Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dontell remained beside me as we walked through the tunnel, keeping our eyes straight ahead, guns loaded.
Xander veered off into a separate tunnel a few minutes ago, leaving Dontell and I to ourselves.
The entrance we took was in an abandoned bar nestled in the middle of a dying neighborhood. There was no one guarding it, but we did see a few drug dealers and pimps on the way in, looking for new customers and fresh faces to sell. They backed off when they saw three men on a mission. It was something these people were used to. Business meetings were held at Devils Den. Deals were made, and sins were committed.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that multiple people on Casey Gomez’s Red List visited here. The amount of flesh trade that came out of this place was staggering, and Collin’s old boss used to control over half it through here. That was never any of my business though. The things I saw, I left it here. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t dwell on it. I just got my shit done and moved on.
It was the only option I had. Back then, I didn’t have the resources to save those people, but I did now.
Lee and the girls had run into trouble, but thankfully, Lee handled it.
I was losing my mind.
Dontell’s was already lost. He was fuming, reminding me of a ticking fucking time bomb, but there was nothing I could say or do to stop it. He was too far gone. Things would play out how they played out, and that would be that. He looked over to me as he came into the den of Devils Den.
Kavi would be in here, but whatever was left of his men would be, and that’s what I wanted.
Dontell put his hands into the pocket of his black slacks, planting his feet wide as we stared down into the makeshift city. People were talking, fighting, or fucking, everywhere and anywhere. There were no rules here. I jerked my chin to the far right corner. “Dog fights are run over there. I know a few of his men will be over there, placing bets,” I informed not only Dontell, but everyone else.
“Noted,” James said.
“Take out Kavi’s men, but not Kavi. We clear on that?” Collin ordered.
“Crystal,” Dontell muttered from beside me.
My eyes were scanning the area and below, I got a glimpse of Lee and the girls. “Stay in the den, guys,” I told them. “Don’t leave until we’ve dropped the Bratva.”
During the debrief and from the information we gathered from the hostages in Russia, Kavi should have about six men with him down here. That’s all he had left. In the outside world, he was completely alone.
“Spread out,” I told Dontell. “Drop anyone with the Bratva tattoo.”
“With pleasure,” he said, his voice filled with darkness.
Good. That’s exactly what we needed.
He went right and I went left, heading down the stairs. The second my feet hit the damn ground of the den, eyes were on me. I wasn’t wearing a hood over my head like Mina and Nik. No, I wanted these people to see my fucking face. I wanted them to remember the terror I put into their fucking hearts the last time I was here. I moved through the aimless crowd of people, trying my best to ignore the stench and screams.
I was halfway down a narrow alley when I heard a female scream.
I knew that scream.
Nikki.
I couldn’t break into a run. It would look suspicious, so with every ounce of control I had, I switched directions, heading for the sound.
I rounded a corner and saw a man’s hand clamped around her arm. The man wasn’t a resident of Devils Den, but he was a frequent flier; I could tell by the hate in eyes. He came down here to get his fix the law above ground would let him have. Leon was facing off with him as Mina’s eyes landed on mine. Her face gave nothing away, but I read her eyes.
“You can’t afford her,” Leon growled. “Let my product go.”
“I have the fucking money,” the man chuckled, “I assure you.” He yanked Nikki to his side, grabbing her face as he smiled down at her. “I’m going to enjoy you. Very much.”
“You wanna tell me why this bastard has my fucking product?” I clipped, rage coursing through my veins as I took slow, calculated steps towards them.
Leon’s head snapped up and then he jerked his chin to the fucker holding my woman, playing the part. “Fucker said he can pay for her. What are you going to do about that?” he asked, his eyes flashing.
I pressed my tongue against my cheek and looked at the man. “That’s my product.”
“Don’t see your name on her,” he shot back, holding Nikki against his front.
I looked back to Leon, clicking my tongue. “I see we have dilemma, because I paid in advance for that one,” I said calmly, pointing to Nikki.
