Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
MARCELLO
The first thing Nash does in the morning is call their coach and explain that his dad had been found dead in his house… from some sort of revenge break-in from a previous arrest gone wrong. Dario had everything planned and in place. With John being a high-ranking officer in the police force, it couldn’t just be a simple kill and clean up. Because Dario is who he is, he was able to control which detectives responded to the “crime scene.” Having a few detectives in your pocket pays off when situations arise.
Coach gave them both the week off to rest, or longer if needed. He didn’t even question why Zamir was needed as well. I think he may have just been glad to see them really getting along now.
Noah was up all night trying to find information on Andrei and where he could have Willow and Sonny.
? * It pisses me off that I didn’t even think to look into Nash’s dad further. Him owing money to the casinos is such a danger to his family and anyone around them. And it was such a minuscule amount of money that any of us could have paid, but instead, he sold his kids over to keep up appearances with the public eye. How John managed to go that long hiding his addiction without anyone figuring it out is extremely shocking.
Before we’re all out of bed, there’s a fast couple of knocks on our door, and before we can even say come in, Dario is throwing the door open, yelling, “We’ve got a location! Gear up, and let’s go. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
Not even ten minutes later, we’re all piling into SUV after SUV like the small army we are, with enough weapons to take down anyone in our way.
Noah is in the car with us and starts to explain what happened while we were sleeping. “We got a video from the people that have them. It was heavily encrypted, but I got into the back end of it and found the location. It’s only a couple miles from here.”
We don’t have enough time to prepare, so I ask Noah, “What are we walking into, Noah?”
“Not one hundred percent sure how many people are there, but from what I’ve seen, it’s at least thirty. It looks like their home base here for the Russians.”
“Ellie, Nash, and Noah, you’re to stay at the cars where we park up on the hill, looking down on the location. Nash, you’ll be right outside the car sharp-shooting any of them that escape out.” We all have our comms in so Noah can communicate with us while we’re in the building.
We pull up on the hill overlooking the property, and everyone is piling out of the SUVs. Dino and Rhett are with Vin and I. Mar and her guys are on my other side. She’s trained them quicker than I’ve ever seen. But let’s hope she really put them through it because this will be the actual test.
Dario, Niccolo, and Isabella are in front of us, looking at the hill we have to go down before we get to the huge warehouse.
Noah’s in the back with a whole tech setup. He looks up and informs us, “The cameras are looping. Let me know when you reach the door, and I’ll bypass the scanner.”
I nod, knowing he’s more than capable of getting us access. I lean into Ellie, pressing her into the side of the SUV, and pressing my lips to hers. She melts into me but quickly sidesteps me to grab Zamir and does the same to him. I grab the back of Nash’s shirt, hauling him up to meet my face. Nose to nose, I whisper, “Protect our girl up here, Il Novellino. ” I peck his lips, and I soak up the gasp he lets slip out.
It still hurts my soul that Nash’s dad did all of this because of a gambling addiction. I specifically do not allow loans in my casinos for this exact reason. If you need a loan to turn around and throw away… there’s no way I can get behind that. That’s where most casinos make their money, but I refuse to use addictions that can ruin lives this deep for my gain.
Zamir pulls Nash from my lips as well, and I berate him, “You’ve gotta have my sloppy seconds like the greedy whore you are, don’t you?”
I see the smile on Zamir’s lips, and then he’s coming right back at me, saying, “Let’s get this over with, and I’ll show you sloppy seconds.”
And with that, we start down the hill. Dario and his crew are ahead of us as we come up the side of the building. He sees the two guards at the door. Isabella and Dario work like a fine-oiled machine, heading to either side of each guy and sneaking up on them simultaneously. The guards are facing one another, talking, and each of them sees the threats right as they slice the knives through their jugulars.
I talk so Noah can hear me through the comm, “We’re approaching the door.”
“Copy.” I hear him clicking away on his computer. “All clear to enter, Big Daddy.”
The snickering coming from everyone has me shushing them all. Of course it’s Noah getting everyone to giggle on a rescue mission.
I open the massive steel door and expect people to be on the other side, ready to fight, but we’re met with silence… I think I would’ve rather had guns blazing in here right away.
I don’t like this silence.
This is a pretty big warehouse, but Noah starts to announce instructions into the comms, “Turn right down the first hallway you see. Watch it. If there’s anyone in those offices, they’ll be able to see you through the glass.”
All of us have our knives pulled, ready to go, before marching down the hallway. We don’t see anyone in the first couple offices, but we walk up on one with two men inside. They don’t see or hear us due to their focus being on their computers. Vin and Zamir have the door kicked in faster than the men can process, not giving them a chance. They plunge their knives into their sternums before pulling the knives out, and just for good measure, they slit both of their wrists as well, making sure these two are going to bleed out.
They slip out of the room, taking the rear of our crew. I didn’t think they would be keeping Willow and Sonny in a building like this, but honestly, you can hold captives anywhere if you’ve got the right setup.
We pass by a few more offices before we get into the more industrial-looking area in the back of the warehouse.
Noah says, “There’s never anyone on the other side of the building. They don’t let anyone over there. I think they keep the drugs on that side.” Keeping that in mind, once we find Willow and Sonny, we can head out, but not before lighting this shit-hole on fire. I’m making it known they’ve fucked with the wrong ones.
