27. Hunter

TWENTY-SEVEN

HUNTER

“ I hate lying to Winter,” I say to Leo as we gather in a room full of other members of The Resistance.

When Misha called to say that not fifty, but a hundred trafficked people, were delivered to Isla Cara as sacrifices in The Hunt, there wasn’t any way I could live with myself if I didn’t intervene.

So, the plan we’ve been working on for the last two weeks took a quick pivot. Instead of Winter and me returning to the States and then executing our plan from afar, we have to get messy. In total, we need to extract about a hundred and sixty people from Isla Cara—servants and the enslaved—and ferry them to safety. Then we can take out every Legion member on the island.

Even though I had to keep the update from Winter and lead her to believe that I’m running off to save Ella, it was necessary. She never would have let me go otherwise.

The plan is bold and risky and, if we succeed, catastrophic to The Legion. But like Misha said yesterday: I plan on living.

“Everyone is clear on their task?” Misha’s voice brooks no argument as he addresses us in his yacht’s massive meeting room.

There are at least twenty soldiers from The Resistance present, along with Leo, Jared, and me.

And Ella, who somehow couldn’t be convinced to stay behind in the States with August and Mom.

“I want to help with the extraction,” she says for the twelfth time, but before she can finish her statement, Leo is there with a fierce rebuttal.

“Ella, you’re not going to step a single foot onto that island,” Leo shouts, exasperation lacing each word.

The room falls into an uncomfortable silence.

“Ella, if you stay here on the yacht, you can help the others figure out who these people are and where they’re from. That way, we can have a chance of getting them back home. That’s a vital job,” I say.

She lifts her eyebrow before moving to stand in front of Misha with her arms crossed. “You’re really gonna make me stay on the boat, big bro ?”

Misha winces. “Ella?—”

Ella throws her hands in the air before slamming them back down on her hips.

“Then what has the last month of training been for?” Her voice is calm in the delivery, but her eyes show how pissed she is.

Misha gives me a look that shares the briefest glimpse of helplessness. In his gaze is the message: What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

“Ella, be serious!” Leo stands and grabs her by the arm to spin her to look at him. He breathes hard; she breathes hard.

They stare at each other.

… what the fuck?

“You’re not going, Ells.” Leo’s voice is low as he speaks to Ella, and I look around the room to see if anyone else is watching what I am. I catch sight of Luna who looks at the pair with a smirk, but when I catch her gaze, she looks away from me.

Guilty.

Sucking in a deep breath, Ella whirls around to face Misha. “Fine,” she grits out, and she leaves the room.

“Again, everyone knows their position?” Misha brings us all back to the pressing issue at hand as soon as she clears the doorframe.

“Keegan and I will set the bombs while you and Luna get the servants and slaves out,” Patrick says.

“It’s ‘the enslaved,’” Luna corrects, tapping at the iPad in her hand.

“And we’ll meet you in the middle and take out any Legion fuckers in the way,” This comes from Keegan.

Misha nods and looks at me.

“I’ll find Morris Winthrope,” I say. Find him, get information about The Architect, kill him.

The pakhan, my brother, nods.

“Excellent. We begin in five.” And with that, he grabs his wife by the arm and escorts her from the room.

The other soldiers begin to move around, gathering weapons and bouncing energy off each other. There’s a quiet thrum in the space—like everyone knows that some big shit is about to go down and we’re ready for it.

“You sure you want to do this, H?” Leo’s voice comes from behind me, and I think about his words.

My greatest desire is to burn Isla Cara and all the depravity that comes along with it to the ground, but am I ready?

I look at my hands, seeing the blood of the dozens I’ve killed on them.

“I’m ready for this to be over,” I say and turn around to face my best friend. From the bags beneath his eyes, he looks tired, but there’s a flash of energy in his expression. For all I’ve experienced on Isla Cara at the hands of my father and his friends, Leo has gone through his own version of Hell there.

What could our lives look like on the other side of this bullshit?

Sighing, Leo claps his palm onto my shoulder and says, “Well, let’s fucking go.”

“Not so fast,” Luna says, popping back into the room and halting our progress to the boats. “Leo, you’re on Ella.”

When she says the words, Leo lets out a strange, choked sound. “Excuse me?”

She smiles, beaming. “You’re on Ella duty. Make sure to keep her on the yacht so she doesn’t run off to get herself into danger. Think you can handle her?”

The silence is awkward, and the longer it goes on, the more ideas start spinning in my brain.

