Sage,” he shot back and grunted.

She cursed when he grunted again and his com cut out. “Savage? Damn it!”

Shane ran for the house, and the last thing she was going to do was put herself in his line of sight, but it was vital she get to Savage. If she couldn’t go down, then she’d head farther up. She watched the door as she reloaded the rifle. Once in the hall, Shane would only be able to see her if he was halfway up the stairs, and she knew her brother. He would set a trap and wait for her to come down and get him. She wouldn’t. At least not yet.

Slowly, she stepped out of the storeroom and glanced down the hall. Nothing. She backed up to the next flight and hurried as quietly as she could to her room, closing and locking the door behind her. Once the window was open, she placed the barrel in the opening and her eye to the scope.

“Savage?” She hoped the com would be back up, but no response.

Eddie steadied her breathing as she scanned the garden. It was dark, but the moon was nearly full, so she had some light. She caught movement towards the middle, and Beau came into view, dragging one of the gunman with him, his arm around the man’s neck. He’d lost his gun somewhere. The man got out of his grip, and Eddie spotted the second one sneaking up behind Beau.

She placed her finger on the trigger, breathed in, and fired. The man fell dead on the sidewalk. She ejected the shell, pulled back the slide, and got her next shot ready, her eye on the second man attacking Beau. She watched his arms bulge as he decked the man, blocked a knee to his side, and delivered a kick to his face before he threw the man backwards. Eddie took the shot, and the second gunman collapsed to the ground.

Beau glanced over his shoulder and up to the window. His nod was enough for her, and she scanned the rest of the yard. Hugh was missing. She needed to find him—

The bedroom door burst open, and before Eddie could draw her Sig, Shane fired, knocking her rifle out of her hands and aiming the gun at her head.

“Don’t,” he snapped. “I might not have the order to kill you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t shoot you.” He pointed the gun lower to her good right knee. “What do you say we make you a true cripple, Eddie?” She didn’t speak. “Get on your feet. We have some things to talk about.”

***

Beau checked his com, but the last gunman knocked it out during their fight. He heard the gunshot in the house and rushed back up the path when something solid touched the back of his head. He froze, his hands at his sides.

“Hugh,” he murmured. Shane wouldn’t come after him. No, it would be Hugh. He’d nearly killed him once. Hugh wanted revenge against him, and that was just fine. Beau wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp.

“Beau Savage. We meet face to face at long last,” Hugh mused from behind him. “You’re outgunned this time.”

“At least out of the two of us, I’m the one that doesn’t need a gun to end you.”

“Oh, such rage,” Hugh said with a dark laugh. He stayed behind Beau, the gun pressed to his head. “Let me guess. Poor little Eddie.”

Beau’s hands curled into fists. “Don’t you dare mention her name, you bastard.”

“Did she tell you about the fun we shared? Those two weeks locked away in the underground bunker. They were so magical for us both,” he said with a sigh. “Did she tell you how many times I broke her?”

With an animalistic growl, Beau whipped around, his hand flashing out and snagging Hugh’s wrist with the gun. He pulled the trigger, but the shot hit the stone path. Beau wrenched it from him and aimed the barrel at Hugh. He glared the man down, his finger itching to pull the trigger as Hugh slowly backed down the path. But Beau pulled out the magazine, ejected the bullet from the chamber, and tossed them aside. Hugh’s brow lifted when Beau faced him with nothing more than his fists.

“When you’re lying on the ground bleeding to death,” Beau snarled, “I’m going to stand over you and watch. I’m going to listen to you beg for your life, and then I will kill you as slowly as possible for what you did to her.”

A flash of fear shot through Hugh’s eyes, but he didn’t back down. “Is that right?”

Beau didn’t respond. His lip twitched as he waited for Hugh to move. The man shrugged, resigned, and grinned. He stepped to the right and lunged forward with a yell, driving his fist towards Beau’s face. He took the hit before he bashed Hugh in the face with his elbow, driving the man back. He continued hitting, catching Hugh twice in the face followed by a kick to the gut.

