Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Reeve Hardy
I Know Your Secrets — Tommee Profitt, Liv Ash
Winona wanted to spend her twenty-sixth birthday with her grandma, Titan, and me. We came here to eat dinner and head home for some alone time.
She enjoyed dragging me to parties during her college years, giving me more reasons to follow her around. But now, our home feels more peaceful and warm.
God, I hated those parties and the boys who tried to sell her drugs or stared at her for too long.
All those creeps eyeing her made me want to bang their heads against a wall.
Even though there were only a few in the span of four years, I made two disappear when I found out they were involved in shady business—Romina sent them to one of her facilities.
Once, I even drove a guy to another state and dumped him outside a police station when I discovered they had a warrant for his arrest. But she’s all mine now. She’s my wife.
Titan wags his tail like a frenzied maniac, running back and forth and barking at the guards to let them know he’s ready to play fetch.
“It’s time,” Romina announces as she walks past me on the driveway where I’m smoking, leaning against the gate.
Her bodyguard, Koy, stands a few feet away, minding his own business by plugging in his earphones and listening to music.
He’s a great man; I’ve had the privilege of learning many things from him.
“I’ve finally gathered enough information and trapped a few rats under my claws. ”
It’s been less than a year since Winona and I married, and now Romina wants me to leave, to break Winona’s heart.
“So you want me to go on a killing spree,” I say, blowing smoke. I play it cool, but I’m boiling mad inside.
“That’s what you were trained to become.”
“Your secret weapon?”
“Hers,” she corrects. The net of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepens. “You got what you wanted. She chose you, and you got married. Now, I need you to keep up your end of the deal. Protect her. You promised I wouldn’t have to worry about her safety. Prove it.”
I swallow the painful lump in my throat, knowing she’s right and that no one else would protect her better than I would. All of our choices have consequences. It’s time to face mine.
“You have to decide what is more important to you. Fucking her to oblivion or making sure she stays alive,” Romina says in a clipped tone, and fuck, that’s so cold.
I know she never approved of me being her granddaughter’s partner because it was never part of the contract, but that hurts, as if I ever treated Winona like a trophy or used her for sex.
She gave me wings when mine were broken.
“We have names of traffickers, criminal underground organizations, drug dealers, and everyone who can bring us closer to the top. I have teams that have trapped their operators and transferred some of them to a secret facility. I need you to follow the leads, get inside, extract more information, and kill them all once you’re done.
Cross the globe a million times until they are snuffed out.
When they made her a target, they made themselves our target.
I will not rest until we find them all. And I will not let her die due to acts of petty revenge against me. ”
“What would we tell her?” I flick the cigarette to the ground and stub it out before bending to pick it up.
“I’ll handle it.”
I glance at her with pinched eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Reeve!” She warns and I’m stubbed by the harshness in it as I swallow hard. “I said I will take care of it. Have I ever let you down?”
Never.
I shake my head.
With a heavy heart and the weight of the world on my shoulders, I walk into the house to say goodbye to the love of my life without her knowing.
Night falls around this corroded warehouse as I send my hand forward and grab a guard’s head. Locking him between my arm and my chest, I press my suppressor to his head and shoot. Then, shoot the other guard as he pops from around the corner.
“The door will unlock in three… two… one. Go.” Braxton informs me through the earpiece, loudly jabbing his fingers on the keyboard. “Their live feed is now on a loop.”
The single fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling flickers as I enter stealthily.
According to the little birdie I tortured yesterday, the structure belongs to a wealthy businessman named Jean Dubois.
He resides in France but comes here to supervise the illegal fighting tournaments he organizes every month.
They stream them for thousands of their members and distribute drugs on the side. He is a liar by day and a real piece of shit by night.
“I’m currently scrolling through their camera footage. The system is installed in the owner’s office at the far wing, where a bodyguard stands outside the door. Below his office is the inventory room, which contains a dozen weapons.”
“If the door has a keypad, lock it,” I whisper my order, crossing the hallway I’m in.
