Chapter 14 Lucien
Lucien
I cringe as the man in front of us takes another shot to the face, his body spinning to the side at the blow. As he turns, blood sprays out from his mouth, his lip split and several of his teeth missing.
He’s going to be a mess in the morning, but I don’t feel sorry for him. The man signed up for this match, brought in by the purse we’re offering, and it’s his own fault if he didn’t come prepared.
I always sell out.
And I always send millions to the homes for kids.
I also usually enjoy the hell out of the match, though I’m having trouble focusing on it tonight.
Word on the street is that Dom was also having a party tonight, and that he was going to showcase Brooks as his new favorite child.
He’s been spreading the idea that she’s his new heir and is diving head-first into his business enterprises, and though I already knew all of this from her own mouth, the idea of it has gotten under my skin and started to itch.
Brooks, back in her father’s taloned hands.
Back in that house, where he tried to kill her on more than one occasion, and back with the man who attempted to ship her out to some international buyer.
My skin is crawling with fury at the thought, and I have to physically grab the armrests of my seat to keep myself in it.
I hate the thought of her being back with Dom, but even ‘hate’ isn’t a strong enough word.
I’m raging at the idea. Crawling with horror and nerves, and itching with the need to fucking do something about it.
I’m so angry at her I can barely sit still, and I’m even angrier at myself for having left her there last night. The girl was in my fucking hands, and instead of throwing her over my shoulder and taking her home, I fucking believed her about wanting to stay there and finish her mission.
Christ, I could fucking kill myself.
Except that would leave her there on her own, and I’m 99 percent sure that at any moment, she’s going to be calling me in to rescue her.
The next time I have her in my hands, I’m going to handcuff her and drag her back to my house. I don’t care what she says or how good it sounds, I’m not giving her a choice again. The girl is the world leader at bad ideas, and that’s what’s got me so nervous right now.
How long is she going to be able to stay in her father’s house without trying to kill the bastard–and getting caught?
Even worse I’m starting to hear other whispers from the people I have out on the street. Other families have noticed that Brooks Landry is home and that she’s walking in circles she shouldn’t be in.
And those who are talking are saying that she’s my weakness, and that her father brought her home to draw me out and get rid of me as a way to start a war with my father.
I don’t want to think those whisper are right, because the truth is, I’m the one who brought Brooks back to New Orleans. Hell, I practically forced her to return, and she’s not here for her father at all, but for Aislyn Brennan, who’s been kidnapped by Dom for his fucking sex ring.
But the minute I heard the whispers, I started to wonder.
Because they make more sense than I’d like.
Brooks hasn’t been in New Orleans for years, and then suddenly she shows up two weeks ago, saying she needs men to help her win a war in New York.
She finds her way into my catacombs and asks me for help, while reminding me of the history we share.
Then when I come home, she’s being mentioned in circles that shouldn’t even know her name, and when I go back to New York to try to protect her, she’s looking for a girl I happen to know is New Orleans.
She gets a ride down here on my plane.
And she immediately starts doing whatever she wants, regardless of what she and I have talked about.
Now she’s in her father’s home again, and he’s telling everyone she’s his new heir and taking over the family business. And I’m like a crack fiend who hasn’t had a fix in days, itching to get to her and rescue her.
Hell, I’ve already been to the Landry mansion just to see her, risking everything to reassure myself that she’s safe.
It’s not that I don’t trust Brooks. The opposite; I’d trust her with my life every day for the rest of time. But I don’t trust her father, and if he’s found a way to use her against me in some plot I didn’t even see coming...
But Brooks would never, my more rational mind tells me. She would never take part in anything that might lead to me being harmed. She might not want to admit that she loves me, though I’m positive she does, but she would never, ever be a party to me being harmed.
Unless she didn’t realize it was going on.
God, I need some action. I’m going insane, listening to nothing but smoke and rumors and making up stories about the girl.
I reach out to the next man who passes by, recognizing one of my best soldiers, and pull him to me. “Where are we on the Landry watch?”
He glances at me once, then gets his phone out and makes a call. Two seconds and a nod, and he’s hanging up and giving me a look that has me already rising to my feet.
“Your timing is impeccable. Our scouts have just seen five vans leaving the Landry mansion. Blacked-out windows, driving in single file. Heading toward the port.”
Five vans leaving the mansion. Blacked-out windows. Heading toward the port.
He’s moving the girls earlier than I anticipated.
