Dominion (Alpha Domain #1) (17 page)

B
latantly breaking
traffic laws right after a mission was one of the stupidest things you could do. If you got stopped and somehow were traced back to the scene of the original crime— you were completely fucked.

But knowing that Mason and Amber were under attack when we were still ten minutes away was enough to light a fire under my ass and not give a shit.

Let the cops chase us. They can arrest my ass after I take out everyone trying to get to Amber.

My knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly and when my jaw started to ache, I realized I was grinding my teeth together too. I glanced up in the rearview to see Derek leaning forward while Troy reached behind the seat and into the trunk for our guns.

Allen accepted his and reloaded it, Derek holding onto mine for the time being. By the time all the guns were out of the trunk, we were within two blocks of the house.

“Pull over, we’ll run in,” Allen demanded.

“We don’t have time.”

“If we pull up and they shoot us through the fucking windshield, then time won’t matter!”

I growled and jerked the wheel, sending us sliding up the road behind our house. The tires spun on the asphalt as the car struggled for purchase before it finally surged forward into motion. I pulled into a parallel spot and got out of the car, Derek handing my gun over as soon as he stepped out.

“Leave no one alive unless it’s Dante!” Allen shouted as he broke into a run, the rest of us following right behind him.

T
ears streamed
down my face as I listened to the pounding on the basement door. The men who had broken in must have checked every room in the house and when they realized this was the only locked door, their attention honed in.

It would only be a matter of moments before they burst open the door and came downstairs. It was pitch dark in the room and I knew Mason was at the foot of the stairs, surely aiming his pistol upwards, but how many of them would there be? Would he have enough bullets to stop them before someone got lucky and hit him?

I couldn’t live with his death on my conscious. I didn’t want anyone to die protecting me.

“Mason,” I whispered into the darkness.

“Quiet!” he hissed.

I didn’t see the point considering they already knew we were down here.

“Please,” I sobbed. “Please don’t die.”

He let out a harsh breath and I heard his footsteps as he came closer. I gasped when I felt his hands grip my shoulders in the dark, pulling me up to stand as he whispered, “Don’t freak out. Just trust me.”

The door of the basement cracked and Mason stepped behind me, his arm locking around my neck as his other arm reached over my shoulder. My hands instinctively went up to grip the ridiculously strong arm that could easily choke me to death as I stared wide-eyed in the direction of the staircase, even though I couldn’t see a damn thing.

The next crack was followed by a series of approaching thumps that could only be the broken door sliding down the steps.

“Bring her up!” a male voice shouted.

Mason’s hand covered my mouth and I felt him shaking his head behind me. I clenched my teeth together and waited, the tension thick in the unmoving air of the basement.

“Have it your way!”

Multiple creaks came down the stairs and I waited patiently, wondering why he didn’t fire when they got to the landing.

Then I remembered he was using me as a human shield and if they fired back, I’d be dead within seconds.

His hand stayed over my mouth and I attempted to slow my breathing, trying to stay as quiet as possible.

“I don’t think anyone is down here, man.”

“Where the fuck else would they keep her? Someone find a light switch!”

“Maybe they took her with them on the bus.”

The bus? What bus?

“Shut the fuck up and find the light!”

There was a lot of shuffling and Mason slowly pulled me back, taking us further away from the men as they moved around in search of the light switch. I soon realized he had backed us into a corner and I felt his body relax when his back hit the wall. I swallowed hard, trying to count the sets of footsteps.

There were at least four men in the basement with us. Four versus one.

“It’s up here!”

Five versus one.

The light turned on and Mason tensed, the barrel of the gun turning to press against my head.

“Move and she dies.”

Everyone froze at once— myself included— but I clung on to his earlier words. He asked me to trust him, and that was really the only option I had at the moment. Besides, maybe Mason banking on the fact that they wanted me alive would turn out to be a smart move.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” the man closest to us said, slowly raising his hand.

Mason’s arm tightened around my neck and I heard the gun cock close to my ear.

“Drop the guns and put your hands in the air.”

“Come on, man. Just—”

“DO IT!”

The man cursed and glanced back at the men behind him. “Do what he says.”

“But—”

“Do it, unless you want to face Dante’s wrath when he finds out his property has been irreparably damaged,” another man said, stepping a little closer and revealing his face.

Mario.

Everyone looked petrified by the thought and I heard Mason growl from behind me, seemingly more disgusted than I was about being referred to as ‘property’. We watched as they lowered their weapons to the ground then stood back up.

“Now turn around, walk upstairs, and go outside. Do it, or I’ll blow her fucking brains out right now,” he said slowly, his voice so calm and even that it was creepy as fuck. I could feel the evil grin against the back of my head since he was pressed so close against me. “Who wants to call my bluff, hmm? Who thinks I would willingly die for this bitch?”

His trigger finger twitched and a sob escaped my lips, the sound cut off as he tightened his arm around my neck. As it got harder to pull air into my lungs, my vision started to go spotty and the words got muffled beneath the roaring in my ears.

“
A
llen
, on your right!” I shouted when I noticed a guy attempting to sneak up on him from behind one of the parked cars with a baseball bat.

He spun to the side and fired three rounds, the bat falling to the ground with a clatter right before the body followed suit. Allen turned and gave me a nod of thanks before we made our way up the stairs of the house.

Derek stopped us at the door. “Mario is here,” he explained as he pointed to the cherry red Ferrari parked a little ways down the road.

Allen and I squinted, but neither of us could tell if he was actually in the car or not. I raised my gun and fired a few rounds at the car. It was a long shot, but I figured if he
wa
s inside, the bullets would probably be enough to scare him off whether they hit or not.

“He must be in the house,” Troy said as he craned his neck to look at the car.

“Don’t let him leave. John, Derek— let’s move.”

