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  When he got her back, he’d explain just why there was no one in the world that Ben could hire that could take her away from him.

  He wasn’t just one of the most dangerous soldiers in the world.

  He was also a huge freaking bear, with super strength and the ability to heal from almost anything.

  He could take on a hundred men if he had to.

  Kat didn’t want him to come. She was the type that tried to do fix everything herself without letting anyone else get involved.

  Well, Ares was getting involved.

  Because there was no way that stupid asshole Ben Vincent got to keep any of his Kat.

  Ares was going to take her back, and heaven help the fools that got in his way when he did so.

  And then he’d end this Ben Vincent and let Kat know once and for all that no one in the world could stand between a bear and his mate.

  Just then, Hades texted that he was outside, and Ares took the notepad to write a note of his own for Maude, telling her to stay in the safe room and keep it locked.

  But they would be safe. Ares and Hades would make sure there were no men left alive to threaten them. He opened the door and Hades came in to help him carry gear outside. Much of it was in the garage, and they went out to make sure it was all loaded in Ares’s truck.

  “You know where we’re going?” Hades asked.

  “I have a trace on her,” Ares said.

  “Good man,” Hades said. He hopped up into the truck and Ares followed, slamming his door shut behind him and opening the gate so they could leave. “Let’s go get your mate back.”

  “Damn straight.”

  10

  When they reached the main road leading up to the mansion, Ares parked his truck off to the side and turned to his partner.

  “They’ll have guards on the road leading up to the house, and if we stir up trouble there, we’ll lose the element of surprise,” Ares said to his old partner. “So best to approach from the forest, don’t you think?”

  “Agreed,” Hades said firmly.

  Ares turned off the truck, got out, and pulled on his gear. He didn’t know how many men there would be, but if this Ben guy was as dangerous as Hades’s information implicated, he’d probably have a lot of guards.

  He strapped on his chest rig, a belt with two holstered pistols, a leg holster for each leg, one with a gun and another with ammunition, slung his favorite custom-modified M4 assault rifle over his shoulder, then picked up the old M60 machine gun he kept for special occasions and looped the long belt of ammunition around his arm.

  All told, it was probably a good hundred pounds of gear and weaponry. But it felt like nothing compared to the weight of knowing they had his mate right now. He wouldn’t rest until she was safe with him again.

  “Think you have enough there?” Hades asked sarcastically as he opened a large, black case and brandished a sniper rifle that bore a similar forest camouflage pattern to the clothes he wore. He strapped on one pistol in a shoulder holster and a vest with lots of spare ammunition and was ready to go.

  “You never know what you’re going to need. All I know is they’re going to seriously regret taking Katrina,” Ares said, jogging off the road and into the forest, making up the hill toward the mansion.

  “You’re prepared to face everything short of a tank,” Hades said under his breath with a chuckle, following after Ares into the forest.

  For several minutes, they ducked through thick underbrush and navigated steep terrain. But compared to the jungles of Guatemala and the deserts of Saudi Arabia, it was child’s play. In no time at all, the estate appeared in the view up the hill above them, nestled in the side of the mountain in a wide clearing.

  The house was a large, lodge-style structure that stood a good three stories high with a wide, covered porch. To the side of the house, there was a large garage, which Ares saw was full of black, unmarked SUVs. Outside, a dozen or so men stood around or patrolled the ground. Two on the porch, another standing at attention on a balcony leading into the third-floor master bedroom, and several more meandering around at varying intervals. All of them wore black suits, sunglasses, and were carrying automatic guns, though most of them were low-caliber SMGs. Not particularly accurate or dangerous for people like Ares and Hades.

  “She’s probably up there in the third-floor bedroom,” Hades said, pointing up at the top floor.

  “We’ll take care of the guards outside, and then I’ll go in from the side entrance as soon as there’s an opening,” Ares directed, motioning at a small porch to the right of the house that had probably served as an entrance for servants and workers when the mansion was in use.

