The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2) (20 page)

He pulled in a deep breath. “You think I don’t know that? I own you, Shadow. I own every single fucking Phantom. I made the rules to protect every single one of you.”

I stepped forward when he pushed her back against the wall but stopped when she lifted a hand to me. “It’s okay, Daniel.”

Isaac turned his head slowly. A cold smirk tilted his lips and he chuckled. “Ahh, yes, I seem to have forgotten about your… mmm. I suggest if you don’t want your guts decorating the wall, you stay exactly where you are.”

“What the fuck?” I disregarded his warning and took another step into them.

“Daniel!” I narrowed my eyes on Connie as she spat a caution. “Honestly, it’s okay.”

Isaac stared at me, his expression mocking and goading. “Well?”

Flicking another glance at Connie she gave me a glare, again warning me. Going against everything my body was screaming at me, I lifted my hands. “Fine, but hurt her and I won’t just stand here. You want to find out what I’m capable of, then go ahead.”

They both gawped at me, Connie with her mouth wide open and Isaac with a confused stare. He started to chuckle, then full on laughed as he turned to Connie. “Well, my love, it looks like you’ve acquired an admirer.” He leaned into her ear, whispering just loud enough for me to overhear. “Did you let him in your arse? He seems smitten.”

“Fuck you.”

He winked and dropped her throat, shaking his head as though disappointed with her. “There’s only you I would do this for,” he breathed as his fingers cupped her cheek lovingly, his mood shifting so quickly I was winded.

“Isaac, what?” I didn’t miss the way she pushed her cheek into his touch, her eyes glazing with a softness.

“Trust me, Connie?”

She sighed, blowing out an irritated breath. “You know you’re the only one I have ever trusted in my life. Isaac stop playing with me, I’m not a toy.”

She gasped when he pushed against her, trapping her beneath himself and the wall. “You’re – MY – fucking – toy!”

She licked her lips, her chest heaving. “Always,” she whispered. What the fuck! They were the oddest couple I’d ever met, but there was something both of them displayed in their gazes and glares to each other that I had only ever seen once before - A look in my own eyes when I had watched the life drain from another.

“Who has Annie?” he repeated.

As though fighting with herself, Connie shivered. “She’s with Daniel’s sister.”

Time seemed to pause for a single second. Isaac’s body tightened, his lungs sucking the air from the room as he inhaled the deepest breath I had ever heard. He turned to me, his glare cold but one that wouldn’t bear compromise. “Her name?”

I flicked a glance at Connie. I trusted her, but him, I wasn’t so sure. She gave me a slight nod. “Helen Reynolds.”

He stepped back and turned to Connie. “Did you vet her?”

She frowned at him, annoyance playing across her face. “Of course I did!”

He nodded slowly, his lips parted as his tongue trailed across his lip. “Not well enough, my love.”

That single sentence had my knees buckling and every single nerve in my body crying out in pain. Goosebumps exploded over every inch of me as my stomach vaulted and vomit surged up my throat. My head shook from side to side before I even realised I was moving. “What? What does that mean?”

I pushed my hand into his chest, anger at his riddle bringing forward my wrath. Air gushed from my lungs. I blinked, my cheek squashed against the wall, a knife stuck across my throat in an instance. I wasn’t even aware he had moved. Holy fuck! Now I understood the talk about the lead Phantom, and why he was in control of such a formidable
business.

“You ever fucking touch me again and I will slice you into so many tiny little pieces that even the worms will be able to feast on you.”

“Isaac!” Connie warned as she rushed over to us. “It’s okay. It’s his daughter. You would be the same.”

He turned on her so quickly I was dizzy with each of his swift movements. “I never got the fucking chance though, did I? And you…” he spat. “You are still trying to fill that gap with someone else’s child!” His hands covered her face before he’d even finished his vicious words. “I’m so sorry, my love. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Her face tightened as her lips disappeared behind her teeth but she nodded and placed her own hand gently on his cheek. “I know.” It was whispered but the grief in her tone was so very loud.

“Will you stop fucking playing with each other and tell me what the hell is going on?” I didn’t care if he gutted me right there in the hotel, I couldn’t cope with what my mind envisioned.

He sighed, letting my anger ride over him. “A single contract was taken out on you, and then one including you and your daughter. Luckily for you, and unfortunately for the client, they are unaware of our refusal to hurt any child. The child is always placed with alternative carers with new names and new lives to protect them.”

My estimation of the Phantoms rose tenfold with his declaration but I remained quiet and allowed him to continue.

“The dual contract was taken out by… Helen Reynolds.”

I watched Connie drop to the floor as did I. My whole life rushed at me, snapshots of my beautiful Annie, all of them bombarding my mind one after the other in rapid succession, each one shattering my heart more and more.

“No!” Connie wailed. “No, Isaac.”

He gripped her arms tightly and pulled her upright. Her head was shaking from side to side, her ashen face crumbling under the torrent of tears. “What have I done? What have I done?” she repeated over and over.

My eyes widened when Isaac shot his hand across her cheek, her skin flushing instantly. “Look at me!”

Her sobs were loud and almost as heart-breaking as the knowledge that my own sister wanted her only niece dead. “You are no longer a Swift. You are a Phantom. Rein it in.” He pulled her further into him, his words hitting her with a fury. “I taught you better than this! Find the Phantom inside you. You need that fucker, you need to find the shadow that eclipses your heart and pull it free for what needs to be done.”

