5. Grey
GREY
T he urge to paint blood all over that fucking warehouse beat at my skull and itched against my palms. My anger burned a little brighter with every thought about what Vicente was doing to Lafe.
And the thought of Amorette throwing herself into the fray, for whatever fucking reason, only threw gasoline on the already raging inferno.
Such a stupid fucking girl. I needed her in a way that surprised me, but hell, that didn’t negate the way I needed to blister her ass or choke the sweet breath from her lips. Maybe both at the same time would help me regain my usual calmness.
I snorted.
Andre glanced over at me as we raced toward the building.
Like at the one in Peru, we didn’t use the strip designated for the warehouse. Instead, we used the public one a town over. It was risky, but I agreed with Andre, we needed to come in without alerting everyone and their fucking mom we were on our way.
Vicente had been so far ahead of us every step in this game, we didn’t want to give him any advantage.
“I’m not sure what you find so funny about this situation,” he griped.
“Fantasizing about spanking Amorette and choking her while I fuck her. To teach her a lesson.” It was that, or lose my fucking mind. Already, my skin felt too tight, like if I didn’t find her–them–soon, I was going to pummel the closest person to me to feel better.
If I lost her…Fuck. I couldn’t even let myself go there.
His lips twitched, breaking up some of the intense air surrounding him. But it was pained. We both knew what we were likely to walk into, and it fucking sucked. “Are we talking about the same woman? Her head is harder than Parker’s. That’s saying something.”
“I know. It’s why I laughed. That, and how it could maybe calm my own ass back down. Which is also laughable, since I’m the first to jump into a fight out of anger.”
We both chuckled.
“Fuck,” Andre breathed as we approached the pad. We were taking the back road to creep in without broadcasting our presence, but we couldn’t avoid driving by the pad and hangar.
In a burst of anxious energy, he leaned forward in the seat, craning his neck to see around the trees, and stepped on the gas. The sudden jolt of speed slammed me back against the chair.
Then I saw what he saw.
Holy fuck.
Blood stained the asphalt, and Parker, along with several of his men, were hustling between the chopper and the two SUVs. Rifles were strapped to their backs except for a few that held theirs as they watched the sky.
This kind of scene didn’t bother me. I’d always thrived on jumping into a fight. But now? My heart thumped in my chest, because there was so much blood and too many faces that weren’t hers.
“What the fuck happened here?” Andre yelled.
I didn’t answer him. What was I supposed to fucking say?
Parker noticed us first as we plowed our way toward them. He stopped what he was doing and braced himself by holding his fists at his sides and working his jaw back and forth. It was the stance he took whenever he knew he was about to be in shit with Andre.
Right now, he needed to worry more about me.
He was covered in sweat and grime, and his hands were a bloody mess.
“The more important question is, where is Amorette?” I growled. She wasn’t here. No matter where I looked, on the ground, behind the chopper, toward the hangar, I saw no damn sign of her.
Andre threw the vehicle into park, and I used the dash to keep myself from going through the windshield. We jumped out and ran straight for Parker.
The tense chatter from the men silenced as we stopped two feet from Parker. Every last one of the men stepped back, giving us a wide berth. Whatever happened, they were prepared for this to explode in their faces.
As they should, because this looked like a fucking war zone.
And I still didn’t see Amorette.
“Where is she?” I asked quietly, scanning the ground again and finding nothing that even slightly resembled our wicked love. Then I found the pile of bodies in the chopper.
Andre screamed after me, but I ignored him.
What the fuck? What the—
Too many thoughts swarmed inside my head as I reached the door. There were too many bodies—more than I expected. I recognized a few. Some weren’t ours. I grabbed one by the ankle and yanked.
The corpse hit the ground with a grating thump. I used the arm of another to continue clearing the bodies from the chopper, looking for any sign of a petite body, long dark hair, or tiny fucking feet.
I got sick with it.
Hands grabbed my arms and spun me away from the inside of the chopper. Parker and Andre pushed against my chest until I hit the side of the chopper. The glass was hot against my back, and I tried to focus on that instead of shoving my fist through Parker’s throat.
“Where the fuck is she!” It was a question. I demanded an answer from the brother, who had been a pain in our asses since Amorette landed in our laps.
Andre kept one hand flat against my sternum and whipped out his other hand to catch Parker by the throat. He squeezed, and his chest rose in ragged waves. His face was void of any emotion while cords stood out in his neck.
Fuck this shit.
I pushed forward, and Andre tried to slam me back against the chopper.
Knocking his hand away, I got in Parker’s face.
Andre still had a hold of him and squeezed a little tighter.
Parker gasped and clawed at his hands. Our baby brother knew how to get out of that hold, but he allowed Andre to keep it.
This meant he felt guilty; if Parker could even feel that emotion. The shithead was always too wrapped up in furthering his agenda that I doubted he could.
Fuck, I couldn’t do this with him, or I’d do serious damage. I stepped back and shook my head, trying to dislodge the ache in my gut demanding violence.
Eventually, Andre lost interest in choking the life out of Parker, and he loosened his hold so Parker could talk.
“What happened here? And where the fuck is Amorette?” Andre’s voice was a whisper. Our soldiers couldn’t have heard him with the distance they’d placed between us.
It wasn’t often that we fought, and never in front of them. This display was changing everything.
“Lafe’s inside the building with Vicente and Maikel. They’re not killing him; their goal is torture. We’re going to get them.” Parker didn’t try to beat around his elbow to piss us off. He gave us straight facts.
Alarm shot through me, because this wasn’t like my bitch of a little brother at all. There were no smiles. No smirks. No games.
Except…
“You didn’t say where Amorette is,” Andre pointed out, still using an eerily calm voice.
