MALACHI
Present
ISLA’S PHONE HAS BEEN going straight to voicemail for hours. Ernesto’s rings a dozen times until it reaches voicemail. Same for each man on the security team assigned to patrol the Reyes estate.
Something is wrong.
I’m not even in Southampton yet, but I already know I’m too late.
I drive the gunmetal silver Alfa Romeo Giulia like a bat out of fucking hell, zipping down the winding highway as the evening fades to night, and call over and over and over again.
Every time, voicemail.
You’re too late, my mind tortures me on repeat,she’s dead. You failed her. Not today, but eleven years ago. You didn’t believe in her, and now she’s dead.
“Shut the fuck up,” I say to the emptiness of the car interior. “Just shut the fuck up.”
White knuckles on the steering wheel, fist gripping the gear shift, kicking the engine into higher performance, the speedometer topping 160, but still not going fast enough.
Finally whipping around the corner to the seaside boulevard where both of our families’ homes are seated, I drop the speed to a crawl and kill the headlights.
My parents are back in Corwick, so our estate is empty and dark, and I lurch into the long drive, a canopy of looming trees concealing me from anyone who might be watching from the Reyes property. I park in the shadows on the side of the house and shut off the car. Reaching into the bag on the passenger side floorboard, I pull out the chrome Desert Eagle withFamiliainlaid with diamonds on the grip, and release the magazine only long enough to double check the rounds.
Nine bullets. God only knows how many men inside.
If Isla is already dead, I will take out nine men with me while I go down swinging.
If she’s not, I’ll probably have to do that anyway.
Wedging the pistol under my belt at my back, I open the door, step out, and silently close it behind me. I manage to creep across the drive to the fence without causing the gravel to crunch too loudly under my shoes, and then locate the broken portion of fence hidden by ivy—the same spot that Isla and I have slipped through hundreds of times since childhood, and I will kill every last one of these motherfuckers that I can, because I know now.
They did this to us.
They did this toher.
After I run out of rounds, I will start killing them with my bare hands wrapped around their throats and squeezing until their eyes burst out of the sockets. I might be leaving the Reyes house in a body bag in only a matter of minutes, but before I do that, at least nine of these fuckers are going to pay with their lives for what they did.
With one eye peering through the broken fence, I can already see a dozen outlines of still, lifeless bodies strewn across the long, oval drive of the Reyes estate. Men wearing uniforms of the Corwick Royal Guard, who were clearly ambushed from a distance. The windows of the house glow gold against the indigo night. The sheer drapes block me from making out any activity inside. No sound escapes. I don’t know where these people are inside. I don’t know where to enter that wouldn’t be walking into a firing squad… except possibly one place.
The iron lattice attached to the side of the house that I climbed up countless times in my childhood and teen years to sneak into Isla’s room.
Gripping the curling metal, I hold my breath to listen as I scale the side of the house. I’m faster now than I was even as a teen, such is the physical conditioning I’ve maintained in the years since my time in the Royal Navy. The sharpshooting skill I acquired then will also come in handy.
Nine bullets.
Nine lives.
Not anywhere close to the restitution warranted for such crimes, but it’ll have to do.
Gripping the window ledge, I slowly raise my chin to peer inside Isla’s room. The door is split and lays in a splintered heap on her floor, but I don’t see any blood. I scan the room one more time before climbing inside, and then pull the pistol from my belt, grip the slide, pull it back, and let it fly back into place.
Chambered.
Round one.
Fight.
Peering around the doorframe, I slip out of the room and silently step down the hall, pistol raised at the ready. From somewhere in the house, I hear Fortuna wailing a series of hitched sobs, Ernesto barking and growling in Spanish, and a third voice that I don’t recognize, but I don’t hear Isla. I don’t know what that means, but people are about to die. As soon as I’m off the stairs, and down the long hall, and at the entry to the great room where all the noise is coming from, the righteous bloodshed will begin.
