⊰ 28.5 ⊱ House of Cards

⊰ **Marcel** ⊱

We take out Catalina’s men swiftly and efficiently, our synchronized movements honed by years of working together. In mere minutes, the only sound is our own controlled breathing and the distant crackle of flames where Rick set the charges.

I stride into the house, my footsteps echoing on the polished hardwood, the metallic scent of blood hanging heavy in the air. Slumped bodies lay strewn in our wake, crimson pooling beneath their still forms.

Catalina sits on a chair in the center of the room, flanked by Santiago and Levi, their guns trained on her. Even disheveled and terrified, her beauty is coldly arresting—high cheekbones, full lips, the slash of dark brows over glittering eyes.

*And still…she resembles my Mercy.*

I lower myself into the chair across from her, gun in hand, and studying her face. “Your face healed up nicely,” I remark casually, as if we’re old friends catching up. “Considering our last encounter, I mean.”

She glares at me with pure loathing, her red lips curling into a sneer. But beneath the bravado, I see the fear, the realization that there will be no mercy here. Not from me. Not after what she did.

“Both of my parents are dead,” I continue, my voice deceptively calm. “Luciano killed them. Tortured them and sent me their heads in a box. Did you know about that?”

Something flickers in her eyes—shock, maybe even a hint of revulsion.

*She didn’t. Of course she didn’t. She was always fond of my mother.*

But just as quickly as the shock flickered in her eyes, it’s replaced by a cold, bitter smile. “It didn’t have to be this way,” she says quietly. “If you had just married me like you were supposed to, none of this would have happened.”

“You’re right,” I muse, tilting my head. “If I’d been able to stomach the thought of waking up next to you every morning, maybe we could have avoided all this bloodshed.”

Something flashes in her eyes—anger, indignation. “I was good enough for you to fuck though, wasn’t I?” she hisses. “All those nights you called me over, used my body for your pleasure—”

“That’s all you were ever good for, darling,” I cut her off coldly. “A hole to stick my dick in when I was bored.”

She recoils like I’ve slapped her, tears of shame and fury welling in her eyes. A part of me, a small, distant part, takes a perverse pleasure in her pain. Catalina, who flaunted herself like a prize, reduced to this whimpering, pathetic shell.

But then the image of Mercy from that night flashes through my mind—her battered face, her broken body, the burn on her neck, and the hollowed look in her eyes as she begged me not to leave her. The shattered pieces of the woman I love, left broken in the wake of this monster’s cruelty.

*Our unborn child…*

White-hot rage surges through me, boiling my blood. I surge to my feet, yanking Catalina up by her hair, her pain-filled yelp like music to my ears.

*One last time I end you, for good.*

“Where’s Luciano?” I growl, brutally shaking her. “Where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know!” she gasps, her eyes wild and rolling their sockets. “He sent me here yesterday and I haven’t heard from him since, I swear!”

My grip tightens, eliciting another cry. Distantly, a logical part of me whispers that she’s likely telling the truth. Catalina isn’t smart enough, cunning enough, to have hidden from me so well for so long.

*Why now?*

Then, a sickening realization hits me like a punch to the gut. She’s a pawn. She has to be. Luciano *wanted* me to find her.

*That sick bastard…*

I part my lips to speak, hoping to shake something useful out of her, but Rick’s voice breaks through my spiraling thoughts as he strides into the room, a concerned look on his face. “Boss,” he says grimly, jerking his chin towards the door. Something in his tone, the urgency in his eyes, tells me I *need* to hear what he has to say. Now.

I release Catalina, letting her crumple back onto the chair as I follow Rick into the hall, a sense of foreboding settling like a lead weight in my stomach.

“What is it?” I demand, scanning his face. “What happened?”

“I think Katherine’s in trouble,” he says tightly, pulling up his phone. “Listen.”

He taps the screen, hitting the speaker icon, and tinny audio filters through—muffled thumps and rustling, like fabric brushing against the microphone. For a moment, I’m confused, irritation prickling under my skin. Then an all too-familiar voice cuts through the static, chilling me to my core.

“The house is clear.”

*Fabio?*

His voice is unmistakable—the familiar thick Italian accent.

“Excellent. Now we can take our time.” Another man, his voice cold and touched with a slight Spanish accent, one I’ve heard before in the audio that we recovered from the shop where my Mercy was beaten and in the video sent of my parents being tortured.

*Luciano…*

My blood turns to ice in my veins as the unmistakable sound of gunshots reverberates through the speakers. Rick is yelling Katherine’s name, desperation cracking his voice, but there’s no response.

“Where is she?” I ask hoarsely, my hands clenching into fists at my sides, my nails biting into my palms.

“Your house,” Rick says grimly, showing me the screen. A map fills the display, a blinking dot marking the location.

*Mercy…*

The breath leaves my lungs in a whoosh, a buzzing filling my ears. Mercy. He has Mercy. My wife, my heart, my everything…in the hands of that sadistic fuck.

