Chapter 67

ELLA

“Have you been down here before?” Milly asked, glancing around the bunker.

We sat almost in pitch black. Only a small bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the room in a dull gray glow, and being ten feet underground, there certainly wasn’t any opportunity for the moonlight to shine in.

“No,” I said, clutching Stefano in my arms.

The rest of the kids were huddled by my feet, wrapped in the thick woolen blankets that Leo kept stashed down here. They held each other and my legs, not a single one asleep despite it being one in the morning.

“The night I met you I was supposed to be,” I said, looking around at the concrete walls, concrete floors, and thick reinforced doors.

“But Haden’s men got to us before they could get me to safety, so I ended up in the heart of the war. It was terrifying, but this is hardly a comforting alternative.”

She nodded and continued her tenth lap of the small, confined room. We’d been there twenty minutes, and she had yet to sit down.

We were all anxious and scared for the people above the ground that we loved, but she seemed particularly uneasy. Agitated, skittish…cooped up.

After the explosions, Max had piled us all quickly into the back of a military truck, all eight kids still in their pajamas, and driven through the smoke and burning to get here.

The kids had only had a few seconds each to say goodbye to their father.

There had been no time to explain to them what was going on until Max had slammed the three-foot iron door shut, and we’d listened to the clunk of every single bolt echo around the concrete bunker.

We’d stood in silence for a few moments before I ushered them farther in, found the switch to the unimpressive light, and at least tried to settle the distress and confusion.

They were already scared, and explaining to them was difficult, especially with Cato’s probing questions. He was far more developed than his younger siblings, and he knew there was more than I was letting on to.

But all I could bring myself to tell him was that we had to stay down here until Daddy said it was safe and that he was up there doing everything he could to make that happen.

I told them the fires were set by that bad man we talked about before, but they couldn’t burn forever. When the flames had died and the ash had settled, everything would be okay.

But Milly was seventeen, and she knew the full situation as much as I did. My soft words didn’t stand a chance of settling her.

“Why don’t you sit down, Milly?” I suggested. “There’s plenty of room.”

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, clenching her fists, “I just…”

She tilted her head back and contorted her face in what looked like pain.

“Just what?”

“Something’s not right. I can sense it,” she replied. “Those books we’ve read about my magic and Hecate. They all talk about how I should be able to see the future. I’ve never been able to hone that power.

“Occasionally I have visions but only in dreams, and they’re weird and hard to interpret. But there are feelings that I get. Like preemptive emotions for what’s about to come…”

She then turned to me. Her face was grave; her bottom lip quivered a little as she pressed her nails into the palms of her hand.

“And what emotions do you feel now?” I asked.

“Panic, suffering, chaos, anger, fear…,” she said. “And then this one emotion that I could never have imagined. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before. It’s cold and empty and dark and…”

She glanced down at my children a split second before continuing in a hushed tone, “It’s like death, Ella.”

Now my lip trembled too.

“Who’s going to die, Milly?” I asked.

She clenched her fists even tighter as she just stared into my eyes, her face plastered in pure dread.

“Us and everyone we hold dear.”

LEO

Blair and I leaped behind our truck, ducking low, as another round of machine-gun fire was sent our way.

We breathed heavily, pressing our backs against the armored metal.

The bombs laid on the roads and around the border had all been detonated by the first fleet of Martinez’s men, meaning now there was a free passage for hundreds more to flood in, all trigger happy and ruthless.

We were struggling to hold them back, and chaos had quickly gripped the entire territory as we lost countless good soldiers, including every man in my patrol except myself and Blair.

It was now just the two of us against a group of about eight of Martinez’s men, and only a short distance away, we could hear the fire and shouts of other patrols as they fought just as we were.

“Any word of Martinez?” I asked Blair as I looked over to him.

He shook his head. “No sign of him. But division three has some prisoners. They might find something.”

“Fuck,” I cursed, as the machine-gun rain continued. “We both know what Martinez is like with information. His men don’t know shit.”

“So what do we do?” Blair asked. “This is already a bloodbath.”

“All we can do is keep fighting,” I replied, “and hope the bastard shows his face at some point.”

Just then, the machine-gun fire finally stopped, and I gripped my gun. “Good luck,” I said to my beta with a nod before marching out and firing ruthlessly at the enemy men desperately trying to reload the machine gun.

With a combined effort, Blair and I had them all dead in seconds.

I glanced around, checking for any more before lowering my gun and taking a deep breath.

But just as I was relaxing, thinking we’d killed them all, I heard the clapping of a pair of hands only meters from us.

“Bravo, Leonardo,” a voice said, “you’re good with a gun.”

I snapped my eyes over to the voice to see a tall, dark-haired man carelessly stepping over the bodies of Martinez’s men, prodding their lolling heads with his foot.

“What the fuck,” I muttered under my breath. “Why is it always you, Luciano? Why do you always reappear unannounced?”

He let out a short laugh before he looked at the death and destruction around us.

“So it looks like Andrea Martinez’s obsession with your girl has developed to yet another extreme length,” he said in an almost amused tone, like the loss of all this life meant nothing to him.

“Are you just here to watch the show or…?” I asked.

He paused for a second. “No,” he said, “I’m here because I thought you might want to know something about Martinez’s plan. I’ve been working with him, you see.”

I clenched my jaw and paused.

I knew Luciano was twisted and manipulative, but we were running pretty low on options here. Whatever he knew could be the difference between saving and losing this pack.

“And whose side exactly are you on?” I asked.

“Neither,” he said with a shrug, before shoving his hands into his pocket. “I plan to ensure you and Martinez both kill each other so I can take everything you have without even breaking a sweat.”

At least he’s honest.

“But right now... it’s looking like Martinez is gonna take an easy win.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“And does he know you’re meddling on both sides?”

Luciano laughed. “He doesn’t trust me. Not even a little,” he said, before putting on a scornful smirk. “The only person that’s ever been dumb enough to trust me is you.”

“Then why would he have told you anything of use to me?”

“Oh, he didn’t,” he replied, his eyes glinting. “It’s what I told him.”

I exchanged looks with Blair.

“And what the fuck did you tell him?” I asked.

“Has that gun still got bullets in it?” he asked, the smile still on his lips as he glanced down at the gun I gripped tightly in my hands.

“Tell me Luciano,” I hissed. “Stop wasting my time.”

“I gave him the coordinates to the three bunkers,” he said.

My stomach clenched and churned as I froze.

“And I’m guessing by the look on your face... you have indeed hidden your family in one of them,” he said. “So predictable—”

Before he could finish his sentence, I seized his throat and threw him into a tree.

“What?” he asked with a laugh. “Did you forget I used to be one of your most trusted men?”

I slammed his head into the tree, and blood dripped down his neck.

“I can’t decide if I should kill you now quickly or wait until I have time to make it slow and painful.” I growled in his ear.

He only grinned more despite how weak and injured I had rendered him.

“You don’t have time for revenge, Leonardo,” he said. “Martinez could be finding your luna and your little kids as we speak... and what are you doing to help them? Beating up your oldest, most loyal friend…”

Irritatingly, he was right. Fucking him up wasn’t my priority right now.

I had to get to Ella and our children before Martinez did.