Ideas that I don’t like one fucking bit.

“No problem,” Leo says. Turning to me, he says, “Keep yourself alive.”

I can’t form words because I know I’ll either choke on them or lose my shit, so I nod instead.

Keegan, Patrick, and I split up into three separate speed boats and head to the shore of Isla Cara. We dock at the deep alcove that’s used for all the island’s deliveries, including human beings, several yards from the beach entrance to the veranda that’s seen so many horrors.

In the west, the sun has passed the horizon, casting a deep purple glow as the stars come out.

It’s a dry, breezy night. Perfect in so many ways.

Dimly, I’m aware that we’re near the spot where I ended Ominira’s life.

It’s a fitting type of poetry when I think about it.

“Everybody ready?” I call out.

Patrick sounds slightly manic when he says, “Let’s get these fuckers.”

Let’s fucking do this.

We all head off in different directions—Patrick goes to one end of the mansion with the chain of bombs in his arms, and Keegan goes to the opposite. All of the servants should be heading to the yacht so they can escape to safety, alerted to the plan by Misha’s people on the inside.

Finally, I can give them a way out—an actual way out.

I head deeper into the alcove toward the underground crypts, calling on my fuzzy memory to bring me to where I need to be. There aren’t any maps of the underground matrix, but I’ve been here more than once, even if that time of my life was a haze of drug-induced amnesia. I may lack confidence in some of the details around Isla Cara and my time on this island, but if I know anything to be clear, it’s this: if Morris Winthrope is anywhere, he’s in the crypts below.

I push open the rusty door embedded into the rock face and jam it open with a few palm fronds. Clicking on my headlamp, I take cautious steps toward the center of the maze. Although there likely aren’t very many people down here, I know that there will be at least a few guards.

Not all The Legion members are here tonight, but enough of them are to make a difference—just around seventy people. Judging from the moans coming from the direction of the main ballroom, one of the infamous fuck-offs is happening.

I guess my father being dead doesn’t matter too much to them.

Still, it’s the week of The Hunt, and in the memory of Luna here all those years ago, I remember the gathering of men and their murmured whispers.

The Architect was there. I know it.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll be here now.

Something skitters across the ground, and in my attempt to sidestep it, organic matter squishes beneath my foot. The space is dark and dank, heavy with the smell of moisture and mildew, and I bite back a curse as an unseen animal hisses at me.

Get this done. Get back to Winter. Get this done. Get back to Winter.

I repeat the mantra for the next several heartbeats until I hear two separate voices near the center of the caverns. From memory, I know that right past them is the main meeting area—the one where I saw Luna all those years ago.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I lift my weapon just as a familiar scream rents the air—everything within me crashes into the other as pure terror skates down my spine.

Winter. Winter is—Winter is here.

With a strangled breath, I face the guards, popping off two bullets in the time it takes to blink. They drop to the ground with a near-silent thud.

I spin in the center space where five different tunnels come to a juncture—turning, turning—and then another scream rents the air.

“Fuck, Winter,” I rasp, feeling like I’m dying.

Not this time.

Lifting my gun again, I prepare to slaughter anyone who stands in the way of me and my wife.

I sprint down the corridor that I know leads to the meeting area, which also is the direction Winter’s voice comes from.

Hold on, Sunbeam….

Reaching the entrance in under a minute, I assess the tall, metal door, pulling on it before slamming my shoulder into it.

One more scream.

Another.

Another.

And then I hear the most terrifying sound of my life: the rapid pop-pop-pop of gunfire on the other side.

Fuck this.

I point the gun at the lock, blasting it apart with one bullet.

“Winter, where are you!” I shout, scanning and screaming and not at all caring about any of this shit if Winter is here and in danger.

My only goal is to get her out of here and never leave her side ever again.

I shouldn’t have come.

I think about all the innocent lives we’re saving tonight, and all the evil we’ll stop. I try to latch onto it—let it fuel me.

But nothing tops the horror, rage, and pure terror I feel knowing that Winter isn’t safe.

I skid to a stop when I reach the center of the meeting area. It’s unchanged from when I was last here decades ago, and the dark platform in the center of the room provides a clear view of the theater-style rows of seats surrounding it.

A single spotlight illuminates the round stage, and I step toward it.

“Brigham.” My head and gun snap up, searching for the voice in the darkness. After a few invisible footfalls, Marcus Law comes into view.

