24. Ares

24

ARES

T alk about a close fucking call. A minute later and they would have been done for.

Elijah had just finished calling Ares, telling him that he had found a match on the boy and was just about to fill him in on the details when the warning alert on Ares's phone went berserk. Motion sensors that Ares had set up around the cabin detected multiple people approaching from all sides.

Not wanting to stick his head out the front door to ask the gentlemen what they wanted, Ares figured he should err on the side of caution and get them the fuck out of there. No good ever came from a swarm of men approaching a house in the middle of the night.

Good thing he had his go bag ready.

Holding Matteo's hand, he used the small flashlight he had eventually fished out of the duffle bag to guide their way through the long, dark tunnel. He hoped that Elijah was preparing things on his end. He didn't exactly have time to say goodbye before the cabin erupted in explosions and gunfire.

"What is this place?" Matteo asked, stumbling behind Ares in the dark.

"A tunnel," Ares responded.

"No shit. A tunnel to where?"

"To a safe house I have located on the opposite side of the woods."

"How did you know this was here?" Matteo asked, hand still firmly in Ares's grasp.

"Because… I had it built."

Matteo ripped his hand from Ares's grip as if his touch were suddenly a thousand degrees. Ares came to a halt and turned.

Intense fury glared back at Ares from what was once a handsome face. At the moment, Matteo's face looked like a cross between a rabid pit bull and every murderous demon who ever walked Ares's nightmares.

"What?" Ares asked, shrugging his shoulders like he didn't know what was coming next.

"You had it built?"

"Yeah, about six months after you and I started dating. I needed an escape route for us in case our lives were ever in danger. And look! They were!" Ares said sarcastically, pointing over Matteo's shoulder and back into the darkness.

Point proven.

Then Ares turned his attention to the boy.

"You and I are going to have words when we get out of this tunnel. I don't want to be carrying a dead body all this way, and I'm certainly not leaving your carcass here to stink up my tunnels."

The boy recoiled, taking a step behind Matteo.

"Don't worry, he won't touch you. Not with me around," Matteo snarled back at Ares.

"Why? Your little pet just led a dozen or so armed men to your cabin to murder us. That doesn't bode well for keeping the little prick alive."

Matteo just glared at Ares.

"Like I said, words when we get out." Ares turned and continued walking while pulling Matteo along. He didn't give a shit if His Majesty was upset. The little dickwad tried to murder them. In Ares's book, that meant dismemberment and a cement box.

Forty minutes later, they climbed another ladder that led them to another trapdoor, this one located inside the cellar of a tiny two-bedroom shack.

Ares held the trapdoor up as Matteo and Jorge climbed through the opening. He was half tempted to shove the boy back down the hole and nail shut the exit. He was pretty sure that Matteo had never used a hammer or crowbar, so rescuing the kid from the pit would probably be a challenge for Matteo.

But knowing the guy, Matteo would probably hire a whole demolition crew just to blow open the trapdoor, taking the entire shack along with it in the most dramatic Matteo-like fashion possible.

Dropping the duffle onto the floor, Ares ripped open the bag and pulled out a satellite phone. He punched in the number and waited for Elijah to answer.

"You're getting slow, old man. Normally, it takes you thirty minutes to make it through that tunnel," Elijah teased.

"Careful what you say. We have ears listening," Ares warned, glaring at both Matteo and the sheepish young man currently cowering behind the angry Italian.

"Good ears or dead ears?"

"Not sure yet. So, what did you find out?" They didn't have time to get into all the details before the murder squad invaded their home.

"Jorge Reyes, nineteen years old, both parents deceased, was working as a delivery boy until about a week ago when he quit his job, then made a two-thousand-dollar deposit to a bank account that previously had a negative balance," Elijah explained. "Want me to go over the video footage?"

"No. Let's hear what the little shit has to say first. If he lies, let me know, then I'll shoot him," Ares snarled, eyes going dark as he turned his focus to the mysterious stranger who had suddenly entered their lives.

