Chapter 5
TARA
Samaira paced back and forth along the weapons wall of the Wildcats HQ. Her arms were folded across her chest, her biceps bulging at the seams of her black full-sleeve T-shirt. “Final walk-through, ladies.”
Her eyes turned to Sloane and me. “Sloane handles the primary van. Tara and I take the lead on the break-in.”
She then turned to the four recruits. “Arya and Jenny, since you both have been doing the recon on these men for the past week, you’ll be in the secondary van with Chloe, who’ll follow our van.”
Her eyes moved to Ava. “Ava, you’ll take the motorcycle with us and park it across the street, just in case one of us gets separated and needs a backup vehicle to flee. Once we arrive on-site, you’ll hop into Chloe’s van and be the lookout.”
Sami looked at all six of us. “We reach their shitty basement hangout spot by two a.m. We knock them unconscious, put three of them in Sloane’s van and two in Chloe’s.
We reach the safe house by four a.m. I chop their tiny dicks off, stuff them in their mouths, and put them in the ground.
The cleanup crew takes care of the bodies by six a.m. We reach home early in the morning. Any questions?”
We shook our heads.
Samaira gave a loud clap of her hand. “Let’s go, ladies.”
Sloane, Sami, and I grabbed our respective masks, whereas the trainees got a black kitty mask.
Every one of us was strapped with weapons.
My fingers moved over my favorite axe, secured in the specialized thigh holster, an emergency gun with a silencer snug in the shoulder holster.
The familiar weight of my favorite knife rested against my ankle.
This was more than enough to take down two guys. I was pretty sure Sami was going to go for two of her own, which meant Jenny and Arya would be taking down at least one.
The six of us piled into the private elevator.
It took us all the way down to the last level of the basement, opening to our very own Wildcats parking garage.
It was lined with five inconspicuous sedans, three black vans, two large “maintenance” vans, seven motorcycles—yes, all five of us loved and preferred motorcycles, plus two spares—and one motherfucking limousine.
Ava put on her mask and swung her leg over one of the spare motorcycles, while the rest of us jumped into our vehicles and donned ours. At Samaira’s bark of order, Sloane turned on the vehicle and pressed the button.
The button that opened the false wall separating our parking space from the rest of the building.
I wished our exit route had been separate from the rest of the residents, but the building was already built when we moved in.
It was my only major security concern. That was exactly why I had installed several cameras throughout all the levels of the parking lot.
The security guards had signed an NDA and were under strict orders to let us pass through. No questions asked. We’d taken our “maintenance” vans today, so there wouldn’t be any questions from the residents either.
The dark sky and the glittering midnight lights of the city greeted us as soon as we merged onto the road. We took the route with less traffic at one in the morning. I guided Sloane as I navigated from my tablet, hacking into the city grid to turn the traffic lights green as we approached them.
We reached the targets’ location with five minutes to two a.m. Sloane parked the van right near the brownstone.
The vehicular traffic on the street was fairly nonexistent.
This area wasn’t exactly known for its safety.
The drug dealing and local gang activities were known to be high.
A few gunshots here and there wouldn’t even stir most people here.
I saw the motorcycle that Ava had parked across the street. She must’ve hidden somewhere.
“Cherry Cheetah here. It is safe to get out of the car. I’ll be here,” Sloane said over the Bluetooth comms we all wore.
“Crimson Tiger, copy. Shadow Panther and I are on the move.” Our eyes met, and I quietly pushed the back door of the van open, the two of us slipping out in the cool night air.
“Copy. We’re parked. Wildcat A and J on the move,” Chloe responded.
Two cars behind our van, I saw Arya and Jenny walking toward us as Ava slipped into the van behind them to take over as our lookout.
Samaira took the lead toward the alley beside the building, as Arya, Jenny, and I fell into position behind her.
She quietly murmured into her comms, “Everybody in position?”
Three affirmatives from our remaining members came on the line, and Samaira let out an excited rumble. I knew she was grinning behind her tiger mask, just like I was. “Let’s fucking do this, then.”
With that, Samaira pulled out a hammer from one of her holsters, wrapped it in a cloth, and smashed it straight through the basement window on the side of the building.
The sound was a muffled thud, loud if you were standing right there, but not so loud to wake the neighbors.
With military precision, she arched into the basement, and the three of us were quick to land right behind her.
Lucky for us, the moment my feet landed on the floor of the darkened space, Samaira was already fighting off two men.
They were all just silhouettes in the dark room.
With a quick swiping movement against the wall, I flipped a switch.
A small yellow overhead bulb flicked on, and I could finally see where Samaira was fighting.
Both of their faces matched the photographs that Arya and Jenny had gathered during their recon. We didn’t need to be beating the shit out of some innocent people.
Quickly, I grabbed the back of one of them and slammed him headfirst into the wall right next to me.
Before I could smash his head in once again, the guy threw his body back in defense, trying to loosen my hold on him.
I quickly sidestepped and swept his legs out from under him, sending him crashing to his back on the floor.
His eyes were wide with terror. “Who the fuck are you?”
I didn’t even need to use my axe for this fucking loser. Looming over him, I bashed my mask-covered face against his forehead, ripping a loud cry out of his throat. “The Grim fucking Reaper.”
With a violent strike to the side of the fucker’s face, I knocked him out.
I could see from my peripheral vision that Arya and Jenny were trying to knock out a massive dude, taking turns punching and kicking him, all the while the man kept screaming. The motherfucker was so loud, I wanted to put a fucking bullet in his head right there.
Samaira already had one guy groaning at her feet, while the other kept trying to run away from her. She kept lunging at the fucker, playing around with her prey, completely lost in her rage-induced frenzy, her brass knuckles caked in blood.
The guys screamed like banshees, the scent of their terror suffocating the dingy basement air. With two men unconscious, two getting dealt with by my girls, we were missing one more guy from the action.
I looked around the chaos, and from around the dark corner near the main door of the apartment, a large motherfucker moved into the fucking frenzy. For a second, I thought he was the last remaining target. But the moment he took a step closer, I knew I was wrong.
This large motherfucker wasn’t our target.
I knew this large motherfucker.
Lieutenant Knox Steele.
The cold fucker assigned to Dominic’s kidnapping case.
My fingers automatically lifted to the edge of my mask to check if it was secured before I scanned over the rest of my girls. Everyone’s mask was in place.
“Do not fucking remove your masks,” I hissed into the comms. “We’ve got company. Not a target.”
“Motherfucker. Who?” Samaira’s voice had barely hit my ears before Lieutenant Steele broke into a sprint from across the room, right toward me.
And right behind him, with a large fucking hammer raised high, was my target. The fucker was about to kill an innocent cop.
Not on my fucking watch.
All of this must’ve happened in the blink of an eye, but my brain captured every microsecond.
My vision narrowed, Lieutenant Steele lunged at me like a bulldozer, my target right behind him with his arms raised above his head, and a shot of adrenaline raced through my veins like charged electricity.
It was muscle memory. An instinct as sharp as a blade. I pulled my favorite knife from the holster by the hilt, rolled my shoulders, and released the throw.
The blade circled end over end, slicing through the air. It whistled a hairsbreadth past the lieutenant’s ear, lodging itself straight into the forehead of my target. The hammer slipped from his hand, onto the floor, merely an inch from the lieutenant’s head.
Fucking bull’s-eye.