BK 3 - Chapter 30 - Raul's Vengeance
***Warning this chapter has content that may be triggering for some readers.***
Raul stared across the street in disbelief. He had been waiting for his men to bring the twins out after eliminating anyone else who was inside. Instead, his men were brought out in handcuffs. He had also received an alert from the surveillance he had set up at his warehouse in Venice that the perimeter had been breached. When he activated the indoor cameras, he saw all his men dead and his captives gone.
He drove away from the group homes, not wanting one of his men to point him out to the authorities. Raul was beyond angry. He was tired of the lions always getting the upper hand.
First, they had to mess up the auctions in Rio, then Caterina and Melanie got free and killed some of his best men. Now they're in Venice, destroying everything he'd worked so hard to build.
Raul was tall and slender with thin black hair and tanned skin. He wasn't handsome by most people's standards, and he was okay with that. At sixty-two, it wasn't like he was trying to find a woman to fall in love with.
The way he saw it, the lions had no one to blame for his wrath than themselves. His brother Luca had returned to Italy as a changed man. He was no longer the strong, fierce leader he once was. Raul saw a scared man who had disappeared into himself. When he talked about people that changed into lions, he'd thought he'd gone mad. Then Luca said the lions killed both of their sons, so he started listening. That's when Raul began plotting his revenge.
He began researching people who could change into animals and found many interesting things online. Raul had someone get him access to a secure site in the deep net where he found shifters he could purchase. He bought a couple of women, a werewolf and a werepanther. He planned to rape them until they told him what he wanted to know about shifters, but that didn't go as planned.
When he was on top of the werewolf, she shifted into her wolf and scratched the hell out of him. Raul still has scars on his chest and back from her attack. He'd be dead if he hadn't screamed for his men to come in and shoot her.
When she had been taken away, he turned to the panther. She was in a cage in the room and had seen what had happened. He threatened to kill her if she resisted him or turned into her panther. Raul had blood dripping down his body, but he didn't care. When he wanted something, he got what he wanted, and right then, he wanted to fuck a shifter.
He grabbed the woman by her hair, pulled her out of the cage, and forced her on her knees in front of him. Raul shoved his penis down her throat as far as it could go. However, that was a mistake. When he closed his eyes and began forcing her to move back and forth on him, he felt the worst pain he'd ever experienced. He looked down and realized she had let her fangs come out and completely shredded his penis from top to bottom.
After she was killed, he was taken to the hospital to treat his wounds. Raul couldn't tell the staff what had happened, so he blamed it on a dog attack. His penis never healed properly. Even with all the plastic surgery, it was still crooked. Women were repulsed by it but knew better than to say anything, or it would be the last word they ever said. The women he had weren't really in a position to comment anyway because he preferred rape rather than consensual sex. It gave him a high like no other.
Cole Reynell was supposed to be his ace in the hole. Raul had wanted to find something to prevent women from shifting or using any of their shifter abilities on him so he could treat them like the animals they were. That's when the scientist stumbled upon an injection that would separate the animal from the human. He hadn't figured out how to stop it from killing the women. Now that the scientist was dead, he had to think of something else.
Raul was about to get on the freeway to go to Sacramento and get out of town when he changed his mind. He may not be able to get to the lions, but he could get to someone else. He stopped at a small restaurant and sat in the parking lot to make a call. When he hung up, he chuckled to himself. The lions thought they were so smart, but he'd show them. Not everyone they cared about had their superpowers. He got out of the car, whistling as he walked into the restaurant.
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Cat and Trey's group, along with Wesley, headed to Theo's location. They weren't that far, so it didn't take long. They parked down the road from the house and cut through the trees to find the others. They all noticed that all the places Raul used were remote, so the average person wouldn't come across them.
When they reached Theo and the others, they saw a bus in front of what looked like an old farmhouse. Two armed guards were at the front door and another at the side door.
"What do you want to do?" Trey asked Wesley. He wanted to shift and start tearing the men's heads off, but he would leave it up to Wesley.
"I don't have any of my men here for a reason. We're not taking prisoners. We're rescuing the shifters. If everyone is ready, we're going to attack. They have guns, but we have the element of surprise on our side. Don't let them get a shot off. If anyone wants to stay back, you don't have to be part of this." Wesley looked around, but from the expression on their faces, he knew they were all in.
Everyone spread out and took their clothes off before shifting. Vilma, Thatcher, and Janel were the only ones that looked human, so they decided to go first as a distraction. Vilma hunched over while Thatcher and Janel held her on each side as they walked out of the trees. The men noticed them when they were about ten yards away. Thatcher couldn't help rolling his eyes. Even humans should have better senses than that.