  “Give me thirty seconds and I’ll have you covered from the trees,” Hades said in a low voice, shouldering his rifle.

  “Where from?” Ares asked, but when he turned, his elusive comrade had already noiselessly disappeared into the underbrush. Hades was like that. One second he was there, the next he was gone. It still had a way of throwing Ares off though, even after all these years.

  Ares turned on his headset and checked the radio. “Let me know when you’re in position,” he whispered to Hades.

  “Almost there,” Ares heard his comrade say between huffs that sounded like him scaling what must be a very tall tree. But when Ares turned and looked around, he saw no sign of Hades in the forest. Whatever spot he’d chosen really was completely out of sight.

  “Okay, I’m going for it, then.” Ares couldn’t wait to light the bastards up. Make them pay for all of the hurt and fear they’d put Kat through. Give them a taste of their own medicine for once.

  A second later, Ares still heard nothing, so he trained his gun on the nearest man patrolling the front of the house and gave off three quick shots in a short burst. The blaring sound of the machine gun echoed through the woods as the man dropped to the ground. There was a split second of complete silence, followed by the sound of all hell breaking loose. Men shouted. Others panicked and ran for the security of the house. Others pointed their guns at the expanse of forest, searching for the source of the gunfire and calling for backup.

  Ares didn’t wait. He fired several more bursts at a couple of men retreating to the house, dropping them, then rolled to the side and set up behind a large log.

  Keep moving. Make them guess where you are.

  By that point, several guards had begun firing into the woods in front of the mansion. Even though the shots were inaccurate, Ares could hear the familiar pitter-patter sound of bullets making purchase with wood or ricocheting off the ground around him.

  Ares stayed cool, relying on his bear instincts and years of experience to keep control of the situation.

  He fired a barrage of rounds at two men shooting from behind the cover of a wooden bench on the patio, then shifted five meters more to the right. Each time he trained his gun on a target, fired, and then moved again toward the direction of the side entrance.

  From behind him, Ares heard the sound of a high-caliber rifle echo through the forest. The man standing on the third-story balcony went limp and buckled over the railing, plummeting to the ground. One second later, another shot was fired, and a man running from the house toward Ares dropped with a thud on the pine needle-covered ground.

  Except for the incident where they had worked together to rescue Carly, Zeus’s mate, it had been a long time since Ares had fought with Hades. He’d almost forgotten how blindingly fast Hades could fire, so long as he had a good position and a clear shot.

  “You have company,” Ares heard Hades say over the radio. A second later, two black SUVs peeled up the drive to Ares’s left, no doubt bearing the guards they’d circumvented earlier.

  Ares trained his gun on them, then heard a single shot ring through the woods. The front passenger-side tire of one of the vehicles blew, and the SUV careened out of control and rolled onto its side, revealing the undercarriage. A second later, another shot was fired that pierced the fuel tank, and the vehicle exploded in a blazing
inferno, sending a cloud of smoke up into the sky.

  “Showoff,” Ares said as he opened fire on the second SUV coming toward the front of the house. It might have had reinforced siding and bulletproof glass, but that was nothing compared to the large, armor-piercing rounds of his machine gun. The gun bucked in Ares’s hands and roared with noise as dozens upon dozens of rounds punched into the vehicle, leaving large grey pockmarks in the side and shattering the windows. The vehicle didn’t come to a stop in front of the house.

  Instead, it shot past the house at full speed, careening over an embankment and into the forest and disappearing from view to the sound of a loud crash.

  Ares checked his gun and realized he was all but out of rounds for the M60 now, so he dropped it and slung his M4 from off his shoulder, training it back on the front of the mansion and moving through the brush into a new position.

  From the first-floor windows, Ares could see the blaze of gunfire, and he fired into the windows, swiftly silencing the shooters one by one as he heard the continuous fire of sniper rifle bullets carrying through the forest behind him.

