Chapter seven
THE HUNT
SNAKE ~ MONTHS LATER, WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA
When I catch that little motherfucker, I’m breaking her neck. Promise.
As we approach the compound. I feel a sense of elation that has escaped me since the night I discovered her gone.
No message, no note. Nothing.
Just fucking gone.
The cottage was cold and lonely when I arrived. After that hellish day and seeing what those kids endured, the first face I wanted to see was hers — to pick up where we left off earlier. To tell her we were once again rescuing kids from a fate worse than death.
My fucking soul felt like it had been scraped bare with a rusted knife, then had acid poured in the cavity. All because of her — Saban.
Days later, finding her phone burned into a black mass of charred plastic and metal outside the little faded buttercup yellow clubhouse the Love girls hung out at when they were younger nearly undid me.
I hadn’t felt so broken since I lost my parents and fiancé and my sister was forced to flee to the US.
I went wild, thinking someone had snatched her. Wracking our brains trying to find out who — neither Angel nor I thought for a second there would not be any blowback from disrupting the trafficking ring or me putting down Marco no matter how amenable his second in command was to the idea.
We wasted valuable time tracking down potential enemies, and by the time we focused on the Loves, someone had spirited them away. The family closed ranks. It was as though Saban and Ezekiel-Jane evaporated like steam in the hot southern sun.
Even after being confronted by us, neither Kandie nor Krie buckled. Kandie — barely bigger than a gnat — attacked us in her shop, which ended up in her being carted off to jail by none other than the Sheriff, her lover and our partner in the very scheme we were being accused of.
Interrogations, raids on all our enterprises let us know just how far Rudy’s network went with the sick fucks who wanted to use kids in the most despicable ways. Something tells me we’ve barely uncovered the actual truth. This enterprise goes much farther than we ever realized.
Women we trusted with our very beings started the whole mess because they didn’t believe in us enough to hear us out. Women we protected with our lives — who saw us at our most vulnerable — betrayed us.
Ezekiel-Jane didn’t know Angel like Saban knew me, so she can have a pass. But that little terrorist fucking lived with me for the last ten years. Should know fucking better. She knows. There will be no mercy given when I find her ass.
Saban broke me. Now, I have no choice but to ruin her in every way imaginable.
She can beg, plead, cry, fight — I welcome it. She will find no grace with me.
“We are coming up on the east end. The east is where most of his commandos are. Servants are south of the primary residence. The southeast wing is where they said guests reside. No one enters that wing unless I give the go-ahead.” Speaking over the mic, I see our teams nod.
Each of us — Rocco, Padre and Angel — leads a team of twelve men, making us the thirteenth.
Though financed by Angel, this is my op. As they all are since he tapped me as his second in command. As Primo, I’m the lead enforcer of the club.
“Nothing can replace your training,” he said all those years ago when he took over the el Diablo.
The respect we share goes both ways. He knows when to fall back and let me lead in situations like this.
He’s more than a business partner, and, impossibly, this hell we’ve endured has brought us closer than even I thought possible.
Angel is my brother in every way that matters.
Spurn and betrayal will do that — I recognize his pain because it mirrors my own.
Not that my head is in any less turmoil than his.
But he has a child on the way. I don’t think Easy got rid of the baby like he does.
Seeing how she looked at him, I knew she at least felt she had no choice but to get as far away from him as possible.
I hope for the sake of the world my hunch is true because we have all seen what a bruised Angel de la Muerta is capable of, and none of it is good.
I can’t judge my friend, though. He had to stop me from killing some of the Love male cousins more than once in the last few months. The mercy I’ve shown all is only to preserve what little peace he can find once he gets his wife back.
Saban will only get my retribution. Unlike Ezekiel-Jane, who was forced to marry Angel to save her life, not even knowing him, Saban’s ass knows better.
We lived together for a damn decade. The fact she didn’t come to me — didn’t even give me a chance — shows me the utter lack of character she has.
She deserves nothing but the raw, unvarnished monster her actions have given rise to.
Motioning towards the main entrance, I hold my hand up for the squad of men directly under my command to hold still. We have the compound surrounded. Each team at an access point.