His face gives nothing away—completely flat. So I keep my gun trained on him as he comes to a stop five feet away from the end of my firearm.

“Where is my wife, ” I grit out, my voice like rough asphalt.

Law just stares at me hard, his face unreadable, and then he hums…and what feels like a hammer slams into the back of my skull.

The rifle falls to the ground, the chest strap slides from my shoulder, and everything spins as pain blooms bright in my head. I’m aware of the sticky warmth running from behind my ear and down the back of my shirt.

Stay awake. Find Winter. Kill them all.

I turn over from my place on the ground and blink several times to zero in on the face above me. Just as it comes into focus, the press of cold metal against my forehead makes me freeze.

“You’ve really fucked up, Brigham.”

Morris Winthrope’s voice doesn’t sound as cultured as it usually would, and I feel a sick sense of pride at his messy hair and the rivulet of blood running down from his temple, pooling in his ear. He must have been caught in the battle Patrick and Keegan are waging above us.

Marcus Law comes closer with his gun pointed at my face, and he stares at me with hard eyes. Anyone can see the deadly intent in them. After spotting my rifle on the floor behind Winthrope and Law, I shift my gaze back to the man who likely will become the next president of the United States.

“I’ve fucked up? What makes you say that, Winthrope?” I say, and he takes one step back while keeping the gun trained on me.

Then he smiles.

“Because I’m so going to enjoy torturing you,” he replies.

My wrist twitches, inching toward the blade at my hip.

“Ah-ah,” he says with a tsk. “You won’t want to do that.” I pause again, assessing my situation.

Winthrope has a gun trained on me, but he’s slow and soft, and it will be easy to disarm him and end his life.

Luna’s voice floats through my mind. “Serum or not, there’s no coming back from a headshot.”

Get Winter. Get Winter. Take out this fucker in front of me.

“So what? It’s out with one king and in with the new? If so, sorry about your castle.” My voice is raspy, but I know I have to keep him talking—just for a moment longer.

“You think your father was anywhere good enough? I can see the future. He can’t. Not anymore.”

I try to understand what he’s saying, but Winthrope barks out a loud laugh, his face getting even redder.

“And you, you fucking pussy. All you had to do was follow the plan. But no. You had to go and fuck everything up.” His smile turns gleeful. “But I get to see you suffer, and that almost makes up for it.”

Winthrope nods at Marcus, and Law steps back into the darkness for several heartbeats. He’s gone just long enough for me to get my hand a fraction closer to my knife, but when he returns, I want to start a massacre.

Marcus Law drags Winter, gagged and bound, into the spotlight next to me.

When she falls onto her hip, Marcus casually points his gun at her head, stilling all of my thoughts of throwing my knife into his eye socket.

Oh, fuck.

Winter looks at me with watery eyes, and I struggle to stay still and not pop off and get both of us killed.

There’s Marcus Law with a gun, Morris Winthrope with a gun, and me.

My hands shake as I come up with different scenarios to get her to safety and leave the other men beneath the mansion dead, but the facts that remain are:

I never should have trusted Marcus Law.

Winter will get out of this safely, even if that means I don’t.

Winthrope keeps talking as the world spins, spins, spins out of control.

My eyes flick to the man holding my wife by the upper arm.

“Ah, see, I’d planned on doing this from afar—sending some men to your island and filling her with bullets for you to find, but Marcus convinced me that the revenge would be much, much sweeter if I witnessed your pain firsthand.”

My eyebrow twitches at that statement, and I resist the urge to look at Marcus Law.

Winthrope looks thoroughly unhinged as he speaks, so I take a moment to assess Winter in the dim light. She looks drugged, listing to the side a fraction, but she’s alert, and that’s what’s keeping my heart beating through the agony I’m battling.

I love you, Sunbeam.

I transmit the words and every ounce of love and care and protection I have for her in my expression.

“What’s your end goal, then?” I nod my head to indicate the mansion above us that will soon start to deteriorate.

Winthrope sniffs, and I zero in on the shake in his forearm. He’s getting tired of holding the gun.

One more minute, Sunbeam.

“It’s time for The Legion to rise up and claim our rightful place. We’ve wasted decades—decades where your father got to have his fun but got nothing done. You think Benjamin Brigham was a king? Of course, you’d think that, but your father was a weak fool. He thought he had what it takes to see our divine mission completed. But in the end, he failed. Just like you’ve failed.”

“Divine mission?” I ask. But instead of answering, he gives me a broad grin.