“You want her?” Lee challenged. “Take her for yourself.”
I smiled, and in the corner of my eye, I saw Mina flinch at the sight.
Leon knew exactly how this game was played.
In a flash, I had a blade in my hand.
Then, it was soaring through the air as I twisted my neck, watching the blade strike true, right into the fucker’s eye. He released Nik and she snarled, breaking out of character, shooting her elbow up. It connected with his chin, and she whirled around, pulling her gun out and firing off two rounds into the man’s chest with him screaming the entire time.
He landed on the dark, damp ground with a thump.
Dammit, clover.
She turned to me, her green eyes wild with a mix of fear and rage. “I’m done pretending,” she breathed out, her voice shaking.
Another gunshot went off behind me, and instinctively I ducked and reached for Nik before turning around. We found Mina a few feet away, her back to us, her gun pointed at the body on the ground. She looked over her shoulder, her eyes hard.
“Bratva,” she said.
“So much for keeping things under the radar,” I muttered.
“Brother, I’d rather make a damn scene,” Leon said. I looked up to find him pulling off his hoodie to reveal a black wife-beater underneath, weapons strapped all around his torso and back. He unsheathed a gun and tipped his chin to Nikki. “You good?”
She nodded. “Yeah…yeah, I’m good,” she told him before looking up at me. “I figured it would be chaos after I fired my gun…” She trailed off.
I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, and we were moving again. Dontell was keeping somewhat of a low profile, but that didn’t stop him from leaving breadcrumbs for us.
However, his breadcrumbs came in the form of bodies.
We’d stepped over the third one in a row as we rounded a corner and the four of us came to halt, guns and blades raised as we took in the scene in front of us. Dontell was in the middle of two Bratva men, his lip swollen and bleeding. He was fighting both of them, the top buttons of his shirt undone.
Without a second thought, Mina advanced, charging towards the man who had his back to her.
She jumped on his back, her legs wrapping about him as she pressed the gun to his head. He stepped away from Dontell, and then Leon stepped in. He pulled Dontell back away from the man, cocked his fist back and gave him a nasty right hook. I kept my gun raised to makeshift shack they were in front of, ready to take out anyone who stepped through that fucking door.
A gunshot sounded, and I looked over to find the man Mina jumped on falling to the ground. I looked beside me to find Nik’s back to me, her gun pointed down the narrow alley we’d just come down.
With a grunt, Dontell took a blade out of Leon’s wearable arsenal and jammed the blade into the man’s neck, right into the rose tattoo. Dontell grabbed the man by the collar as he choked on blood. “Your boss here, buddy?” Dontell seethed.
“Move with me,” I ordered Nik. We moved as one, and when we were close, I was able to hear the bastard begging for his life. I rolled my eyes and shouted at him in Russian. The man’s fading eyes meet mine, widening at the sight of me.
“He feared you would come,” he pushed out, blood trickling from his mouth.
Leon and I shared a look.
“Well knock knock, motherfucker,” Mina hissed as she pointed her gun at the man”s forehead and pulled the trigger. Dontell sighed and dropped the man onto the ground as she spat. “We’re here.”
“Jazzy, I wasn’t done with him,” D told her, his voice hard.
She looked at him, her face softening as she took a step closer to him. She cupped his face with her hand and wiped a drop of blood from his cheek. “No one touches my man,” she whispered.
Leon smirked.
“Alright, guys,” I called. “How many have we got left?”
“Two.”
“They’re most likely with Kavi. The coward never goes anywhere alone,” I told him. I pulled Nik in front of me, gripping her chin between my fingers as I forced her to look at me. Her gun fell to her side as I studied her. “Tell me you’re okay,” I ordered. “Even if it’s a lie, tell me you’re okay so I can kill this bastard.”
Her bottom lip wobbled.
My jaw hardened.
“Lie to me, clover. Say the words I need to hear so I get this done.”
