Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Gator
Kat was a machine. She fed us a stream of details as we rolled—a plate number that was also registered to the same corporation as the one that had followed Julius that day, the tracking from Julius’s tracker starting at the salon and moving first to the warehouse district.
Then a final ping that put the tracker at a farmhouse outside the city limits before the signal went dead.
“I’m sending you the coordinates,” she said.
Both our phones pinged a second later with the information, and Hawk put it in the car’s onboard GPS.
“We’re about fifteen minutes out,” he told me. “We’re gonna get him.”
I nodded in agreement because I refused to believe anything else.
“I’m pulling the listing now,” she said, the quick clicking of her mechanical keyboard sounding in the background.
“Listing?” Wolfe asked.
“Yep. Lucky for us, this place is listed for sale, so the listing should have… yep, there it is, photos and a floor plan. Hmm, according to this, the house has a basement. That’s unusual around here, but it makes for a good spot to hide things.”
“Or people,” I grumbled.
She either didn’t hear me or just ignored me. “I’m pulling satellite now, and I have Isaiah getting his drone in the air. We’ll need it since there are no street cams on this rural road out in the country.”
Hawk’s jaw tightened. “I hate going in blind.”
“I do, too, but you won’t be,” Kat replied. “We have the photos, the floor plan, and Isaiah’s drone will get eyes on the property and can do thermal sweeps. You’ll have plenty of info before you go in.”
I thought of Julius in some dark, dank basement with no food or water.
Hell, not just Julius, but the boy from the club, and anyone else they’d grabbed.
The thought turned my fear and anger into something clean and hard, something bigger.
This was purpose. We had a plan. We had to use it.
We would rescue these people. I would rescue Julius.
Axel’s voice came over the coms. “I’m on my way to the location. Gator, man, I’m so sorry. He was there, and then he wasn’t. I knew the back door was locked, so I assumed he was in the back doing something. It never occurred to me he wasn’t in there.”
I took a deep breath. I wanted to rail at him.
I’d entrusted Julius to him. He was supposed to keep him safe.
But logically, I knew that Axel hadn’t done anything wrong.
None of us expected Julius to slip out the back door like that.
I probably should’ve considered the possibility, but I didn’t, so I was just as responsible for this mess as Axel was, if not more.
“I know, Axel. What matters now is getting him back.”
“We will, Gator. We will,” he assured me.
Kat broke back in. “Isaiah got the tactical drone off the roof in under five minutes. ETA to the farmhouse is roughly six. The thermal images should let us know what we’re dealing with.”
“But just everything aboveground, nothing from the basement, right?” I asked.
“Right. If they’re underground in the basement, we won’t see much, but at least we’ll have a good idea where they are.”
“That’s where I would keep them if it was me,” Wolfe said. “Maybe I need to get me a house with a basement. You know, for assholes like these.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Crowe said. “They deserve to spend some time in a basement.”
I tuned out the comms after that as a few other guys chimed in, joking in the way soldiers joke to keep the fear from taking over. It was just what we did, but this time I had too much on the line to join them.
“Thermal’s coming in.” Kat’s voice cut through the pointless chatter.
“Great, what do we have?” I asked.
“Intermittent heat signatures inside the house… likely people moving around. It looks like three inside the house, of course remember we aren’t getting any readings from the basement.
So if they have anyone down there, we won’t have eyes on them.
We have two guards patrolling the perimeter.
I’ll give you their location when you get there. ”
“Axel, Maddox, you two will take the guards. We’ll go in the front,” Wolfe said.
“You got it,” Maddox said, his voice sounding way too gleeful about his assignment.
“We want these guys alive,” Wolfe growled.
Hawk shook his head. “We’re getting close. What’s the plan? We can’t just roll up there in a line like a small army.”
“Kat?” Wolfe asked. She was the one who could see the surrounding area, so she would be the one with the plan.
“There’s a field just before the house that has a farm access road. You can pull in there and then cut across to the house.”
Wolfe pointed at the navigation screen. “The road’s coming up on the right.”
Hawk turned onto the small dirt road that had obviously been used for farm equipment.
It wouldn’t be but a short walk to the house, but unfortunately, as was common here, there was nothing but scrub brush, so no real cover.
That meant we would need to move quickly.
Knox was staying with the truck, ready to move if it was necessary, but the rest of us all set out towards the house.
Wolfe’s voice crackled over the comm. “Update on the guards.”
“On the back of the property,” Kat said.
As we hurried across the yard, I took in our surroundings.
There was a porch swing swaying in the breeze and empty flower boxes on the porch, making the house look as if it had once been loved.
The windows were covered to keep people from seeing inside.
Of course the good news about that was it would also keep those on the inside from seeing out, and with so little cover, that was to our benefit.
Once we reached the house, we split. Hawk and I took the flank closest to the driveway, Axel and Maddox took the back of the house, and Wolfe, Crowe, and Tucker took the other side. Kat’s voice threaded constant updates through my ear.
“You have one seated figure just inside the door in the living room. Two more near the back door where the kitchen is. And one who appears to be pacing from room to room. Watch yourselves.”
We made it to the house without drawing any attention. Fucking amateurs. I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse. It was always iffy when you were dealing with people who didn’t know what they were doing.
Hawk’s hand found my shoulder, a grip that spoke louder than words. He wasn’t just my business partner, he was my brother, and he would be right beside me, doing whatever needed to be done to get Julius back.
“Ready?” Hawk asked.
“Always,” I said, and I meant it. These assholes had Julius, and I was more than ready to take them out.
We closed the distance to the porch in three slow paces. My breath found a rhythm I’d practiced a hundred times in training.