Troy jogged down towards the car to wait in case Mario tried to flee the scene. If he did, he wouldn’t get very far. Troy would probably slash the tires the moment he got over there.

Damn shame, too. Such a nice car driven by such a huge piece of shit.

We stepped over the broken remains of the front door and into the house. I felt dread tightly coiling in my stomach at the silence that met us. We waited a beat and listened, hearing nothing but the sounds of the house settling and I wondered where the hell Mason and Amber were.

Did they already take them?

“Allen—”

“
Shhh
,” he shushed, holding up his free hand and cocking his head to the side. “Basement.”

I nodded and made my way down the hall, glancing in my bedroom when I saw the door was open. The entire room had been destroyed, the contents of my closet and dresser thrown around the room where they had gone searching for Amber and god only knew what else.

“Shit,” Derek muttered as he peeked in. “What a mess.”

Allen glanced in distractedly and nodded. “Let’s keep—”

His sentence died in his throat at the sound of a step in the basement staircase creaking. I moved just far enough forward to see that the door had been broken down. Allen shoved me towards my bedroom and we ducked inside, Derek moving into the bathroom on the opposite side of the hall.

Multiple sets of footsteps moved slowly up the stairs then down the hall. I swallowed hard, waiting to see who was going to walk past the room. Allen’s gun was poised for firing and I mimicked his stance, but crouched in a position that I could also lunge from just in case it was Amber that passed by.

“Tell me what you need, scar face,” Mario’s voice drawled. “I can grant you immunity for the girl. This is not an issue.”

Mason growled and both of our eyes widened.

“Shut up and keep moving.”

I lowered myself closer to the ground as I saw one of Mario’s goons stepping backwards, his eyes never leaving what I could only assume was Mason. How in the hell had he managed to get them unarmed and backing away, I had no idea. Four other men, including Mario himself, slowly backed down the hallway, none of them glancing towards the bedroom and spotting us.

Then I realized how Mason had gained the upper hand in this fucked up scenario.

I could
feel
the moment that Allen’s vision turned red.

There was the only smallest beginnings of a snarl that escaped before I covered his mouth with my hand, but it was just enough to alert Mason to our presence. He paused mid-step, Amber’s slightly limp body pausing along with him.

“Coming to your senses, scar face?” Mario asked from down the hall, no more than a few feet away judging by how close his voice sounded. “Making us leave won’t help your cause. Hand over the girl now and we will never come back. You and your group will be left alone.”

Mason didn’t make a single movement to let on that he knew we were there— but we weren’t stupid. Allen and I knew him better than anyone and we knew he was just waiting for the perfect moment to do what he had to.

I slowly released my palm from Allen’s mouth and he moved forward until his shadow nearly extended into the hall. He stopped and waited, nodding slightly to Mason and hoping that he could see the movement in his peripheral vision.

Stall him
, I thought as I crept around Allen body and tried to get to the other side of the door without making a sound.

“How do I know you would honor your word?”

Thank fuck. Keep going, almost ready.

Mario laughed. “My friend, we
always
keep our word, I assure you. And what other choice do you have, hmm? Walk us out and relock the door? Didn’t you say you would not die for this girl? If you push us out, we will just come back later with even more men.”

Highly unlikely considering we just wiped out at least twenty of those men outside and twenty more in your human slave factory.

“Fine,” Mason ground out as he noticed me edging to the doorway. “I’ll hand her over if I have your word that you’ll leave our team alone for good.”

“This is all I want,” Mario said, his voice inching closer. “Peace between our groups. Just give me the girl, and we will both get our wish.”

From my vantage point, I saw the moment that Mario stepped directly in front of Amber followed by the moment where he turned just enough to catch sight of Allen waiting in the wings.

Mason moved immediately— shoving Amber hard to his left and into Allen’s waiting arms. I lunged forward, tackling Mario to the ground as soon as he reared back to swing for Mason. The goons down the hall shouted— likely running outside to call for backup only to find all their buddies dead.

Unfortunately, that also meant that the ones left alive were now armed again. I slammed my fist into Mario’s face once, savoring the satisfying crunch of bone before I felt a strong pair of arms wrap around my upper body and haul me backwards.

“What the—”

My words were cut off by the roar of guns firing down the hall and I twisted my neck back to look at Allen, thanking him with a shaky nod. His eyes were wide with worry, glancing between the bullets flying down the hall over to where Amber lay beside the bed, only half-conscious.

“Is she—”

“She’s fine. Just slightly out of it,” he shouted over the hail of bullets.

We waited, frozen with fear as the gunfire ceased and the footsteps came marching down the hall. I heard Mario’s pained groan right before he shouted, “Give me that!”

Allen and I jumped to our feet as Mario appeared in the doorway.

Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion from that point.

I didn’t bother to think about my actions—I simply lunged for Allen as soon as I heard the bullet loading into the chamber. Allen’s arm rose and he lightly tapped the trigger, firing off a shot at the exact same moment Mario did.

Then
—Pain
.

Searing, white-hot pain that echoed through my entire body, rendering me unable to move.

I landed on top of Allen with a huff, barely able to register his panicked movements and the sound of gunfire as Mason and Derek stepped into the hall and took down the rest of the Sanchez goons.

Allen’s bullet had hit its target dead-on, lodging right between Mario’s eyes and splattering blood all over the hallway.

But Mario’s shot had missed. Instead, it hit
me
.

Right in the fucking back.

As everything started to get dark, I noticed I was bleeding all over Allen’s chest as he frantically shouted my name. With a slightly incredulous laugh, I realized the bullet was a clean shot—in through the back and out through the front.

Is that good? I can’t remember.

A strangled noise captured my attention and I turned to face Amber just as she was starting to sit up, rubbing her throat a little before her confused eyes locked on mine.