Chapter Twenty Three
T hey stopped the vehicles two blocks from the warehouse. The first thing Jeter noticed was the big truck idling in the back of the parking lot.
“There’s my guys,” he told Kendrick.
He got out and headed toward the truck, shaking his head the second all four doors opened. Traeger exited the driver’s side while King stepped out of the passenger front. Both men met in the middle and moved forward to greet Jeter, blocking his view of the other three men. However, he already knew T-Rex, Viking, and Crash were with them.
“Hey, fucker. How’s it hanging?” King held out his right hand.
Jeter laughed and slapped his hand into King’s. The president of the Royal MC pulled him into a hug, slapping his back hard enough to make him cough. “Good to see you, King. Thanks for coming out here to help me and my ole’ lady.”
He’d told his brothers about Tori and how he’d claimed her, hoping she didn’t freak when she found out.
The other three men walked up, slapping his back and congratulating him. Like him, they slid their cuts back on once they’d gotten off the plane, but now all had on long-sleeved black tops with black gloves. Most would think they were all dressed for the cold weather, but they’d dressed for the occasion.
“Come on. We got the equipment back in the SUV for everyone.” Jeter led the others toward his brother’s vehicles.
Kendrick introduced himself and then handed out guns and earpieces to each man. King and the others armed up along with the Jeter, each making sure they could hear and speak with the rest of the men. That pit in Jeter’s stomach became larger. He’d never gone on a mission and been sick or worried, but one had never been personal. He rationalized the reasoning. Settling his mind and fears, he switched his phone onto silent mode.
“We ready to roll, boys?” King asked.
“We’ll divide into teams. I want a team at every corner of that building. Nobody is to go vigilante when we go in there. Jeter, you’re team one. I’ll take team two. King, you’ll be team three. Traeger, you’re team four. T-Rex, you’re team five, Viking, you’re team six. Crash and Tog will stay with the vehicles in case we need a fast getaway. My guys will split up into each team. Are we good?” Kendrick asked.
T-Rex stepped forward. “Is this a capture and question mission or kill everything we see?”
“Kill everything and everyone. We got a clean-up crew that will take care of the mess afterward,” Kendrick explained.
Viking looked at his guns. “What about the noise? Won’t this bring in the cops?”
Kendrick held out his arms and spun in a circle. “Do you see a lot of people around here?”
Traeger rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get this done. It’s cold as fuck out here.”
Several of Kendrick’s guys laughed at that.
Kendrick and his men fanned out, using hand signals like they’d done the same thing many times.
Jeter noticed there were guards at the front of the building. He didn’t see the man Kendrick had left to watch over the place, though.
“Kendrick, where’s your guy you left here?” he asked his brother through the earpiece.
His brother didn’t answer right away. Jeter moved closer to the front as that was his point of entrance, eyes zoning on the guard. The bastard appeared to be about six feet tall and skinny as hell.
“I can’t reach him,” Kendrick said finally.
“Reach out to Andre and make sure everything is good at your house.” That sinking feeling came back tenfold.
“What’s going on?” King asked. His voice was hushed but demanding.
Jeter explained that Kendrick’s guy was missing and that he didn’t feel right leaving Tori home with only one guard.
“Let’s take care of this quickly and go to your woman.” King made decisive orders without question.
He took a deep breath. “Get ready, boys. I’m taking out the guard in front.”
“I’ve got the one out back in three, two, one,” Traeger said.
The sound of two pops resounded in the quiet night. Jeter moved fast, held his gun up, and prepared to shoot again. A man came out before he’d taken ten steps, raining bullets in a flurry.
Jeter dove and returned a few well-placed shots, dropping the fool.
He and a couple of others entered the building from the front as more shots rang out from all around. Inside the warehouse, the smell of gunpowder filled his senses. His night vision goggles were on, allowing him to see the vast interior.
Doing a quick sweep, he looked for the small stairs leading to the office they assumed Rizzo would hide in. A movement to his left had him spinning. A man jumped from a stack of crates, knocking him onto his back. The gun flew from his hands.
“Oof,” Jeter grunted, trying to block the meaty fist aiming for his face.
