39. Shane
39
SHANE
W e walked to where Boise was stationed, all of us quiet and dressed in black. We needed to be stealth so the bikes were left on a back road, pulled off so no one would find them. He’d taken point on the nearest hill to where Estrada’s guys were holding up, in a house. Who knew if it was theirs or one they broke into, looking for a rest stop? I had no idea, but I intended to find out.
He shifted aside, giving me the night vision goggles. “There’s three of them, but they already ditched the burned guy. He was making too much noise so they shot him. See that plastic pile behind the house?” I moved the goggles, seeing it set next to their garage. He added, “That’s him.”
“Jesus,” Corvette said quietly behind us.
“That mean there’s two or still three targets?”
“Still three. One in the back that’s been checking on the hostages, and two in the front. From watching, it looks like there’s some problem with the first two. They’re upset about something, one guy keeps pacing. He’s come outside a few times to check for a cell signal.” Boise was grinning as he held up his device. “Don’t know I grabbed this handy dandy cell blocker.”
Corvette whistled low under his breath. “I didn’t think those get good distance. How far are we out?”
“We’re two hundred yards, not that far, but yeah, farther than the normal. I got ambitious last winter, decided to try my hand at inventing shit.”
Boise was being modest. He was a genius when it came to tech and weapons.
I settled more firmly on my stomach, my elbows helping keep the goggles steady for me as I scanned the rest of the house. Heat signatures showed me where each person was, including the hostages. Both were on the floor. One looked restless, or antsy. The other was holding still. I had a guess the one being antsy was Claudia.
“What do we know about Granddad’s niece?”
I passed the goggles off to Corvette as I replied to Boise, “There a reason you’re asking?”
He gave a shrug, turning to watch the house with his own set of binoculars. “Just a feeling. Something’s wrong. I can’t hear anything, but they’re treating her differently than Machete’s woman.”
“We know how Machete is doing?”
Corvette answered, “I’ve been getting updates. He’s getting stitched up. Stripes knows the nurse and asked her to take her time.”
Boise grinned. “He’s going to hurt for that one. You know Machete is fully aware of what we’re all doing.”
“Yeah. They confiscated his phone. Same nurse passed it to Stripes or Machete would be blowing up all our phones.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He’d track our GPS and hunt us while we’re hunting Estrada’s guys,” I commented.
The guys all grinned because they knew I was right.
“What’s the plan here, Boss?”
Plan. Fuck. We always needed a plan.
I got serious. The slight moment of jokes was refreshing, but now it was onto the killing business. “You have reason to believe they know this place? Have traps set up for some reason?”
“Nope. I think they are fully and completely alone. I don’t think they’ve even been able to send word to their big boss, which is why that one guy keeps pacing up the place.”
“Okay. Then the plan is that we converge on the cabin. Use silencers. Masks. Plan to capture all targets if possible.”
“And if that’s not an option?” Corvette asked the question, but all the guys were waiting.
I had to be the one to give the go-ahead.
I said, “Then you take them out. I want Roadie and Corvette handling the women.”
“I call Granddad’s niece,” Roadie piped up quick.
Corvette threw him a glare. “Fuck you. You know it doesn’t happen that way.”
Boise asked me, “How many Reds do we have back there waiting for your order?”
“They’re waiting for us to return and then figure out a plan.”
All of my guys stopped and stared at me.
They knew me. “That’s why we’re going to go in now, and I’ll call them once everything is taken care of.”
Crow said he had men he didn’t trust. I sent orders for him to round them up, put them in a location, but the truth of that matter was that I didn’t know if there were men I shouldn’t trust or Crow himself. And with the attacks, getting back who we could took first priority. So I wasn’t going to bring in anyone that I didn’t trust to have my back in a situation like we were going to enter.
Knowing that, all of these guys got real serious real fast.
“Suit up.”
We went in, silencers added to our guns. We were already in camouflage, but as we converged on the house, Boise and I went to the front. Roadie and Corvette went to the back. I wished we had more of our guys, but there hadn’t been time. Half needed to stay back, watch over Kali and whoever else was there. The others were with Machete. And just as we arrived, Roadie told me he got a notice from our computer guys. They found the second vehicle.
It was already in Arizona by now.
We got to the door, and over our comms, we did roll call.
“I have eyes on target one.” That was Boise.
I said, “I have eyes on target two.”
“I have target three.”
“Roadie?” That was me.
“Ready.”
“On three.” I led the count. “One. Two.”