  “Do you see Katrina anywhere?” Ares shouted into the headset as he ducked behind a stump in time to avoid a hail of gunfire.

  “My infra-red scanner is showing more than a dozen or so men still inside, mostly on the first floor. The third floor has several heat signatures, and I’m willing to bet one of them is Katrina,” Hades said through the headset, barely audible over the cacophony of gunshots coming from the mansion.

  Ares pulled two smoke grenades from his chest rig, popped the pins, and tossed them to the front of the house. Seconds later, the place was swathed in thick, gray smoke, obscuring all view of the first and second floors. The gunfire from the windows quickly ebbed, as there was nothing to shoot at now with their line of sight obliterated.

  “Hold your fire,” a voice called loudly from the third floor, and the gunfire stopped completely.

  Ares looked up and saw Ben Vincent, the very man that had caused Kat so much pain and fear and the reason she and Mac had needed to be on the run so long. He seemed about the same as the picture Hades had showed him earlier, albeit a little more bedraggled and half-cocked than he’d been in the photo.

  He had his left arm clenched around Kat, holding her tightly to him, with a gun pointed directly at her in his right hand. The man was fairly short, so Katrina obscured most of him from view, and Ares could see the fear and panic in her eyes. The sight made him swear.

  “Hades, do you have a clear shot?” Ares asked under his breath into the headset.

  “Not clear enough that you would want me to risk taking it,” Hades replied into his earpiece.

  Shit. His mate was right there. So close yet still so far from total safety.

  “I don’t know who you or your friends are, but unless you want the woman dead, you’d better put down your weapons and come out in five, four, three…” the man yelled into the forest.

  Ares leapt from his place of safety behind the stump and held up his rifle in a placating gesture. The smoke in front of the house was slowly clearing, and inside, he could see men with guns trained on him.

  He walked a few steps forward, stopped, and tossed the gun onto the ground keeping his hands raised. Ben looked down at him and motioned for Ares to drop the other guns, and he did so, dropping a half-dozen backup pistols and weapons along with his rifle.

  The last thing Ares needed to do was piss off a cornered drug lord with nothing to lose.

  But in a few moments, when Kat was safe, Ares would do more than piss this guy off. He’d end him completely.

  11

  “There’s only one of you? You must be joking,” the man called down to Ares, not slackening his grip.

  “Yup, just me. You should probably think about hiring better lackeys next time. These are a real letdown,” Ares chided.

  Of course, there won’t be a next time for you, asshole.

  But he didn’t need to know that just yet.

  “I don’t need your advice, you worthless piece of shit,” Ben spat angrily.

  “You’ll wish you’d taken it, because in a second, I’m going to be up there, and you’re gonna know exactly why they call me the god of war,” Ares threatened, hoping to rattle the man.

  “Ha-ha-ha, don’t you get it? You’ve lost. The woman made her own choice. We’ve gotten what we wanted, and you can do just go. I’ll take good care of her,” he said, leering down at Kat, who grimaced.

  Oh, he was going to pay for looking at Ares’s mate like that. He was going to pay for everything.

  “How do you plan on doing that when you’re dead?” Ares called up to him.

  The man just laughed, a hoarse, grating sound, and waved his gun at Ares cockily. “Yes, I’m sure you’d like that.”

  There was the sound of crackling in Ares’s headset, and then Hades’s voice.

  “Taking the shot.”

  A split second later, Ares heard Hades’s gun fire. There was a loud clang sound, and the gun in Ben’s hand was blasted from his grip and flew into the air where it plopped onto the ground in front of the house.

  “Shit, kill them. Kill them all!” Ben said with wild eyes, retreating back into the room and slamming the door behind him.

  Ares crouched and grabbed the two closest pistols he could reach, then leapt back toward the tree line a moment before a hail of bullets peppered the forest around him. Ares could hear Hades firing at the house, but the men inside were well protected and, from the sound of it, still well armed.

