Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

ELENNA

"Where are the rest of the guys, as far as you know?" Aidan directed the question to Coast and Tiger.

"We all scattered when the door blew open," Coast said. "The rest of them must have gone the other way."

"Have you seen Sinclair and Wren?" I asked, my question directed at Aidan and Finley.

Both looked as though they’d forgotten my friends existed.

"No idea," Aidan admitted. "I presume you haven’t tried calling?"

"No, just in case they’re hiding out somewhere." I pulled out my phone and checked the screen. It showed no messages from anyone. No missed calls either.

I tucked my phone back in my pocket and unwound my scarf from around my neck. I scrunched it up and shoved it into another pocket.

"I’m sure they’re fine," Finley said. He stepped over and gave me a squeeze and a kiss on the side of my mouth.

I wished I could be so optimistic, but all I could do was squeeze him back and take the comfort he was offering. I did the same with Aidan, who held on for a little longer before stepping back and directing everyone on where they should walk. Me, bang in the middle of the guys, beside Orion.

"I didn’t get to finish telling you I love you," I said regretfully.

"You just did." He gave me a half smile before returning his focus to the doorway in front of us. "There’ll be plenty of time later for us to tell each other."

"Yeah," I whispered under my breath. I kept my gun in front of me while we moved slowly, eyes and ears open for sound and movement.

Every so often, Aidan or Finley would move ahead to check through a doorway, or inside a bathroom.

Each time, they’d wave us on, my nerves becoming more and more frayed.

"Fuck," Aidan said softly.

"Looks like it," Finley agreed.

I frowned at them both until I realised what they were implying. We were close to the entrance to the rink.

If you were going to do something terrible to a hockey team, you’d attack them where it hurt them the most. On their very own ice.

"Now it’s personal," Coast growled. When I glanced back at him, he shot me an apologetic look. "You’re right, it was already personal. This makes it more personal."

"Keep digging yourself a hole," Tiger told him. "I won’t need to shoot you in the ass, they’ll do it for you."

"I’ll shoot you both if you don’t be quiet," Aidan snapped.

"Save your bullets for the enemy," Finley said. He moved on ahead, to peer carefully through the doorway that led to the rink. He stepped back away and nodded, his expression dark. "They have a bunch of people on the ice. They’re surrounded by approximately fifteen people. They look like they’re all armed."

"We know you’re out there," a woman’s voice called out.

Geneva.

"You know what we want and we know what you want. It’s a very simple exchange. No one else has to die here today."

"The fuck they don’t," Orion snarled, his voice too low for her to hear.

Aidan looked appraisingly at all of us before gesturing for Coast and Tiger to circle around to the other entrance. He held up one hand, with five fingers stretched out.

Coast nodded and they headed off at a trot.

"If we don’t give them what they want, a lot of people could die," I said.

Enough already had. I wasn’t going to let any more of them lose their lives because of me.

"If we give them what they want, I will personally create a bloodbath from the blood of anyone even closely associated with the Fiorelli family," Aidan said. "We are not handing you over to them."

"You’re not going," I said before he got that idea into his head. "The team needs you. I need you." I put a hand on his cheek and silently pleaded with him to listen to reason.

"I think it’s a good idea," Finley said slowly.

I looked at him sharply. "You can’t be suggesting Aidan should…"

"No," he said. "I’m suggesting you should. It’s only a matter of time before they put two and two together and come up with four. If Aidan goes, they’ll kill him and then they’ll come after you when they figure it out."

I gaped at him. Blinked a couple of times. "No, you’re right. That’s exactly my reasoning."

I just didn’t expect him to agree with it.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Orion snarled. "She’s not going in there. We’re not sacrificing her for ourselves or anyone else."

"Of course we’re not," Aidan said. "But Geneva doesn’t know that."

I closed my mouth and eyes and exhaled out my nose. "Okay, I can do it."

Aidan glanced at his watch. "That should be just about enough time." He kissed my mouth and spoke softly in my ear. "I love you. You’ll always be the sun in the centre of my galaxy."

"I love you too," I told him. "All of you. Daddy Aidan, Orion, my constellation, and sweet Fin. You’re my everything."

Finley reached for me to pull me into an embrace. "You’re such a good girl. Go and do what you need to do."