Kat’s voice was low in my ear. “Isaiah’s holding high… two heat signatures still in the kitchen. One just inside the front door.”
The plan narrowed into the immediate—get inside, find Julius, and extract. But I knew better than to go without Wolfe’s nod, no matter how badly I wanted to rush in there.
We stood at the threshold, gloves on, guns ready, and the drone’s distant buzz like a heartbeat above us.
Hawk focused on me. His look asked me if I was good.
I nodded in answer.
Wolfe used hand signals to let us know what we were doing. Hold. Hold. Close in. One, Two. Three.
“Breach!” Wolfe hissed into his com so Axel and Maddox would know we were going in.
Hawk slammed his shoulder into the door, and it gave under the force. We surged through, guns raised and ready for whatever was waiting inside.
The seated figure Kat had seen with the drone’s thermal camera was our first problem, but Wolfe was on it. They heard Wolfe take him down before the guy even had a chance to reach for his gun.
Hawk and I kept moving, each of us choosing a side of the hallway that led to the kitchen.
I pressed into the wall, hoping they would make it past me without seeing me.
My heart was pounding, adrenaline was coursing through my veins.
The guys in the back were bound to have heard the door splinter and would be coming our way any second.
I used the wall as an anchor, slowed my breathing, and focused on my mission. Stay quiet, stay invisible, stay ready.
It didn’t take long before two men came barreling towards the front door, guns drawn. The second they passed us, we struck from behind. I used the wall like a fulcrum and launched myself at one, wrapped my arms around him, trapped his right arm, and pinned his gun.
I hooked his left foot with mine and used the forward momentum to take us to the ground.
We landed with him facedown on the floor.
The impact knocked his gun free, and it slid across the wooden floor.
I quickly wrenched his arms up in the middle of his back while I planted my knee against his spine to keep him from moving.
I zip-tied his hands and rolled him over.
I looked up and met Hawk’s gaze, giving him a nod.
“Two more down,” he said.
“Guards neutralized,” Axel said. “We’re coming in.”
“Let’s move these guys to the kitchen so we can clear the house and go find your boy.” Wolfe grabbed the guy who’d been sitting at the table inside the front door and jerked him up, shoving him towards us.
I wanted to leave my guy on the ground and go search for Julius, but I knew Hawk was right. We had a procedure for a reason. Thermal imaging wasn’t infallible, and clearing the house was essential.
I hauled the guy up off the floor, and Hawk and I both pushed them down the hallway they’d come from. The rush of adrenaline that came from breaching the house was starting to fade, and all I wanted was to find Julius and get him home.
We walked into the kitchen, and I gave the guy I’d taken down a hard shove. He stumbled into the room, and I grabbed him, pushing him to the floor so he was leaning against the wall. Then I pulled out my gun and pointed it in his face.
“Where are the hostages?”
He looked at me and sneered, but didn’t answer. I was all out of patience. “There are more than one of you here. I don’t have to keep you alive to get answers, so if I was you, I would start talking.”
The sneer on his face morphed into fear, and from the look on his face, I knew that he was about to talk when all hell broke loose.
Axel and Maddox came in the back door at the same time Kat’s voice came over the radio, urgent but calm.
“Two bodies coming at you on your right. Looks like they’re coming up the stairs.”
A door burst open. Wade Roarke lunged through it, gun drawn, eyes wild.
He held a crying Latino woman in front of him, using her like a shield.
The back door was his closest possible escape, but Maddox was standing in it, blocking his way.
Before we had time to react, he fired, hitting Maddox square in the chest.
A loud ooof escaped Maddox’s throat as he fell backward through the door.
Wolfe barked out, “Tuck—now!”
They moved together in what looked like a well-rehearsed dance, because it was. This was the shit we trained for. Wolfe grabbed the girl, pulling her away, and Tucker tackled the shooter from the side like a goddamn freight train, wrapping the man in a textbook takedown.
She pinned him with both knees and wrenched his wrist, forcing the gun to clatter to the floor. Her hair was in her eyes, and she looked too young to be this terrifying, but we knew this was the real Tuck, and that was why we were so glad to have her on our team. She was a fucking badass.
Axel knelt over his brother, so we couldn’t see him, but Kat’s voice came over the com. “Vitals are spiking but stable. He took the brunt to the vest. He’s conscious, and he’s breathing.”
“You good, Maddox?” Wolfe called out.
“M’fine,” he croaked, which translated to he’d be fine, but holy hell did it hurt. Taking a shot square to the chest like that was no joke, even if you were wearing protective gear.
Tucker flipped Wade over on his back and started to pull him to a seated position, but before she managed it, Axel was across the room. He stared down at him and, with a completely blank expression, put one bullet into Wade’s knee. The man howled, the sound raw and immediate.
“That’s what you get for shooting my fucking brother.”
Wolfe rolled his eyes the way he always did when dealing with the twins. “Put a fucking tourniquet on it before he bleeds out,” he growled.
Axel didn’t flinch. He yanked his belt off in one motion and cinched it tight around Wade’s upper thigh.
I didn’t wait to see what happened from there. I headed for the basement. For Julius.
I went through the door, starting down the stairs.
The room came into view. I saw mattresses on the floor, people huddled close in fear.
But where was Julius? I scanned the dim interior, heart thumping, desperate to lay eyes on him.
We saw each other at the same time. He and the boy from the club were sitting together, but the second he saw me, he pushed to his feet.
“Harlan!”
He rushed towards me, and I took the last two stairs in one big step and, just like that, I held my entire world in my arms.