As I said three, the plan was that Roadie would open the door, and toss in a flashbang. Corvette would go in, stun the man back there. At the same time, we’d smash into our door and each stun our guys from the back.
We heard the flashbang go off, and we were moving.
Boise pulled the door open.
I went in first, sweeping to the left.
He moved to the right.
Both our targets were going through the doorway, but they turned at hearing us.
Guns were up– bang !
Bang !
Their bodies fell. After that, we cleared the house just to make sure.
There were no surprises on the first floor, second, or in the basement. We were good so still keeping the lights off, we got to work. Boise and I made sure each guy was knocked out with another tranquilizer, then the guys were carried to the front of the house. I could hear Roadie and Corvette over the comms and in the house as they were talking to the women.
Claudia seemed fine. Pissed, but fine.
The other lady was more of a surprise because none of us really knew Tracey. She grew up in the biker community, but her folks were out east. Something happened and she decided to move to West Virginia, took up with her sister and her sister’s husband. Granddad always talked about Tracey as being smart, tough, and someone not to cross. She was also described as having a big personality, but when he was once asked what that meant, he shrugged and said she did hair.
She should’ve been someone that was snatched up by mistake, and on another operation I would’ve chalked that up to what it was. But that didn’t fly with Boise, who said she was being treated differently. I wanted to know more about that.
Boise went to check the truck, then did a search inside. He showed up, dangling some keys and flashed a smile at me. “Transpo.”
Solid plan.
He went, reversed their own truck up to the house and we began putting their bodies on the back of it. At the same time, Roadie and Corvette were bringing the women around from the back of the house.
I checked, not sure what to expect, but stone-cold expressions on both women was not it.
That was until they saw the guys we were loading up.
“Goddamn, you assholes!” Claudia screeched, going after the one Boise and I were currently carrying. She began hitting him on the chest and when that wasn’t good enough, she tried kicking at him. He was too high for her, so he got a few hits to the back.
“Grab her,” I barked at Roadie, who swept her up. He began backing up, his arms around her waist.
His head was down and he was murmuring something to her.
It wasn’t working.
She had her hands in fists and her legs were still trying to get free, but she wasn’t struggling too hard in getting away from him. Suddenly, after we loaded him up, and he was the last one, a sob erupted from her throat. “Goddamn,” she whispered before she hung in Roadie’s arms.
He lifted his head, meeting my gaze and I was getting it.
Something very serious had happened before we got here.
Glancing at the other woman, she seemed more put-together. Withdrawn. Quiet, but standing close to Corvette. Her arms were wrapped around herself. Catching my gaze, she didn’t jerk her eyes away. She flinched, and her face tightened on some emotion I couldn’t place, but she held my gaze.
“Roadie,” I said it quiet.
“Hmm?” He was still holding Claudia.
I motioned to her. “Help her get situated in the truck.”
He gave me a nod, putting her back on her feet and ushering her gently, with caution, to the truck.
Boise was doing a pass through the house. If there was something there he thought we could use, he’d grab it. I trusted him. He was more thorough than myself. So I moved toward Corvette and Tracey.
She might’ve been a good-looking woman, heavy makeup even under these circumstances. Her hair was flat, and I could tell it was bothering her because she kept fussing with it. But those eyes were hard and aged. She struck me as in her thirties, but I couldn’t quite get a read on the exact number. She had meat on her bones and she carried herself in a way that she was proud of it. She was watching me watch her, and she took a breath, one, right before I settled in front of her.
“You’re the leader.”
I gave a nod. “Suppose that’s what they call me.”
Her eyes went to the guys in the truck. “Those are Marco Estrada’s men.”
“You know that before they swept you up?”
“No. I would’ve known them without because of their neck tattoos.”
Claudia was in the truck by now, and Roadie had half of an arm around her, on the back of the seat. She wasn’t curled into him, but she wasn’t on the other side of the seat. Her head was buried in her lap and she was shaking from silent sobbing.
I gave a nod in their direction. “You want to fill me in on what they did to my man’s woman?”
She looked over, another heavy sigh leaving her. “They didn’t touch her in any way, if that’s what you’re asking. They told her that they killed her sister. They do that to mine, I’d take a knife to their balls. Unconscious or not.”
“They told her what?”
She looked back, her eyes flaring a little. “They murdered her sister–”
I was moving before she finished, going to the truck. “Claudia.”
I rested a foot on the bottom rung, a hand on the top of the door and I waited for her to look my way.
She didn’t. She kept shaking from the middle of the seat.
