Mountain Refuge (Mountain Mutineers #1)

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

Josephine

A cquitted. By a fucking technicality.

I was beyond furious.

For all the crimes he’d committed, for all the cruelty he’d displayed, Sebastian Gunther had been released and all charges dismissed. I hated the look on the smug bastard’s face when he walked out of the courthouse like he was a motherfucking god. All because the recording of Gunther’s admission had been ‘corrupted’ and the gun had been ‘misplaced’.

What. The. Fuck.

If I ever learned who the agent or agents were who had tampered with the evidence I’d slaved for months to obtain, I was going to crucify them.

Trenton, despite being Gunther’s son, was nothing like his father. In the six months since Gunther’s arrest, I’d worked tirelessly alongside him to help dismantle his family legacy. His own mother had disowned him when she learned what he was trying to do. I’d stood as a silent witness when she’d come raging into the office that had once been her husband’s to scold her twenty-two year old son like he was a child and demand he restore his family’s ‘honor’ .

Trenton had more balls than I’d originally given him credit for. The kid stood up, leaned over his father’s desk, and told his mother to fuck off.

I’d taken him out for ice cream later to celebrate. I might call him ‘kid’, but he handled himself better than most men twice his age. It was admirable to witness.

After the first attempt on his life following his father’s arrest, I’d taken on a bodyguard role as well as advisor. I knew jackshit about finances or running a criminal empire, but I knew people and I knew the underbelly of the world. Jack had put Trenton in touch with an accountant he knew and trusted after Trenton had fired his father’s financial advisors, who had been skimming money for years.

For all our success, those accomplishments meant little in comparison to his father’s release. Everything that had been Trenton’s to control as next of kin was once more his father’s, including the house we were currently standing in as we watched in horror as the newscaster announced the verdict.

I was speechless.

Trenton, though, stood. “We have to go.”

I turned. We were alone in the giant NoHo mansion. Trenton had dismissed all of the servants with glowing recommendation letters and a very generous severance pay. All of the bodyguards and thugs who had been in his father’s employ had just been fired. More than one had since tried to kill Trenton.

Trenton was at his father’s desk, packing up files and envelopes into a black leather briefcase. “With traffic, he’ll be here in half an hour. We need to be gone long before then.”

I knew he was right and I forced my body to move. I knew this world wasn’t fair—I’d seen it firsthand too many times to count—but I could not believe the injustice served today. ‘Unintentional evidence tampering,’ my sweet Latina ass. This had been very intentional .

“I’ll get your bag and mine,” I told him. “Meet me at my car. We can’t take yours.”

Trenton nodded once.

I ran out of the office, down the hall, and up the giant, completely unnecessary grand staircase. I was used to living out of my car and motel rooms. Having been crashing in this monstrosity for the past six months had definitely spoiled me. The fact that the kitchen took up the entire basement floor, other than the underground garage, still baffled me.

It was part of my training to always have a go-bag. My rucksack from my Marine days was mine. I never went anywhere without it and I never removed my valuable items from it. Clothes, toiletries, electronics…could be replaced. The only picture I had of my parents with me and Connie could not be.

I’d instructed Trenton to do the same. Anything he could not live without needed to go into a bag and be easily accessible.

I hitched my rucksack over my shoulder and headed into Trenton’s bedroom. This place had over twenty bedrooms, but I took the room next to his in case of an emergency.

I took what used to be the servant’s staircase down the back. It was faster to get to the outdoor garage. I threw our bags into the trunk. When I did not see or hear Trenton come out immediately after me, I knew I couldn’t sit back and wait. We needed to move.

If he was destroying evidence, I was going to murder the kid myself. He knew the rule was to take anything incriminating with us to be sorted through or destroyed later. We couldn’t exactly dismantle a multi-national, multi-million dollar conglomerate legally. There were a lot of ins and outs that would have gotten Trenton into trouble if it had come to light, as his father had been using his information for years to hide certain assets.

I rushed in the side door I’d just exited. I barely made it through to the hallway leading to the office before I was struck over the back of the head.

I didn’t pass out. Not fully anyway. I was vaguely aware of the pain of hitting the floor and then the feel of someone reaching into my jacket to empty my holster. The ringing in my head and ears prevented me from hearing voices right away. I fought to rise, but my stomach rolled violently and I just barely was able to force the bile back down.

Rough hands grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me down the hallway. I tried to grab for a perch to catch myself, but my hands slid uselessly off of every surface I touched.

My senses started to come back to me when I felt my boots being ripped off my feet. I kicked out blindly. I heard a grunt but did not stop to look who made it. I scrambled to my feet, my one boot already removed and the other slipping loosely.

Two sets of hands gripped me from behind and spun me around. The room continued to spin even after I physically stopped. I fought to get my eyes to focus. I saw the silhouettes of three or four people in front of me, but not clear enough to identify who they were.

One of them moved forward and I caught the repulsive stench of cigarettes and body odor. A voice from across the room spoke but my mind took precious seconds to process the words: “Remove her clothes.”

Fear gripped me in a way it had not in years. I knew that voice, distorted though it was. Somehow Gunther had arrived far sooner than we could have expected.

My vision cleared enough for me to place myself in the office, but I didn’t see Trenton. I had no idea if the kid was dead or alive. Unfortunately for both of us, I was not in a position to save him. I wasn’t even in a position to save myself. I wasn’t so out of it that I did not know what was coming.

A face appeared before my face, hazy, but close enough for me to make out Gunther’s features. He gripped my chin painfully, forcing me to look directly at him. “I promised my men who remained loyal to me a turn with you. They’re going to keep you entertained while I go teach my traitorous son a lesson.”

The iron grips of the men holding my arms tightened at Gunther’s words and someone let out a low chuckle. I was not balanced enough to fight or kick. I wasn’t even sure I was standing on my own merit or if the thugs were holding me upright.

I gathered what spit in my mouth that I could and hocked it into Gunther’s eye. A sense of twisted satisfaction filled me when he reared back in pain. It was nothing compared to what I was about to face, but it was something. Despite my current condition, I was not going down easy.

I was flung down to the floor and, despite my best efforts, blacked out when my head collided with the marble flooring.