I’m moving before I even register it, bursting back into the room where Catalina sits. She looks up at me, her mascara-streaked face wary and confused. I could almost laugh at the sight. She has no fucking idea what’s coming.

I grab her by the hair again, wrenching her head back as I press my gun to her forehead. “What is he planning?!” I snarl, my finger trembling against the trigger. “What the *fuck* is Luciano going to do to them?!”

Her eyes are blown wide with terror, fresh tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know!” she sobs. “I swear, Marcel! He didn’t tell me anything!”

I search her gaze, looking for the lie, for any hint of deception. But there’s nothing, just pure, animalistic fear.

*She’s telling the truth.*

“The house’s security system is down,” Rick says tightly from behind me, his hand reaching for his gun. “The cameras are offline.”

Santiago and Levi exchange alarmed looks, understanding dawning in their eyes. “Alessandra…” Santiago breathes, his face paling. “What the hell is going on?”

I release Catalina, letting her drop to the ground in a boneless heap. She’s served her purpose. She has nothing left to give me. Without a word, I level my gun at her head and pull the trigger, her scream cutting off abruptly as her skull explodes in a mist of blood and brain matter.

“We have to go,” I say, my voice distant to my own ears as I turn away from her twitching corpse. “Now.”

We move as one towards the door, all thoughts of Catalina, of this place, vanishing from my mind. All that matters now is getting to Mercy, to my family, before it’s too late.

Rick holds the phone to his ear the whole way to the car, barking orders at our men who stand guard around us, telling them to head for the estate. I slide into the passenger seat of the SUV, Santiago and Levi piling in behind me as Rick gets behind the wheel.

I pull out my phone with trembling fingers, my thumb hovering over Mercy’s name.

*I need to hear her voice. I need to know she’s still…*

But I can’t. Because if she doesn’t answer, if her phone goes to voicemail…I don’t know what I’ll do. But I know it will unleash something inside me, something dark, primal, and utterly beyond reason.

Levi and Santiago have their own phones out, desperation painting their features as they try again and again to reach Eboni and Alessandra. Each time, it goes to voicemail, their recorded voices far too cheery for the hell we’ve found ourselves in.

“What the fuck is going on, Marcel?” Levi demands, his voice cracking. “Why would that *fucking asshole* go after them?! They have nothing to do with this!”

*Revenge. Pain. Suffering. My utter destruction.*

But I can’t say it. I can’t voice the fear clawing at my throat. So I turn to Rick, my last hope. “Tell me you still have Katherine on the line,” I rasp. “Tell me we haven’t lost connection.”

He meets my gaze, the phone still pressed to his ear. He quickly lowers it, reaching for the vehicle’s multimedia system and activating the bluetooth. Through the speakers, all we can make out are muffled sounds—rustling, footsteps, distant sobbing.

His knuckles bleach on the wheel as he takes a sharp turn, his chest heaving as he tries to keep a steady breath. “I’m not hanging up until we get there.”

I nod, but the reassurance feels hollow. What good is a live connection if we’re still miles away, helpless to do anything but listen?

The cold, brutal truth settles over me like a shroud. By the time we get there, it will likely be too late. Luciano will have done what he set out to do. He’ll have taken from me the only thing in this world I can’t bear to lose.

*Mercy…*

Her name is a prayer on my lips, a desperate plea to a God I’m not sure I believe in. How could any benevolent being let this happen? How could He stand by and watch as the purest soul I’ve ever known is ripped away from me?

But even as the question swirls my mind, I know the answer. This isn’t God’s doing. It’s mine. I’m the one who brought her into this life. I’m the one who painted a target on her back the moment I claimed her as my own. This is my fault. My sin to bear.

My thoughts shift to the cross she gave me, the one hanging around my neck, resting against my chest.

*Please, don’t take her from me.*

…

*She believes. She believes in you. Please, protect her.*

I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache, a muscle ticking in my cheek. Sanitago meets my gaze on the rearview mirror, a grim determination in his eyes, even as gear lingers in them.

“We’re going in blind, aren’t we?” he asks quietly.

I don’t answer. I don’t have to. He knows as well as I do that we have no other choice. Luciano has cut off our eyes and ears, leaving us fumbling in the dark. It’s a tactical nightmare, a suicide mission.

But what other option do we have? Abandoning them, leaving my Mercy at the fate of that sadistic bastard’s hands is not a fucking option.

*Not now, not ever. Even if it gets me killed.*

Suddenly, a thought flickers through my mind—Ben and Pablo. The CIA agents I left behind at the house, tucked away in the lab where they couldn’t get in my way. No one else knows they’re there. I made sure of that, not breathing a word to anyone about my decision to keep them out of the action.

A spark of hope ignites my chest. If they’re still alive, if they managed to stay hidden…they might be our only chance. The bitter irony isn’t lost on me—the men I trust least, the ones I would’ve killed had it not been for the deal Mercy initially made, could be the key to saving everything I hold dear.