“Did you really think you could get the drop on me, boy?”
Jeter couldn’t make out the man’s face, but his heavy New York accent let him know it was Rizzo. He caught the man’s fist in his palm and raised his head up hard and fast. The contact made a thudding sound, stunning Rizzo long enough for Jeter to flip their positions.
“Hello, Rizzo. So nice for you to...drop in,” Jeter spat.
He glared down at the asshole and wondered why Grigori hadn’t run or shot Jeter instead of trying to take him down. Rizzo bucked up and down, trying to get Jeter off him. With no mercy, Jeter punched the asshole in the face with his fists, one after the other. The man laughed.
Jeter got to his feet, blood coating his fists. Rizzo laughed as if he had lost his mind. The warehouse had gone quiet. Kendrick strolled up to them, shaking his head.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” King asked.
“If you kill me, you’ll never find the girl.” Rizzo coughed and spat blood from his mouth.
His words made Jeter see red. He reached down and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him from the ground. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
TORI WALKED THE LENGTH of the living area to the kitchen and back several times. She was sure poor Andre was getting sick of watching her and following on her heels.
“You don’t have to trail me, Andre.”
He grunted but didn’t stop keeping to her heels.
After about an hour, she’d exhausted herself, or so she’d told Andre. In truth, she needed a moment to herself. “I’m going to go to our room and nap.”
He looked at her with a slight tilt of his head but gave her a nod. “I’ll be right down here if you need anything. Here, give me your phone number, and I’ll program my number for you in case you need something while you’re up there.”
She wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary, but he needed to be needed. She got that. So she let him program her number into his phone and then did the same to her phone. She laughed as she saw he’d given himself the nickname of Giant since she’d called him that after the wrestler Andre the Giant.
“I’ll see you soon.” Tori snagged a bottle of water from the massive fridge before heading up the back stairs toward Jeter’s bedroom. She returned to the closet, wishing she had some of her things to wear.
“I like leggings, but goodness gracious, what I wouldn’t do for a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that smells and feels freshly washed,” she muttered as she ran her hand over a pair of Jeter’s.
After a few minutes of dawdling inside, she moved back into his large room, sat on the small seat at the end of the bed, and flipped on the flatscreen television mounted on the wall. She kept the volume on mute while she scrolled through the channels, searching for something to watch.
The feel of the cell phone buzzing in the pocket of the leggings made her freeze. Pulling it out, she hit answered immediately. “Hey, Andre, what’s up?”
“Get up to the third floor. Kendrick’s primary suite is the only room up there. In his closet is a safe room at the back. Punch in zero six nine. That will open the door once. Close it and hit the red button on the inside. It will lock and won’t open from the outside again unless you have the code, which two people have. Kendrick and Jeter.” His voice sounded even yet strained.
“What’s going on?” she asked, moving toward the stairs. Tori looked down the stairway to see if she could see anyone but found it empty and quiet.
“The perimeter alarm on two sides went off, and then the cameras went black. I’ve locked the gates down, but the shutters aren’t working. The safe room is the last defense. I need you to get in there so I can focus on my job, principessa.” He cursed in Italian as his boots thudded against the wood floor.
“Did you have time to see how many there were?” she asked?” In Kendrick’s bedroom, her breath caught at the magnificence of her surroundings. The entire floor appeared to be one vast living space. She twisted her head back and forth, looking for what would be his closet, then began moving toward closed doors. Finally, she found the huge room that made Jeter’s closet look like a coat closet. She punched in the code, then stopped.
Andre didn’t respond. Fear for his life made her go back into Kendrick’s room. She thought of her stepfather and how he always kept a loaded gun inside his bedside table. Her feet moved of their own accord, hurrying into the room where the biggest bed on the planet sat and found a treasure trove of weapons. After checking there were bullets inside, she shoved one in the back of her leggings and then took another one.
Her heart threatened to race right out of her chest, but she knew she would never forgive herself if she sat in the safe room while Andre died trying to protect her.
She inched her way down the back stairs, thanking whoever had designed the house that none of the stairs creaked. While she’d wandered earlier, Tori found herself walking the entire first level. The little pacing made her sneaking easier.