"Sounds good, boss."

"You're not killing anyone, Ares. Jorge was confessing to me in my bedroom when you came barging in." Matteo turned to face Jorge. "You said someone hired you to lead them to me. What was the person's name?"

"Some white chico named Edwin. He showed up one day, telling me how you were a predator and that you needed to be stopped. He said he knew that you were in the area but wasn't sure where."

"So that's when he asked you to text him my location when you came home with me that first night."

The boy nodded.

Little rat piece of shit.

"What is the murder squad doing right now?" Ares asked Elijah over the sat phone, locking eyes with Matteo.

"They are searching through Matteo's belongings, looking for something," Elijah explained.

"How does he know what they're doing?" Matteo asked, eyes still blazing at Ares.

There was a long pause from both Ares and Elijah.

"Don't be mad. But I had hidden cameras installed around the cabin and motion sensors placed outside the property when you first purchased it."

Matteo's mouth dropped once again. The look of pure disgust and betrayal dripped from his face.

"I'm sorry. But I loved you—" Ares's voice caught in his throat when he realized that Elijah was still listening.

Fuck it. The man knew everything else about him already, and he strongly doubted that he would betray him after everything they had been through.

"I loved you and wanted to make sure that you were safe."

Matteo shook his head in disbelief. "After this is all over, we are having a serious conversation about limits and boundaries."

Ares nodded, knowing to take this as a win and not poke the bear.

"Boss?" Elijah asked, his voice sounding a little strange. "You wanna ask the little traitor to turn off his cell phone?"

Ares's head snapped toward the boy who was sheepishly pulling his cell out of his pocket.

Grabbing the phone from the idiot's hand, Ares shoved it back toward Jorge. "Unlock it."

The boy quickly grabbed it and entered his passcode.

Once unlocked, Ares pulled up the last set of texts sent.

"Here's the number." Ares quickly hummed off the cell phone numbers for the previous two texts. "See what you can get."

With those final words, Ares whipped the cell phone at the exposed brick wall, watching as the device shattered into several pieces.

"We can't stay here now that numbnuts brought his cell phone into my secret lair." Ares glared at Matteo. "Eli, we're heading out. We'll meet you at the rendezvous spot tomorrow night."

"Sure thing, boss. Be safe, and I'll get things set up for your arrival." The line went dead.

Ares grabbed the duffle bag from the floor and began pulling items out. He shoved a wad of cash into his pockets and passed half to Matteo. "In case we get separated for some reason."

Next, he pulled out two light jackets and two ball caps and shoved extra rounds of ammunition into his jacket pockets—because that was always safe.

He tossed the next items at Matteo and asked him to keep them safe.

"Passports?" Matteo asked, flipping open the covers. "Did you make me a fake passport?" Matteo gasped, leafing through the document.

"Yeah, well, if we needed to escape quickly, you might not have time to grab your passport. So I kept these two in our go bag just in case."

"But these aren't even expired. How long have you had these for?"

"Since we started dating."

"But that was ages ago. These are still valid IDs."

"I know. Every few years, I had to return and replace the passports with valid, non-expired ones."

"Let me guess: you broke into my house to make the switch."

Ares only shrugged. He wasn't going to apologize for looking out for Matteo.

Still, judging by the pissed-off expression plastered to the cranky Italian, Ares knew that perhaps he had crossed a line on this one.

"You sure you still want to bring this Judas with us?" Ares asked, hoping Matteo would change his mind and just let him put a bullet between the kid's eyes.

He could make it quick. The boy would barely even know that it happened. One minute, the kid was standing in a shack in Spain; the next, he was begging for entry at the pearly gates. Easy peasy.

"He's as much a victim as we are. Plus, if he stays here, he'll probably get hurt or even killed," Matteo added.

"He might get killed by me if he comes," Ares noted under his breath.

"I heard that," the pissed-off Italian grunted from behind him.

Fucker.

"Fine. Come on. Let's get out of here," Ares ordered, walking toward the door.