Oz has a full contingent of men at the ready, all seasoned from the various conflicts throughout the continent.
Many of them are former child soldiers he’s taken under his wing.
Their loyalty is unshakable. None took the offer to switch sides and, being a man not known for his diplomacy, we knew eventually we would find ourselves here, ready to attack and take back what is ours.
Hearing the signal of Padre’s team — the last one to get in place because they had to navigate through the jungle of the animal preserve surrounding the western edge of the compound.
Angel is taking the south since our intel said that’s the area the civilian staff and guests are located and where Easy will probably be.
Rocco on the north and me and my crew taking the east, since that is where he houses his militia.
Taking lives is nothing new to me, and I won’t hesitate now.
“Go.” Already in motion when the command is issued, I watch one of my men deploy the rocket launcher, taking out the secondary housing facility.
It’s a quiet night, so there are no advance guards.
Watching men spill from the barracks, many unarmed, only to fall as the flowing non-lethal gas hits them.
We follow, taking out Oz’s men as we go, aiming to incapacitate when we can, yet there are some a little too bloodthirsty, so I have no problem making the kill shots necessary to preserve my men’s life.
The doors are nearly impenetrable, but we expect that. I place four bricks of C-4 at the corners of the triple enforced double doors and set the charges.
“Hold. Fall back.” My men follow the command without a word.
“Firing.” Pressing the remote, I detonate the explosives.
The structure shakes mightily, but to the architect’s credit, the entire building doesn’t come down.
Massive doors crash to the ground with a heavy thud.
The mahogany overlay makes them look pretty, but they’re actually made of chromium, the hardest metal on Earth.
Oz knew what he was doing when he made this impenetrable fortress, only he didn’t expect the lengths we would go the get Saban and Easy back nor the scorn of one of his former lovers who misunderstood his and Easy’s relationship and how angry she was thinking he threw her over for the curvy little woman.
“Go, go, go.” I hear each leader shout over the comms after each succeeding entrance gets blasted.
Gunfire erupts around us as we cross the threshold of the mansion.
A spray of blood mists beside me as Lawrence, one of my men, takes a hit to the side of his neck.
His eyes are vacant before he slumps to the ground.
A bullet whizzes past me so close I can see it in my periphery. Quickly stepping back, I anticipate the next move, catapulting past the trajectory of the spray of bullets the sniper is letting off in quick succession.
The air holds the acrid scent of gunpowder, the iron of spilled and clotting blood. Oz’s and my men are falling around me. Still, I forge on, not hesitating or taking a moment to think of anything other than getting out of the sniper’s crosshairs and taking him out.
The pulse of silence is heavy as I track his movements. He hits one of my men in the thigh, nicking the artery. Claude has mere seconds to staunch the flow or he will bleed out. I can’t stop to help him or give up my position. Getting this sniper is my primary focus.
Seeing the direction the bullet came from, I trek through a sea of bodies, unsheathing my knives.
Taking my time, I move with swift efficiency, hoping he thinks I’m no longer a player on the broad rather than the one stalking his every move.
I also don’t want him changing position before I finish hunting him.
Making it to the second level, I see a hidden alcove overlooking the entire first floor. The perfect place for a sniper. One probably built for its strategic position.
As if the god of war himself thought to bless me, the alcove takes fire from the left as I approach from the right. I have mere seconds on my approach, hoping I don’t get caught in a barrage of friendly fire on my advance.
Just as I see the merc reposition to take out the team coming from the northern edge of the compound, I pounce, knife raised.
He raises his gun half a second too late.
I nearly plunge the knife in his throat when I see the liquid silver, wolf gray of his eyes and bury the knife in the shoulder of Ozymandias Love-Savelle instead.
“Why can’t I kill him?” I snarl at Angel’s hard, unmovable countenance.
“You know why,” he snaps, ripping his hand through his hair, agitation clear on his face. He wants the motherfucker dead as much as I do. Maybe less now that he’s found Easy just as she was giving birth to their son, Judah, as we initiated our assault on the compound.