  “How many people are up on the third floor?” Ares said, firing several shots over the log before ducking back into cover.

  “It’s just the two of them up there, but I’d hurry if I were you. No telling what Mr. Crazypants is going to pull up there with your mate,” Hades said.

  Hades didn’t have to tell him twice. Ares popped above the protective shield of the log and emptied both of his pistols into the house as quickly as he could. Their fire ebbed as men ducked behind the walls to avoid getting hit.

  Screw this. He needed to be up on that third floor. Now.

  “Cover me, Hades,” Ares said, throwing the empty pistols to the ground.

  Mere seconds later, two small metal canisters sailed through the trees and landed on the porch, followed by two loud bangs that gave off a blindingly bright light, disorienting the men inside.

  This was his chance. Ares felt his body change in an instant into his bear, huge and angry and on the warpath. For days, it had been under the surface, wanting revenge on the people that had terrorized his mate for so much of her life and given the two people he cared more about than life itself reason to fear.

  Instead of telling Kat about his bear, he’d just have to show her.

  He let out a deafening roar and charged for the house at full speed. Some of the men fired on him, but the bullets were like BBs on his thick hide. But instead of charging into the front door, he leapt into the side of the house, a good ten or so feet into the air, and tore at the wood siding with his paws, gripping into it.

  I’m coming for you, Kat. I’m coming for you, mate.

  Using his bear’s humongous, sharp claws, Ares climbed his way up the side of the house toward the third floor. The wood logs that lined the exterior groaned and cracked under his weight, which made him dig in farther as he quickly climbed up.

  He made his way toward a window on the far right of the house, doubting the small patio that jutted out from the master bedroom that Ben and Kat had been on a moment ago would support his weight. He crashed through the window and was greeted by a long hallway that led down the entire third floor and ended with a pair of large doors.

  His bear barely fit in the corridor, and as he ran down the hallway, he upturned end tables, paintings, and mirrors that lined the walls.

  Right as he reached the door to the master bedroom, to his left he saw a huge spiral staircase that led down into the main entry, which contained the last remaining guards.
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  Ares roared again, and the men turned and looked up at the top of the banister at the huge bear bearing down on them. Ares grabbed a couch at his side and hurled it down at them, and the men scattered like ants, running out of the house and making for the closest exits they could find.

  Apparently, the sight of a giant bear threatening them inside the house was the last straw for these guys.

  Satisfied Hades could clean up the rest, Ares swiped the large double-doors to the master bedroom open with one swing and went inside.

  The room was nicely furnished, if not a little dusty, and in the corner, he saw Katrina, cowering in fear from the crazed madman kneeling over her, pinning her to the ground.

  Ares had had enough of this guy.

  He charged forward with the full force of the angry bear he now was, and the man had only a second to stare up at him in fear before Ares grabbed him by the neck with his ferocious sharp teeth and hurled him toward the wide windows overlooking the balcony.

  The glass broke as Ben went through it with a scream, and Ares charged after him, skidding to a halt at the balcony and looking over it to see men running away from the house and Ben Vincent, unmoving, in the middle of the clearing.

  Ares didn’t like killing.

  But Kat would never feel safe with a man like that alive. And Ares couldn’t allow him to stay out there, terrorizing the innocent. He knew between him and Hades, they’d destroyed his gang. Ben’s father was dead, and there were no other heirs.

  The Vincent family was finished. Good riddance.

  Rage ripped through him—and triumph. His bear roared through the clearing, giving those fleeing extra incentive to run.

  Yeah, they better get out. Otherwise, his bear would kill every one of them for being a part of the evil plan to terrorize his mate.

  He looked over to Kat, still on the ground where Ben had been pinning her. Her shirt was ripped at the top, like Ben had been pulling on it, and fury burned through him again.

  He took a step forward, wanting to be with her, but she put up a hand.