“She ain’t dead, Claudia.”
She sniffed once and lifted her head. Her face was wet from the tears, and she sniffled again, using the back of her arm to wipe over her face. “Say what?”
“They took her, but they didn’t keep her. The brainiacs that took you were the ones who lost her.”
Her mouth parted, and she was absolutely still. “It’s not a good idea to fuck with me right now, Ghost.”
“Not fucking with you, in any way. Your sister’s alive and sitting in Frisco territory right now, far away from these assholes.”
“You’re saying Kali is alive?”
A firm nod from me. “My woman is alive.”
Roadie snorted, now relaxing and slumping a little in the seat. “If she was dead, you think he’d be standing here all calm-like and talking to you? Fuck no. Ghost would be ghost , hockey mask and all and he’d be gone .” He whistled, shaking his head. “These guys would’ve been toast the second we found ’em, and he’d be off, going for the next round all by himself if he could’ve. Nah, woman. Your sister is alive.”
Claudia’s eyes were bulging at me, and she was breathing hard. Her chest was rising. “My man?”
“Probably pissed as fuck at us, but he’s alive too. Bullet went through him.”
“Why’d he be pissed at you?”
“Because we came to get you without him. I wanted this mission done with one of the guys alive to be questioned. That wouldn’t have happened with your man here, whether you were hurt or not.”
She blinked, and her whole body shuddered. She slumped back. “Thank GOD! Thank GOD!” But she was yelling and punching the dashboard before she tried to twist around to look at the guys in the back. “I want at ’em, Ghost! They fucking told me they killed my sister. They said that shit to me.”
Oh, Christ.
I eased back from the door, but said to Roadie, “Contain her.”
“I’ll try.”
Tracey moved next to me, and she motioned for the open seat. “I’m guessing that’s for me?” She scanned the horizon around us. “They were trying to call Estrada to get his orders. I don’t know if they got through or not, but speaking on behalf of my hide, I’d like to move on out of these parts? Maybe have a meeting somewhere else? Somewhere that’s safe?”
I eyed her, but gave a nod. As she got into the seat, I gave a short whistle to Roadie and signaled him for no cell phones, then I motioned to the two women. He gave me the slightest nod before starting the engine.
After that, Corvette and I hopped up into the back.
Boise was coming back out of the house, and he lingered long enough to throw a match inside.
He took off, and jumped into the back with us. All of us got down, just in case, but it wasn’t long before the house was burning bright. It was always a good idea to torch any possible evidence behind us, if anything to slow down Estrada on making his next move. Or I was hoping, thinking he might want to wait for reports of bodies found in that fire.
Roadie drove us to where our bikes were.
We’d called ahead so a few of our guys were waiting when we arrived. One was a prospect and he hopped off the back of a bike, heading over to the truck. Roadie got out, and the guy got in. He’d be the driver.
Stripes was one of the guys who came to meet us, and he came over to me. “Machete is pissed at you.”
I grunted. “Where is he?”
“He’s at The Bonfire. A few of us slipped away to meet you, but he ain’t going to be happy that we did that.”
“I know.” Keeping guys out of the loop was not in our culture, but neither were handling cartels, bad club politics, and splitting your club up in four fucking different ways. “I’ll talk to him, but did you let him know that we got her?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and speaking of, I know of a warehouse we can bunker down in.” He jerked his chin up toward the back of the truck, meaning he knew of a discreet place where we could have our interrogation.
“It’s safe?”
“It’s the middle of nowhere. My uncle tried doing a shop here, but it didn’t take. It sat abandoned when he got carted off to prison.”
“All right. Send everyone the coordinates.”
My phone buzzed then.
Crow: What’s the plan? We’re twiddling our thumbs up our asses here.
“Stripes.”
“Yeah?” He’d started back for his bike.
“Text it to Crow too.”
He paused, just briefly before he gave a nod.
Me: Meet us at the coordinates.
Boise came over. “You sure about that? He’s got guys we might not be able to trust.”
I was watching Tracey and Claudia in the truck and I tracked down to where those guys were still lying unconscious. We had more battles on the way concerning Estrada. I wanted to handle the one with Crow or his men before we did that.
“Yeah. I want to get it all out in the open, once and for all.”
Boise went still, hearing what I wasn’t saying. He let out a swift curse under his breath. “Gonna be fire, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah.”
I was past caring.
They tried to go after my woman. They shot my brother, and they were planning on doing more, a whole lot more. These were just the warning shots as far as I was concerned.
I was itching to go after them.