Keep him talking.

He shifts his gun’s aim to Winter, and Marcus takes a step back, positioning himself behind Winthrope.

My vision narrows on Winthrope’s hand holding the gun that’s pointed toward my wife.

My everything.

I give the older man a smile that’s just as sick as his.

“All this for The Architect?”

Something flashes across his face. “No, everything is for me. ” I see the intent in his gaze, but the moment I’ve been waiting for finally comes.

With a loud boom , the first chain of bombs goes off on the far side of the mansion. It’s still close enough that the blast causes the walls to vibrate and groan, and Winthrope jumps, giving me the split second of distraction I need.

He drops the gun a fraction, pointing it away from Winter just enough for me to throw the high-carbon steel toward his chest, and with a meaty thwap, the blade hits the target of his heart.

Winthrope drops like a rock to the stone floor, a strangled noise slipping from his throat as he tries to grasp for the knife.

I stand over him, pulling the secondary gun out of the holster at my back and pointing it at his gaping mouth. He coughs, and blood spews from between his clenched teeth.

“Who is The Architect?” I yell, my hoarse voice grating in my ears.

Winthrope coughs again, sucking in a failed breath before sputtering on my shoes. Then he laughs.

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” he says. “You may kill me, Hunter Brigham, but we will never stop hunting you. Your cunt wife, the bastard in her stomach, your son, and your sweet sister—we will have her. Nothing stops The Architect.”

I allow the rage and vengeance to take over, filling my cells and overriding my senses. I pull the trigger.

Once.

Twice.

Again and again until his face is nothing more than bloody pulp.

And then, silence.

Nothing stops The Architect.

Except me.

Winter makes a sound in her throat, and I whirl around and exhale as Marcus removes the tape from her face in a violent jerk.

I rush to her, falling onto my knees as I grasp her cheeks. Talking to Marcus, I say, “You couldn’t tell anyone about the change in plans?”

Marcus slides a blade between Winter’s wrists and the zip tie, and when she’s freed, she wraps her arms around my neck, and I hate myself greatly for the distress I’ve caused her.

“It was either let her be killed or take her with me,” Marcus says with a shrug. “You’re welcome.”

“What did you give her? If she or our baby are hurt?—”

“Calm down, asshole. I gave her a little midazolam. Just enough to knock her out, but it’s not gonna hurt her or your kid. They use it in hospitals for pregnant people and kids all the time.”

I gape at him for a heartbeat.

“Hunter, what the fuck,” Winter slurs, trembling so badly that I pull back from her to make sure she’s not having a seizure.

“No time for lovey-dovey shit. You two need to go ‘cause this place is about to blow.” Marcus helps Winter stand, and I pick her up despite her protests.

“I’ve got your six,” Marcus says, and I take a beat to assess if I can trust him.

I don’t have any choice, do I?

Hefting Winter into a better position, I run back down the corridor to the alcove where I docked the boat.

The control panel of the speed boat blinks, a notification from Misha and the rest of the team to get the fuck out of there. Settling Winter in, I talk to Marcus over my shoulder as I fit her with a life jacket.

“Come with us,” I say, but he gives me a strange look and then looks off toward the flames currently consuming the island.

A shockwave causes the air to vibrate, accompanying a bright flash much closer to the mansion.

Lights flicker in the mansion, and even from a distance, I hear shouting, which makes me want to smile. I can imagine the gilded elite running around in a panic, trying to escape from where they’re trapped in the massive playroom, herded there like cattle by the attendants assigned to see to their every need.

They’re locked in their new prison, awaiting their death by fire.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies. Swinging into the boat, I turn back to him after checking Winter’s position on the bench. “In fact, forget you ever saw me tonight…but don’t forget that you owe me one, Brigham.”

He takes a few steps away from the shore before spinning back to me.

“See ‘ya around,” he says before tipping his chin down and walking into the burning jungle.

“I’m letting you off easy right now, but you’re gonna hear me yell when I get back to a hundred percent,” Winter mumbles behind me as I start the speed boat.

“I look forward to it, Sunbeam,” I say, the drop in adrenaline causing everything within me to shake. I jet us off into the ocean, and after we’re nearly a mile away from the island, I angle us to witness the island’s death.

“What are you doing?” Winter asks, sounding more alert.

In three, two, one—the remaining chain of bombs detonates, and flames consume the entirety of the island.

“Watching this motherfucker burn,” is my final response.