"Excuse me, sir. We got lost, and my mother is ill. Can she go in and sit down for a bit to rest?" Janel asked with a smile. The two men looked at each other, not sure what to do.
"Sorry, but the house is undergoing renovations, so there's nowhere to sit." The man who spoke looked pleased with his lie, but Janel didn't give up.
"Do you have any water? It's really hot out here." Janel reached up and pushed her hair out of her face letting her breasts press against her shirt tightly. Thatcher growled when the men gawked at her. She may be over forty, but she still looked no older than twenty-five. The men quickly recovered, and one ran inside. Vilma stood up and blew something in the other man's face while Thatcher went to the side door and got rid of the guard there. Janel watched in shock as the man in front of her grabbed his throat and fell to the ground. She didn't have time to question Vilma as the first guard returned with three bottles of water. Janel jumped on him snapping his neck before he noticed the guard on the ground.
Thatcher waved to the others that it was clear. They hadn't expected it to go that easy. However, they knew the inside would most likely be more challenging.
Thatcher went to the front door and pushed it open. The men were all sitting around what looked like a living room, but he couldn't see the shifters.
Trey and the others burst into the house and killed all ten men before they knew what hit them. Thatcher, Janel, and Vilma searched the house during the attack. They found the hostages in the basement tied up with heavy chains. All of them looked terrified.
"We're not going to hurt you. We're here to rescue you." Janel said softly. "All the men who brought you here are dead."
"Not all of them," Janel looked up and saw a big man standing in the dark corner. She got ready to fight, but Vilma blew some of her magic dust in his face before Janel or Thatcher could move. He fell immediately to the ground.
"What is that stuff?" Janel asked the witch, who winked at her.
"Just a little magic. I may not be able to fight like the rest of you, but I have my ways," Vilma smiled at the people chained up. Thatcher broke the chains off them and helped them to their feet.
"Who are you, people?" One of the women asked.
"We're here to help you. My mate and I are vampires, Vilma is a witch, and everyone else upstairs are shifters." The group of captives relaxed.
"Thank you for saving us, but where do we go from here?" A young man asked.
"We'll take you to the hotel where we're staying, and we can figure it out there." They led them up the stairs where the rest of their group had shifted back to human and put their clothes on. In all, they rescued nineteen more shifters.
Wesley decided to take them on the bus back to the hotel. Once there, he got them rooms and ordered food. As the rest of them returned to the conference room, Cat got a call on her phone from a number she didn't recognize.
"Hello?" She answered. Trey turned to look at her as they sat down.
"Well, hello Caterina. I'm sorry we keep missing each other, but that's okay. I have a surprise for you. This is Raul." Cat put the phone on speaker and mouthed to Trey that it was Raul.
"If you're talking about my twins, that plan failed," Cat said into the phone.
"I figured you'd say something like that, so I have something else for you. Why don't you look at the video I sent you for your viewing pleasure?" Everyone crowded around Cat's phone as she opened the text with a video attached. At first, they didn't know what they were looking at, but as soon as the faces became clear, Cat screamed in agony. Raul was raping a young woman, and Cat knew who she was. She was one of the girls they rescued about ten years ago; her name was Belinda.
"How could you do that? You're after us, not her." Cat sobbed as she saw the terror on the woman's face.
"If I'm not mistaken, you rescued her from an abusive father who had been molesting her from an early age. I just wanted to help her re-live some of that. It was quite satisfying." Cat saw red as the rage bubbled up inside her.
"What do you want from us for you to let her go?" Cat asked through clenched teeth.
"Accept the video chat," Raul answered. Cat accepted the video chat and saw the phone pointed at Belinda sitting on the side of the bed, crying.
"Belinda, hang on, sweetheart. I'm going to get you out of there." Cat said into the phone.
"Cat? Please help me." Belinda was now twenty-two, but Cat could see her regressing back to a child right before her eyes.
"I will. He won't hurt you anymore."
"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep," Raul said. Cat saw him walking over to Belinda.
"Get away from her, you sick bastard." She yelled into the phone as her heart raced from fear.
"Sorry, but this is on you." Raul pulled out a long knife and slit Belinda's throat. Cat screamed as she watched him throw her lifeless body on the ground.
"If you don't want any more of your precious victims to pay for your sins, I suggest you come to me willingly. The longer I wait, the more I kill. It's up to you." Raul disconnected the call while everyone in the conference room sat in silence. He was targeting the kids they had saved. It was time for them to put a stop to him permanently. They had more help than he thought, and it was time to call in some favors.