Hugh staggered back down the path, doubled over as he caught his breath.

“What’s the matter, Hugh? You can give a hit but you can’t take them?” Beau snapped as he stalked forward and grabbed Hugh’s shirt front. He head-butted the man, sending him flying backwards again. “Beg me to stop, and I might let up on you.”

Gasping for breath, Hugh managed to laugh. His hand reached down to his boot, and he pulled out a knife. He straightened, tightening his grip on the blade as Beau stopped his advance.

“You know, I told Eddie that same thing,” he sneered. “She refused. You know what I did then, with this very same knife? I found out how much she could take before she screamed.”

Beau yelled in fury and charged forward. He caught the blade of the knife on his arm, but his anger numbed him to the pain. He wrapped his hand around Hugh’s throat and pushed him farther down the path, seeing this man torturing Eddie, laughing at her as she screamed in pain.

Hugh’s other hand punched Beau in the side where he’d been shot, and he lost his grip. Hugh slashed at him with the knife, and Beau jumped back, feeling blood pooling from his side and down his chest. He reached down and pulled his knife from his boot as Hugh charged again.

All those nights he’d heard Eddie scream in her sleep was because of this man. Her inability to be touched for so long, to be held in another man’s arms, was because of this sick bastard. The pain etched on her face would never go away until this man was dead.

Beau took a deep breath to steady himself, zeroing in on his target. Hugh’s knife shone red with his blood, as it once had with Eddie’s blood. Never again. He moved forward, and Beau twisted to the side, Hugh’s knife slashing across his ribs, but it didn’t matter. Beau drove his up and into Hugh’s chest. He twisted for good measure, and the man’s body fell limp against him.

“You should’ve begged,” he muttered in Hugh’s ear as he took one last rattling breath, Beau shoving him off to land with a thud on the ground.

Hugh’s eyes remained open wide, glaring at the sky in disbelief. Bleeding and sweating, Beau rested his hands on his knees, ready to collapse. A shot rang out in the house, and Beau’s head whipped around.

“Eddie,” he gasped. Armed with only his knife, he took off for the house.

***

Shane motioned for Eddie to head for the door and with his gun aimed at her leg, she had no choice but to do it. No more shots sounded out in the garden, but that didn’t mean anything. For all she knew, Hugh had knocked Beau out or killed him by now.

Her hands remained in the air, and she eased past her brother through the bedroom door to the hall. When they reached the first set of steps going down, Shane reached around and grabbed the Sig from her holster. She heard it hit the floor behind them. Then Shane whacked her across the back of the head with his gun, causing her to fall down the first set of steps to the second floor hall. She cried out in pain, her leg burning in agony.

“You shouldn’t be so troublesome,” he said, annoyed. “If you’d just died that day in the bunker, none of this would be happening right now.”

He looked at her, disgusted, as he walked casually down the stairs. He stuck out his lower lip in a pout as he observed her lying on the floor. “Oh, did you fall down, big sister? Here, let me help you up.” He grunted as he kicked her in the stomach when she tried to get up. She gasped for air, trying to back away, but he was too close. “Did that hurt? Oh, I’m sorry. How about this instead?” He lifted her up enough to see her face and punched her. She slid farther down the hall, spitting blood from a split lip as she glared at him, continuing to move backwards at the same time.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she screamed at him, halting him in his saunter over to her.

He scratched his chin, thinking, then sighed, throwing his arms down to his sides. “Damn, looks like I screwed up again… Made big sister mad, and now she’s going to scold me. Oh wait, you can’t, can you? Because you’re the one in trouble.” He ran at her, grabbed her by her hair, and dragged her to her feet. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to fight back at all?”

He shoved her backwards until her heels felt nothing but air. She struggled to hold onto his arm, but he let go and she fell backwards, bracing herself as she rolled down the last set of steps, hitting the stone floor with a painful smack.