“Done. Based on the blueprint I extracted, there are two rooms on either side of this hallway, each with eight guards on standby. The remaining guards are likely inside, where they’ve turned off the cameras. They have advanced technology here, despite its rough appearance.”
My boots slide quietly over the polished concrete floor.
Thankfully, no squeaks resound that would give away my whereabouts.
I position myself behind a floor-to-ceiling metal pillar.
“It’s all about the money they make, not convenience.
You know how that saying goes: You work for me. You die for me.”
“And suck my dick too,” he laughs to himself as I shake my head.
One of the rooms Braxton mentioned is directly in front of me, with guards ready to spray the wall with my brain matter.
I peek around the pillar, zooming in on the sturdy man who looks like the Hulk, pacing along the mezzanine floor with a rifle outside Jean’s office.
Through the glass windows, I see him sitting behind a desk, organizing stacks of cash into a suitcase.
Jean has been working with the same crew for years. No one else gets involved unless they kill them afterward. They make a ton of money and are loyal solely to him. Jean’s nephew manages everything like a good watchdog while Jean lives in France, away from any trouble.
Drug dealers who turned into psychotic monsters began creating games for entitled motherfuckers with millions in their bank accounts who wanted some entertainment. This place evolved into a well-oiled machine for their nasty deeds.
At the center of the warehouse, four men move around a large table covered with white powder, weighing goods and organizing them into packages. Grim shouts echo through the space from a tablet on their table. I break to my left and shoot the bodyguard on the mezzanine floor twice.
He crashes into the railings with a bang before hitting the floor.
Everyone turns their heads towards me, reaching for their guns.
I duck, shoot their heads in a row, and advance toward the table.
The four men drop to the floor with bleeding holes in their foreheads.
Blasts of gunshots echo through the warehouse as the doors behind me swing open and more guards file in. I drop to my stomach and reload behind the table. Through the small gap underneath, I fire at their legs. Most of the guards take hits, fall, and wail in pain as I upend the table.
When a shadow appears to my right, I pull him in front of me as a shield. Bullets pierce him before I grab the second shadow from the left to get a few bullets as well, and then I shoot the guy on the other side.
“Nice move!” Mitch hypes up, sounding pumped as hell.
“I got lucky,” I smirk, jumping onto a case cart that rolls my way with two more semi-wounded guards.
“I thought you two couldn’t see me.” I shoot at everyone who moves before I shove my gun into the holster and somersault.
My legs wrap around the neck of the man choking on his blood in front of me, taking him down to the ground with me, right before I put a bullet into his head.
“I said the cameras were turned off, but I didn’t say I couldn’t turn them back on. I just needed a minute—show off.”
A smile sneaks up on me.
“Is he still up there?” I ask as I make my way to the stairs leading to his office.
The entire crew is sprawled out everywhere, as lifeless as cockroaches that have been exterminated. Not a single one is standing.
Silence prevails in the dimly lit warehouse, and one coward watches from the shadows.
“The boss is still upstairs shitting his pants,” Braxton fills me in on the thrilling news.
He has a degree in computer science from MIT, but most of his skills come from years of practice with his hacker dad, who works for the military, and Mitch…
well, he’s a hell of a driver and can definitely handle a gun.
I know nothing about computers, and when I’m running from killers, I often don’t have time to figure out where I parked the car, start it, and drive.
It’s not like I don’t get bullet or knife wounds myself.
But if I’m outnumbered, Mitch and Braxton are always in my ear, following me everywhere I go.
I didn’t think I’d need a team, but as time passed, it became clear that I needed their help.
Seven months.
It has been seven months since I left my heart behind to run amok.
I slam the door open. The hinges rattle, and a bullet whizzes by, hitting the wall to my right. I quickly fire at Jean’s arm, and the gun clangs to the floor.
No wonder he had a bodyguard.
Fucking useless.
“Putain!”
He shrieks in agony while I grab his collar from under the table and yank him up. I hit him with the barrel of the gun across the face, and cuff his hands to a chair that rests beside us.
He’s smaller than I am, which explains why he had such a hefty bodyguard. It’s too bad his brain matter covers the floor downstairs.
“Take all the money,” he begs, hissing at his bleeding arm.