Voices alerted her to where the men appeared to be interrogating Andre. She halted. Biting her lip to keep the cry from escaping. Fear slithered down her spine as she heard the familiar sound of two voices she’d not heard in years.
“I will ask you one more time, cazzarola. Where is my puttana di una figlia?” Gino Masseria asked.
Tori flinched at the sound of a fist hitting something solid, followed by a grunt.
Andre’s deep voice came out strained but clear. “Puppami la fava, Masseria.”
Tori’s hand shook, hearing Andre tell Gino to suck his dick. Her stepfather calling her a whore was nothing new. Hell, she’d expect nothing less.
Another sound of fist on flesh threatened to make her hurl. She needed to do something. How many men did they bring?
Taking a chance, she looked around the corner to see how they’d subdued Andre. He was a huge hulk of a man, so she knew they didn’t just come upon him two-on-one.
Fuck. Besides Gino and Geovani, there were three others in the room. She moved back, bracing her frame against the wall. Her gaze caught on the alarm system with its solid green light. She bit her lip, knowing they'd immediately jump into action if she hit the panic button. However, from the sounds coming from the other room, Andre wouldn’t last much longer.
She prayed, hoping Jeter and the others were close enough to get here once she set off the alarm. Tori hit the button and closed her eyes, frowning as the immediate siren didn’t blare. She looked down at the panel and saw a message scroll across, asking her to hit the pound sign.
A rush of adrenalin filled her veins as she realized the alarm gave her an out if it was an accident, giving her a chance to run back upstairs and into the safe room. She moved quickly, knowing she’d be no help to Andre or herself dead.
Rounding the corner, she came to a skidding stop at the sight of a man with his back to her. He looked to be in his early twenties, dressed in what she’d always called her stepfather’s company garb. In a pair of black slacks and a black button-down with black loafers, his outfit gave her chills. If they had to kill someone in the Family's name, their clothes were less likely to show blood. If shot or stabbed, the same goes.
The stairs she needed to reach were several feet behind the man. If she made a run for them, he’d hear her. If she shot him, the others would hear and come running. Of course, she could make it to the safe room before they reached her, but if she didn’t kill the asshole, he could slow her down or worse, shoot her with the gun he held at his side.
Dammit.
The sound of the alarm rang. The man turned, locked eyes on her. She already had her gun raised, and before he could do the same, she fired off three shots. The kickback of the gun made the second and third go a little off, but she didn’t wait to see if he was alive or dead.
Tori sprinted for the stairs. Her feet slipped on the first and second steps. Her knee cracked on the third, making her cry out. She continued up and ignored the pain.
Her entire body shook when she made it to the third floor. The alarm blared through the whole house, drowning out the men’s voices. She burst through Kendrick’s room and headed straight for the closet.
The sight of a beautiful woman standing in the open doorway had her skidding to a stop. The feral look she leveled on Tori froze her blood.
“So, my betrothed replaced me with a piccola ladra? And not a very pretty one at that,” Taysey sneered.
Tori straightened her spine. “First of all, I’m not a thief. Second, you have no clue what you’re talking about. Although I think Kendrick is great, I’m not with him. However, if I were, he’d have definitely chosen up from the likes of you, tegame.” Okay, so stooping to name-calling might be childish, but the woman was a bitch and clearly a whore.
“So, what are you going to do, shoot me?” Taysey asked.
She tilted her head to the side, holding her arms out, and braced her hands on the doorway.
“Move out of my way,” Tori gritted out.
“You won’t make me, little girl, and your time is running out.” Taysey stared at something behind Tori.
She didn’t spare the woman another minute, knowing from the sounds coming from the hall that either Gino or Geovani had figured out where she had gone.
Lowering her gun, she pulled the trigger. Taysey’s eyes widened, and then she screamed. Tori sprinted across the feet that separated them. She jumped over the fallen woman. Relief flooded her when Taysey fell forward instead of backward.
She spun and saw both her stepfather and stepbrother closing in on the closet doorway; their angry eyes pinned her to the spot. Tori’s hands shook as she reached for the heavy door. Their angry shouts of stop and name-calling didn’t prevent her from slamming the door.