Cringing in pain, Eddie forced herself to her elbows and knees, spitting out more blood and wondering how many ribs were damaged. Her nose was broken from his punch, and she reset it painfully. She turned to him and got up slowly, trying to keep her balance focused on her one good knee as Shane’s steps stomped down the stairs. She wiped the blood from her face onto her sleeve, and with a wicked grin, motioned for him to try and hit her again.

“Come on,” she muttered in pain. “You know you can’t just shoot me. Hugh won’t let you.” Shane bristled at her words and she laughed sharply. “Settle this the old way, Shane. You know you want to.”

In three steps, he was down the stairs, the Sig tucked back in his holster, and brother and sister were locked in a fight that would only end with one of them lying dead on the floor.

Even with the bad leg, Eddie managed to knock Shane to the ground. He was always overconfident, thinking her bad leg hindered her. All it accomplished over the years was make her more acutely aware of her other limbs, strengthening her good ones.

Shane pulled a gun after Eddie got him on the ground for the third time, punching his face in with her fists. He flipped them over and drew a gun, forcing her to hit his arm to aim the gun away. She got to her feet and rammed her fist into his kidney, making him miss the second shot. She twisted his gun arm as he fired the third shot, barely missing her good leg. They wrestled over the gun, but Shane elbowed her in the face and kicked her in the gut. She staggered backwards. He kneed her in the face for good measure, and she landed on her bad knee, paralyzing her on the floor. Shane’s back was to the gardens. She couldn’t get up and couldn’t move, no matter how hard she tried. Her knee had suffered too much abuse. She was trapped, and Shane loomed closer, his gun in hand and a mad grin on his face.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see that look on your face… utter defeat. Same look Dad gave me before I shot him.”

“It was you?!” Eddie yelled in disbelief. “How could you kill your own family, you bastard? What’s in it for you?”

“The pleasure of seeing my family fail? Being rich and powerful? Hell, after this is all over, I’ll have enough money to buy my own damn island. All I have to do is keep Hugh out of our sights, and he’ll take care of me.”

“You seriously think you can trust him?”

“Unlike you, I’m still of use to him, and besides, he won’t be in charge forever. I’ve seen to that arrangement… In due time, of course.”

Eddie tried to think of a way out of this, but it was pointless. He had a gun on her. Any second now, Hugh would come in and the torture would start all over again. Except there was no team coming to save them.

“Hugh. I have your woman,” Shane said, holding his finger to his ear. “Hugh?”

Eddie’s lips curled into a rueful grin. “Sounds like you’re all alone now.”

He pointed the gun at Eddie’s forehead, and her grin faded. “In that case, I can kill you. Say hello to the admiral for me.”

Eddie squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the impact as Shane’s finger tightened on the trigger. A gunshot rang out, and Eddie screeched as pain ripped through her side.

“Eddie!”

“Savage!” She groaned as the pain exploded in her. She watched Beau fighting with Shane over the gun.

Beau punched Shane in the gut, and the gun flew across the floor, skittering into the sitting room. Eddie’s eyes wanted to close but she wouldn’t let them, ignoring the pain, and pressed her hand against her bleeding side. Beau ducked under Shane’s fist, his eyes dark with fury as he charged forward and took Shane down, pounding him into the floor. Eddie scooted closer to the gun. Shane was down, and Beau turned his back to come to her. But Shane wasn’t finished. He stood, a kitchen chair in his hands, and aimed for Beau’s head.

“Savage!” she yelled, and he turned at the last second, catching the hit to his shoulder. Eddie’s hand hit something metallic. The gun! She picked it up, waited for a clean shot as her vision blurred from pain, and praying she wouldn’t hit Beau, fired.

The shot zinged past Beau and straight into Shane’s chest. He fell forward, and Beau turned to Eddie, rushing to her as the gun slipped from her numb fingers.