I watched as her body went stiff. “Lock it down, Shadow,” Isaac continued. “Do not mourn your sister. Avenge her. Fight for her. Honour her in the best way only you know how.”

Her eyes closed for a brief moment before she opened them and nodded. “I’ll need a safe house, an execution zone, Panther and Bullet.”

Isaac smiled the cruellest of smiles. “There’s my girl.” He nodded once. “I’m on it. You have enough ammo?” She replied with a nod as she strode almost mechanically across the room.

“You really think she’ll be in the place you left her?” I asked, knowing that Helen would have immediately taken Annie somewhere unknown.

“No,” Connie answered in the coldest voice I had ever heard from her.

I couldn’t hold in the choked sob that wrenched itself free from my throat but I watched over Connie’s shoulder as she fired up the program she used to locate each of our microchips. A map loaded up. She hit numerous buttons on the keyboard and almost instantly a small pink dot blinked at us.

I stared at her. “You gave my daughter a microchip?”

She glared at me. “You really think I would do that?”

“Then how the hell do you have her blinking away on the screen?”

“That’s not her. It’s Herbert, her bunny.”

I didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss her or bend her over the desk and fuck the living daylights out of her in gratitude. As though reading my mind, she stood up, pulled out a leather wrap and unrolled it, displaying to me various knives as she winked. “You can thank me later.”

“Well, this I would love to see.” Isaac chuckled from across the rooms as he leant against a wall and watched his wife with pride.

Glancing at Connie, determination and coldness surrounding her, I knew I was to witness something terrifying come to life, but she was equally astonishing when the Phantom inside her came out to play. I licked my lips, squirming at the way my cock strained against my shorts.

“Do you need me?” Isaac asked her.

She smiled softly. “Always. But I’ll have to wait until this is done.”

He nodded and pulled out his phone as he pulled the hotel door open. “I’ll have everything prepared for you. Alert me to the rendezvous point for Panther and Bullet. Be safe and use your head, Shadow.”

“I will.” She gave him a glance that broke my heart for her. Their love was so very strong. I didn’t acknowledge the loneliness that curled through me.

“I love you,” she whispered across the room to him.

“Almost as much as I love you.” He pulled the door closed behind him.

I watched her prepare her tools and weapons, staring in awe at the numerous firearms she had in her possession. She turned to me. “Ready?”

I gave her a nod as she narrowed her eyes then sighed and handed me a pistol. “Do you know how to shoot?” I quirked an eyebrow and she shrugged. “Then let’s go take out this bitch and bring your daughter home.”

A strength I never would have expected poured over me. I couldn’t explain what I felt but I knew deep within me that this woman who planned my death would save my daughter from hers.

THE SILENCE IN the car was suffocating. Daniel had been staring out of the window, his mind elsewhere, or rather on Annie, the same as mine.

The rain bounced off the window, the wipers struggling to keep up with the river rippling across the windscreen. The wind had picked up, forcing the rain harder, the driving beat of it and the wipers regular rhythmic sway hypnotising in the quiet. I fought with the steering wheel as each gust blew the car across the empty motorway.

I glanced at him, not risking taking my eyes off the road for too long. “I need to know, Daniel.” He turned to me. His face was so full of anguish that I moved my eyes back to the front before I spoke again. “I need to know what to expect. Why she’s doing this.”

I saw him nod slowly before he reached forward and adjusted the heating after a small shiver shook his body. “Helen and I, we were close. She…”

I rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth when my phone rang. Glancing at the console, I hit the accept icon. “It’s me,” Bullet’s tiny voice came from the speakers. “We’re both prepped,” she continued without waiting for me to speak. “We’re awaiting your instruction.”

“I’ll send detail via secure connection. Although with the way the weather has deteriorated, I’m going to have to abort until morning.”

Daniel’s head snapped round to mine. Just as he opened his mouth I held up a hand, halting him.

“I agree,” Bullet said. “We’re around ten miles from the centre. We’ll settle and await your correspondence.”

“Okay.”

“The other requirements you needed are set. And…” She sighed and I frowned. Bullet was never one to mince her words yet I could sense her struggle. “And you know that I will do anything to…” She clicked her tongue, knowing that we weren’t on an encrypted network and had to be careful how she worded things. “What is needed. Anything…
Anything
.”

“Family is more than blood,” I whispered back to the closest person I had ever had as a friend. I knew she would understand my words after she had just told me she would sacrifice herself for my niece and me.

“And blood is what makes us family,” she replied giving me cause to smile. “We bleed together, my friend.” Her parting words calmed my anguish.

“They are your family now.” Daniel spoke into the darkness that had descended in the car.

I glimpsed at him and smiled. “Yes. Yes they are.”

He nodded and gave me a very rare smile. “That’s good, that you have them.”

We were quiet for a moment. The road started to blur and I was finding it increasingly difficult to carry on driving. “We’re going to have to stop.”

“But we need to find her.”

“Daniel.” I sighed, trying to convey the truth in what I was to say. “For one, I can’t do my job properly in a storm. I need it to be clear to grant me an opening to gain access and to survey the area properly. I can’t risk anything for Annie. And Helen wants to hurt
you
. She is expecting us to find her. That’s why she has taken Annie to your childhood home. She is waiting for you.”