Leon, Dontell, and Mina were a few feet from us now, giving a second of privacy while keeping a lookout.
“And if I can’t?” she whispered; her voice unsteady.
“If you can’t, then I burn it all, Collin and Agent Garner’s plan be damned.” I lowered my voice. “But you and I both know I can’t do that. There are very bad men in here who need to be brought to justice.” I cupped her face in my hands. “Lie to me, baby. Just this once.”
She let out a soft breath. “Kiss me and tell you any lie you want to hear.”
I bent, pressing my lips against hers, and when I pulled away, she gave me what I wanted.
“I’m okay.”
“You sure there’s no other Bratva back there?” Leon asked as we entered another tunnel. This one was just underneath the streets above, the sewer grates giving a peak at the shred of daylight we had left. The rain had apparently stopped, but the sun would be setting soon.
“Yes,” D answered. He was behind Nik and I, with Mina beside him and Leon tailing us.
“You guys made a fucking scene,” Agent Garner sighed in my ear. “We got people running out of the tunnels.
“Wasn’t about to sit there and let my woman be purchased,” I shot back through a whisper.
“My team is going in there in five minutes to pull out the victims Nikki spotted. You have five minutes to get Kavi and get out,” he ordered.
“Fuck,” I bit off, raising my gun and pointing it straight ahead. Nik mirrored me, her footsteps steady, but it was her panting that had me worried. The fear she was feeling was killing me on the inside and every bone in my body was telling me to set this hellhole ablaze.
We continued walking for a few minutes and then came to a stop in front of a structure built within the tunnel. There was electricity on this side, and orange flood lights were scattered along the walls, stretching past the structure and disappearing further into the tunnel. People lingered around the place, and those people weren’t lost. They knew where they were and what they were doing. To our left, there was a man fucking a young woman from behind. The word “teal” was on the tip of my tongue, but then she started moaning the man’s name, crying out for him.
The boys and I shared a look and decided to leave it. I looked down to Nik and saw her staring. My lips brushed her ear in the next second. “Eyes straight ahead, baby.”
She snapped out of it and looked straight ahead to where multiple men were standing around chatting, drinking, doing drugs, or smoking cigarettes. There were women walking around, but I could tell they were workers—prostitutes. Not everyone here was a part of the flesh trade. Some came down here looking for money or something to help escape their own lives.
“Alright,” Leon said from behind all of us. “No one seems to give a fuck that we’re here. So what’s our play?” I turned around, herding everyone back into the tunnel, out of the light.
“Walk in, take down last two of Kavi’s shoulders, and then walk out,” Dontell said in the dark from my right.
“You forget to say kill anyone who gets in our way,” Mina muttered on my left.
“Figured that was a given, Jazzy,” he said to her.
“We can’t all just bust up in there,” Nik said, her voice small. “Someone needs to go inside and make sure he’s actually in there.”
“She’s right,” Collin said in our ears. “You don’t know who the other players are.”
“You in here yet?” I asked.
He didn’t respond, and something about his silence put me on edge. Collin Stevens was a dangerous man, but this place could break even him.
“Send Nikki in,” James suggested.
“No,” I clipped.
“But he won’t be expecting me,” Nik urged. I looked at her, holding her eyes for a moment.
We didn’t have time to argue about this. We had less than three minutes. I turned her to me and began fixing her appearance. I tucked her braid behind her, into her jacket and pulled her hood up.
When that was done, I put my hands on her shoulders. “You keep your fucking head down until you get inside, you hear me?”
She nodded.
“There’s going to be a bar to your left. Go straight there and plant yourself. You lay eyes on Kavi, say the code word, and we’ll be right in. Got that?”
She nodded again. “Yes,” she whispered.
“My brave girl,” I praised before I turned her, giving her a gentle shove. “Go.”
As I watched her walk away, I felt my family surround me. I knew they would do whatever it took to protect her, but one question shot to the forefront of my mind.
Where the fuck was my brother?