I nodded and stepped towards the doorway, gun dangling from my fingers. I stepped through and held up my hands before I let the gun drop to the floor.

"It’s me you want."

Geneva was a handful of years older than Aidan. Where his hair had sprinkles of grey, hers was fully dark brown, a couple of shades darker than mine. Either she had good genes, or she coloured her hair.

I couldn’t make out any lines on her face at this distance, nor any other details other than that she was entirely in black, surrounded by people dressed the same.

I saw no sign of Nicholas or Celine, potentially confirming what Jamison claimed.

"Is it now?" she said smoothly.

She took a few steps closer, around the outside of the rink. "Elenna Christakos, if I’m not mistaken. Where is your husband?"

"Aidan has nothing to do with this," I said. "I’m the one who killed Oscar. If you knew that weeks ago, it would have saved a lot of trouble."

"That’s true." She clicked her tongue. "You certainly have caused a lot of that. I know my stepson was a handful, but he was young and ambitious. Not unlike your brother, Ike. They were a lot alike, I think. Both always into things they shouldn’t."

I wanted to snap at her to stop talking about my brother. She had no idea what he was really like. Yes, he was a handful, but his heart was always in the right place. He was the kid who rescued injured birds and animals and nursed them back to health. He was the kid who punched bullies when they harassed other kids at school. He’d own up to it every time, which got him suspended several times and expelled from one school.

On paper, he was a pain in the ass, but he was still my baby brother.

"Guys can be like that." I shrugged indifferently.

"So can girls, evidently," she said, giving me a meaningful look.

"I suppose so," I said in the same tone of voice. "Either way, Oscar killed my brother and I killed him."

"You must realise he did that on my orders," she said. "Were you working on Aidan’s orders?"

I snorted. I scanned the guys who sat on the ice, looking freezing cold.

Bray and Javey sat to one side, Phoenix near them. Lex right behind him. They were all watching me intently.

I dropped my chin and raised it again as though in response to Geneva’s question.

"Aidan doesn’t tell me what to do," I said. That was almost the truth. He hadn’t told me to kill Oscar. He’d merely encouraged me to do it.

"I see you have guts," she said admiringly.

I didn’t need her admiration, but I stood my ground and waited without answering.

She continued on. "You even had the guts to hand yourself over to me, knowing what would happen."

"I couldn’t let you kill all these people for me." I jerked a thumb towards the ice. "When they walk out of here, you can do what you want to me."

"Wouldn’t that be easy?" She crossed her arms under her breasts. "On the other hand, if I kill you now, it’s a message to them. A visible reminder of what happens if they attempt to cross or disobey me. In order to maintain control, once in a while someone needs to be made an example of. In this case, that someone is you."

"Lucky me," I said sarcastically. "Go on then." I held my hands out to either side. At the same time, I held my breath.

Geneva took a gun from one of her minions and aimed it at me.

All hell broke loose.

Coast and Tiger burst in through the door at the back of the rink. Aidan, Finley and Orion burst through the other. Javey, Bray, Phoenix and Lex jumped up and threw themselves at the armed people around them.

The rest of the team and the opposition players who were hostages with them, took a moment to realise what was going on. Then they too were on their feet, wrestling control of guns, or punching Geneva’s minions in the face.

Javey slipped on the ice and fell. A bullet aimed at him flew over the back of his head and embedded in the boards.

During all of this, I was fixated on the gun in Geneva’s hand. The muzzle flashed, right before I was pushed aside.

Aidan let out a grunt of pain.

The sound was almost in unison with a shot from Coast’s gun that took Geneva in the back of the head. She barely had time to react before she was crumbling to the floor between the rink and the first row of seats.

Aidan’s shove sent me to my knees. I landed heavily, but twisted and fell on my ass to see him clutching the right side of his chest.

His face was a mask of pain, his hand over a bullet hole already drenched in blood.

Finley leaped towards him and brought him down to the ground beside me.

Between us, we tried to stop the flow of blood, while Orion stood beside us, picking off any of Geneva’s minions who thought to come too close.

Time stopped for a minute or two, but now it restarted.

Several of the would-be attackers lay dead, the rest were on their knees, their hands behind their heads, held at gunpoint by pissed off looking hockey players.

Whether they were Demons, or Wombats, they were in control now.