Parker’s face completely locked down. And the bastard refused to answer.
The squeezing began again; this time, Parker’s face turned red, then purple. When Andre let up, he gave him a shake. “Where the fuck is Amorette?”
He pushed his tongue over his upper teeth behind his lip and glared at Andre, then at me. Finally, he lost his bravado and a small hint of fear peeked through.
“They took her. When we got here, they ambushed us. Killed several of ours, we got some of theirs, but as soon as they saw her, they zeroed in on her and took her right from fucking underneath me.” The fear dissipated, leaving behind a steely determination that was more Parker’s speed.
Pushing away from both of us, Andre spun to face the direction of the warehouse.
I glared at Parker while keeping my cool. As much as I wanted to beat his ass, it wouldn’t do any good right now. The best thing I could do, that we all could do, was figure out a plan to get both Amorette and Lafe back.
Parker returned my glare, but then broke it by rushing back to his men and shouting orders. It took about three seconds for Andre to wade in and threaten death to every man and his family if they made another move.
“This whole fucked up mess is as bad as it is because we’re like a bunch of kids chasing after our own tails with no idea what the other is doing.
That fucking ends now.” Andre made an angry slash with his hand.
“What do you know about the warehouse?” He crossed his arms and waited for Parker to give us the details I fucking hoped he had.
“They have fourteen guards left with them. Two in the security room watching the cameras. They’ll see us coming before we get there. The rest are outside.”
“Can you trust that information?” Andre needled.
Parker shrugged, but the motion was too stiff. I got it. It felt like my body was a coiled spring, and I was just waiting to be pointed in a direction to unleash the sickly feeling pushing against my skin.
“I interrogated one of the survivors. He seemed convincing enough.”
Andre nodded, and he cast his gaze to the ground.
Parker and Andre were the masterminds of the four of us, but for very different reasons.
And they never worked together. They needed to sort their shit out quickly.
Because if Amorette got hurt or Lafe died as a result of their heads stuck in their fucking asses, I would go berserk, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to stop me.
I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
“This warehouse isn’t very big. It’s almost miniscule compared to the warehouse in Peru.
Just a couple of stories. Mostly offices and a large holding room for shipments hauls.
No basement. They have to be holding them in one of the offices.
There’s nowhere else they could have them,” Andre said softly, mainly to himself.
He turned and studied Parker with slitted eyes. “What’s your plan?”
Parker shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe Andre was asking him for his thoughts. I wasn’t shocked, I was impatient. Every second here was a second longer Vicente had them. The most terrible acts only took seconds, sometimes minutes.
“They’re armed and will shoot. Whatever protection we still have, it only goes so far.
We use the bulletproof SUVs to take out as many of the guards as possible, then storm the warehouse.
” This time when Parker shook his head, there was more force in the action.
“It’s a terrible plan, but it’s the only available one we got if we want to get them out right now.
But it’s also the only way I see us walking away with most of our men. ”
Nodding, Andre uncrossed his arms and walked toward the passenger door of the closest SUV. “I agree. Let’s split up, head in different directions to circle the property, and when we hit the front together, we’ll attack the fucking place.”
Sounded good to me. I rolled my shoulders back, psyching myself up for the coming fight. These motherfuckers needed to hurt. Then die.
Everyone jumped to obey orders, and teams were broken up without so much as a word. I joined Andre, taking the driver’s seat, because I couldn’t trust myself with Parker.
Three men slid into the back, and the other four got into the other SUV.
Once Parker started to move out, I spun the tires as I swung around to head in the other direction.
The property lines weren’t clear, but trees were far enough apart that I could weave through them.
They were also thin enough that I could spot the uniforms of Vicente’s men.
“Right there!” Andre pointed to a man jerking up his weapon to aim at us. The shot cracked against the windshield where my face was. He didn’t get a chance to get another shot in before I ran the fucker over.
The crunch jarred the car and his face twisted up in pain as he fell to the ground and became a speed bump under our tires.
“Fuck yeah!” I screamed and slapped the dash. This kind of excitement was just what I needed to forget that Vicente had Amorette in his sadistic hands.
“Over there!” one of the men hollered from the back seat as he shoved his hand in front of my face and pointed to our left.
“Got it.” This time, the guard was on the run. He must have realized that his weapon would do fuck all to the SUV and decided escape was his best option. But he couldn’t outrun us.
He yelled and threw up his arms as we slammed into his waist, then he was a speed bump too.
One of the men tried to roll the window down in the back, but Andre turned to smack his head. “The windows are bulletproof. When the windows are down, they can kill us. Leave the fuckers up.”
We took down six men by the time we rolled up to the front of the warehouse. Parker’s crazy ass swerved all over the lawn until he rolled up next to us. Before his tires even stopped, we were on the move again.
Depending on how many guards Parker took out, only a couple should be left.
Andre wasn’t all the way out of the vehicle before a shot rang out from the second floor.
“Shit!” he cursed.
We jumped back in the SUV, and Parker’s people did the same. That must be close to where the security cameras were.
With Andre’s side facing the building, he cracked his window an inch, enough to fit the nozzle of his gun through. Then he started firing back. The man right behind Andre followed his lead, and within a few shots, we heard a grunt and shots halted.
“Did you get both guys?” I asked the question knowing Andre couldn’t answer me.
“Who fucking knows.” He pushed the door open and paused. I held my breath, straining to hear anything revealing another shooter. Nothing.
“Let’s go,” Andre ordered.
I had my knife in my left hand and a handgun in my right as we moved toward the doors. When we were ten feet away, a familiar voice screamed in rage. Andre and I exchanged glances.
“Fuck, we need to go now.” I started to sprint.
I’m coming for you, mamí. And when I get you, I’m going to spank your ass.