And nothing screams that louder than destroying what I can only imagine is a lot of money in product.
Dario is scanning back and forth, leading us down the hallway when Noah speaks again, “You should be coming up on a big steel door. That’s where Willow and Sonny should be. To the right, at least six men will be in that room. I’m going to unlock both at the same time once you give me the signal.”
The doors come into sight, and I signal to Dario, silently asking which one he’d rather go into. I don’t blame him one bit when he heads for the door where the men are. Mar is right beside him, but he points to the other door for her. I know what he’s doing, making Isabella and Mar head in to grab Willow.
The video we got from these piece of shit men was of her being raped, and Sonny… I don’t know if he’s still alive in there. They both know what they are walking into, and Niccolo is at the door with them as well.
I pull my phone out to send the text to Noah, letting him know we’re in place. We have numbers on the fucks behind the door and more than anything, we have vengeance.
They may have just been completing orders that were given to them, but they’re about to be suffering from those decisions.
Dario grabs my phone out of my hand and types in a message so we can all see it.
Me
Keep the main guy alive. I want answers.
He passes the screen around, ensuring everyone sees it, and then I send the okay message over to Noah.
I can hear the guys behind the door yelling in Russian, but it sounds like it’s maybe at a video game.
Once we hear the click of the locks disengaging, we’re pulling the door open toward us, storming into the room. We all have our guns out now, not needing to be quiet anymore since these are the last fucks left in this place.
Right before the first bullet flies through the chamber, I hear Willow’s voice break through the comms, asking if this is real, while she sobs manically.
I land a headshot on the guy sitting beside who I’m assuming is the main guy, and all the others are slumped in their chairs with a new matching head hole. Dario moves quickly to knock the last guy out with the butt of his gun before quickly pulling out a syringe and dosing him to keep him out.
He had this planned, but honestly, I can’t blame him. I would’ve done the same thing.
I hurt anyone who dares to hurt someone I love.
Percy’s big ass steps up, slinging the man’s limp body over his shoulder and picking him up like he weighs nothing.
As we all pile out, Dario sees Willow and Sonny for the first time. “You’re alive,” his voice breaks as he starts to sob. Tears are running down everyone’s face, including mine, but we need to get out of here. “They sent a video of your head getting cut off.”
“That one likes playing with AI,” Niccolo grits out. They must have made the artificial videos and shown them to them before sending them to Dario’s team. “Willow’s wasn’t AI though…” Now we know for certain Willow was brutally assaulted. We won’t tell Nash about it, though—that’s Willow’s story to tell if she chooses.
Filling Noah in through the comms I explain, “We’ve got both of them. About to send everyone out. Can you all bring the vehicles down so we don’t have to carry everyone up?”
Nash answers me, “Yes, Sir.”
And there goes my cock twitching.
“Noah, are there any gas lines in here?”
“The stove. Take a right when you get to the end of the hallway. Please be careful, Marcello. I don’t want to have to deal with burns. Docs an hour or two away,” Noah drones on, knowing exactly what I have planned.
“Let the cameras roll. I want Andrei to know who did this.”
I shuffle everyone out of the back of the warehouse and out the doors. Then Vin and I are heading into the kitchen to flip on the burners, letting the gas fill the space.
We’re both out the front door loading into the SUVs and sending them down the road, not wanting to risk them in an explosion if it ends up being bigger than I think it might. I open the crack of the front door, throw my lit zippo onto the floor, and take off in a sprint to the vehicles.
As I’m jumping into the back seat I hear the explosion, and when I look back the whole building is on fire. Especially the end that supposedly had the drugs in it.
Now I find myself wondering what kind of drugs he had stored in there… whatever they were had to be highly flammable.
Nash sits in the front seat as Noah drives. I begin questioning him, because he’s being way too quiet for my liking. “Nash, if you need help telling your sister what happened with your da—” He cuts me off before I can get the rest of the sentence out.
“He’s to be referred to as sperm donor from here on out.” He takes a few settling breaths and then adds, “I’ll explain everything to her when we get back. Maybe in the morning. I can only imagine how much worse they had it than we did.”
Zamir’s quick with a response, angry with Nash’s dismissal. “Don’t you dare undermine yours or Ellie’s suffering. Just because you weren’t tortured doesn’t mean that didn’t cause trauma either.”
Nash brats back, “Fine. But I’m still going to wait until at least the morning.” He turns around to look at us, asking his next question, “Does it make me a horrible person to want to be back at home and not stay here for my own sperm donor’s funeral?”
Ellie is the one to comfort him on this one. “With all the shit we’ve been through the past couple of weeks. No. That does not make you a bad person whatsoever.”
It’s not lost on me that Nash killed his father, but he’s taking it pretty well as far as I can tell. We’ll have to keep an eye on him once we get back to Vegas.
I find myself pulling away, scared to get close to Nash and Zamir. I know this stems from them being taken and all my fears about putting those close to me in danger coming true. I hate putting them at risk, but I don’t think I can hold back the feelings I have for the both of them any longer.
* ? Fuck Up Some Commas - Future