Chapter 46 Rescue Me
Rescue Me
PREACHER
SWIFT CURRENT, SASKATCHEWAN
“How much further?” I ask, keeping my foot jammed on the gas as I nervously watch the last slivers of the sun slip beneath the horizon.
“About ten minutes,” Raph mutters.
He’s been staring at his phone the entire ride, like he’s gonna find some sort of answer in it. I can see the anxiety swirling in him, and I wish there was something I could say to pull him out of his spiral, but I know he won’t be okay until we find them.
Titus said he’s certain that most of Adonis’s men will be inside getting shitfaced while they bid on the girls, so that means all we have to do is surround the building, clear any guards, and make our way in.
I can tell my brother isn’t so keen on the plan; he’s worried there could be casualties, very specific ones.
And if I’m being entirely honest, I am too.
Suddenly, the convoy of trucks and bikes veers off to the side of the road, and I have to jerk the wheel hard to keep in line behind them.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Raphael asks, leaning forward and bracing his hands on the dash. “What’s going on?”
“No fuckin’ idea. Maybe they saw something we didn’t.”
I follow them a little ways away from our initial planned spot, driving straight into a parking garage, and all the way up to the top floor before killing the engine and hopping out of the truck. Titus is already on his feet, his binoculars aimed straight down at our target.
“Looks like we might be fucked, cowboys.” He hands them to me. “There’s at least 10 of ‘em outside.”
“Shit.”
The night vision takes a second to get used to, but once I’ve adjusted it’s clear as day: I count 9 men outfront the jail, and another two pacing around the side. Some are alert, some smoking or shooting the shit, but all of them are between us and our mission.
“Lemme see.” Raph snatches the binoculars from my hands, needing to fact-check us on yet another detail. “Well fuck, you weren’t lying.”
“Never do.” Titus turns to me, arms crossed and face pensive. “So, what’s the call, hotshots?”
There are around 20 of us, including myself, Raph, and Gus, and we armed ourselves to the teeth before we headed out. Titus had everything. AR-15s, AK-47s, glocks, grenades, even a fucking battering ram like the feds use.
But explosives and gunfire aren’t the way to go here, not until we’re sure we have full control over the situation. I don’t want Adonis or his men seeing this coming, not until we’re ready to breach those doors.
“I think we can take ‘em.”
Titus grins, his eyes shimmering even in the low-light of the parking garage.
“That’s the shit I like to hear. So how do you wanna approach it?”
“I’m thinking we use the darkness to our advantage and pick ‘em off in little batches.”
“I like it. Once we’re done, we can take out the bikes to create a distraction. Doubles as insurance that none of them sneak by and get to go for help.”
He stares at me for a moment, his mouth curling into a cocky grin.
“Boys? Load up and follow our lead. We’re going in quiet, but be ready for anything.” He claps me on the shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. “Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya.”
“Don’t worry,” Raph grumbles behind me. “He won’t.”
“You’re a funny motherfucker, Rufio.”
“It’s Raphael.”
“‘Course it is. Now let’s head out before any more of ‘em get added to the meat grinder.”
My brother and I head back to the truck, and I load a big black duffel bag with everything we might need, from guns to ammo to a couple grenades. Of course, I can’t forget my knife.
“You really like that thing, don’t you?” Raph asks. “A little too much, I’d say.”
I brought the one Ripley used to gut McKinney, already one of my favourites, but now… Figure there’s a certain poetry to it.
“Second most reliable thing in my life so far,” I reply, watching the moonlight glint off of the blade.
My brother glowers at me, his eyes stormy and intense.
“I find that insulting, just so you know, because I’m certain you’re not about to say I’m number one.”
“You know what mom used to tell us: if you don’t have anything nice to say…”
“Shut the fuck up.”
We make our way to the ground floor of the parking garage and start out on foot toward the jail.
It’s only a few blocks, but we make sure to stick to the darkness.
Titus’s men are surprisingly quiet and agile for a bunch of burly bikers, and I’m getting the feeling the training he puts them through is a little more intense than your average gang.
When we’re only one block away, we loop around to the back of the building. While I’m waiting for the rest of the men to get in position, I spot some graffiti scrawled onto the old brick. A big ol’ cock with FUCK THE POLICE underneath it.
Nice touch.
Everyone preps their weapons in silence, because in this kind of quiet, even a poorly timed whisper might as well sound like a gunshot.
Titus looks to me, his gun at the ready, but then the barely audible music cranks up inside the building, suddenly loud enough that it might bring the whole goddamn thing down.
The Rolling Stones, It’s Only Rock N Roll.
I share a glance with Titus, who grins.
“Well that’s some fucking luck, huh, boys?”
He signals for us to fan out, creeping around the building and ready to strike. Some of Adonis’s men are sipping beers, others are fucking around on their phones, and a few are even standing guard like good little dogs.
I spot one of the men wandering in my direction, his belt buckle jingling as he stops, whips out his cock, and starts pissing all over the pavement. He’s whistling to himself, head tipped up toward the sky as I creep up behind him.
I clamp my hand over his mouth, smelling whiskey, piss, and cheap cologne.
My heart thunders. The anticipation hangs like humidity in the air as his body jumps and he starts to struggle, snarling, writhing, and thrashing against me. He’s strong, but I’m a practiced hand at this, slashing his throat so deep I feel bone.
All he lets out is a muffled grunt before going limp.
“What the fuck?”
I turn, coming face to face with another one. Before he can make another sound, I lunge forward and grab him by the hair, shove the blade just below his chin. His eyes go wide, his lips parting just enough that I can see a glint of steel sticking up from underneath his tongue.
“Just tore right through all that soft tissue,” I whisper, twisting the blade to cause just a little more agony. “Dead man walking.”
He lets out a strangled, pathetic cry, that for a fraction of a second makes me think this whole plan has been fucked. But when I look up, all I see is man after man taking their targets down. Even Raph’s staring at the knife in his hand, a corpse laying at his feet.
“Hey, you good?”
He stares at me, taking a few deep breaths just as I spot a mountain of a man turn the corner and start sprinting toward him. I tear my pistol out of my jeans, but Raph’s faster, spinning around on the ball of his foot and shooting the fucker right in the heart.
“Nice shot—”
A loud explosion knocks both of us off our feet, and I scramble for my brother, trying my hardest to shield him from chunks of flying metal and rubber. It takes a while for the smoke to clear, but when it does I see Titus striding toward us, a bloodied knife still clutched in his hand.
“Sorry, boys! Didn’t see you there!”
“You didn’t see us?!” Raph yelps. “You almost blew us to smithereens, you asshole.”
Titus shrugs, his chest heaving like he’s just run a marathon as he helps me to my feet, before offering his arm to Raph.
“There’s a back exit,” he tells us, pulling my brother up like he barely weighs a pound. “Currently unguarded, after all our hard work, and there’s no way they didn’t hear that inside. They’ll be sending people out front to check, so we’re gonna make our way in the back.”
Hope surges through me and I glance over at my brother who’s staring at the building with a look of nothing but pure rage.
Growing up, Raph was always the person who made all the plans, who calmed me down when I flew off the handle.
I used to think we were so different, but when I look in his eyes now, I think I may be seeing what he first saw in me all those years ago.
“We’re gonna get them back, right?”
I grasp his shoulder, pulling him in close.
“It’s a promise.”