But I was ready for that. Last time we tried to stop a shipment, they caught me by surprise. This time, I have a plan in place, and men ready and waiting.
“Then let’s fucking move,” I say. “Time to play hero.”
***
We get to the port in record time, courtesy of being closer than Dom’s mansion is, and I tell Daniel to park the vans in the shadows next to the first row of shipping containers.
There are only five of them, so we don’t need to take up much space.
And I only have ten men with me–men who’ve never had anything to do with my father–so it doesn’t take us much time to unload and arm ourselves.
Everyone gets a rifle, two handguns, and a knife–because every gun fight can be made shorter by a knife to the eyeball of your enemy–while only two men get the rocket launchers.
I have one of them.
I don’t think we’re going to need them–what the fuck would we be launching rockets at?
–but one also never knows when one might need to intimidate the bad guys, and I’ve never found anything more useful than rocket launchers for that.
Something about the other guy knowing you could literally blow them off the face of the planet, I suppose.
Though I hope we don’t have to use them.
If there are only five vans coming, I’m estimating fifty girls, and that should mean only three to four guards. Easy enough to pick them off and get the girls out of here.
Once I have them safe, I’ll work on questioning them and figuring out where the other girls are being housed, and how to get them out.
I doubt the survivors will know anything about the leadership of the ring or how to get to Dom or his partners directly, but if they can direct me to the other holding houses and I can start cleaning them out. ..
Dom’s going to have a lot of trouble running his rings without merchandise to sell.
And I’m guessing that once things begin to go wrong, his partners will take care of him for me.
We move quickly for Pier 9, which we’ve seen mentioned again and again, and I see the ship hulking there in its port. cold, dark, and waiting. The gangplank is down, awaiting passengers, and I can see men moving around on the deck of the ship.
No one down here on the ground, though, and that feels wrong.
More than wrong.
It feels familiar.
My mind flies back to the first time I was here, when I was chasing Brooks and trying to keep her from being shipped out, and all of my hair stands on end.
Because we came to the port that night expecting a fight, too, and instead we found the place dark and nearly deserted.
We hadn’t been able to see anything, and it had been sheer luck and the madness of a bad plan to bring the smugglers out and start the battle.
If we hadn’t gone running in with guns blazing, the smugglers would have loaded the girls and sent them into the night without us seeing anything.
I can see the ship they’re supposed to be using, though, and nothing is happening there.
Sure, there are people on the deck of the ship but no one is walking up the gangplank.
No vans full of girls there, and no trafficking victims being pulled out of the vehicles and sent on their way into the international trafficking market.
I glance at my watch, confused, but see that we’re on time. I’ve seen the manifests for this exact shipment and the girls should be loading right now. Yes, we beat Dom’s vans here, but by this time I should see girls walking in single file, on their way to–
The shooting, when it starts, catches me off guard and I foolishly look to where I see the flashes rather than running for cover.
To my surprise, it’s not coming from the ship–which it would be, if Dom’s men had found us out.
Instead, there’s a man on top of a shipping container two rows over, and he’s got something pretty big in his hands.
He’s aiming right at us.
Seconds later someone else is shooting, and seconds later a third shooter joins in.
My men scatter and run for cover, and when someone calls out for instructions, I already have them on my tongue.
“Take out the shooters!” I scream.
Several of my men freeze and start shooting back, and though the shots from the shipping containers slow down, they don’t stop.
I get around a corner and then turn, putting the rocket launcher up on my shoulder and taking careful aim.
The men who are shooting at us aren’t taking cover, and that seems beyond stupid, as they should have expected us to be armed.
What are they, bait?
I steady my breath, take aim with the launcher, and pull the trigger, and the shipping container and everything inside it explodes, sending the man sky-high, flames licking at his body as he flies.
When he comes down, the flames engulf him and I turn to the next man.
He dies just as quickly, prey to another explosion, but by the time I turn again, the third man has disappeared.
Now, men are running from behind the containers, and they also have rocket launchers.
They also have us dramatically outnumbered.
“To the vans!” I shout. “Retreat!”
Because I don’t know who those men are or what they’re doing, but they’re obviously prepared for some kind of war. They have weapons that match mine, and there are enough of them to kill all of us.
I did not come here tonight to die.
I came to rescue a group of girls, and they haven’t materialized yet. Instead, we found troops here who were evidently expecting us, given the weapons they’re packing.
Troops who knew we were coming?
Or troops who’s here for the same reason we are: to intercept the girls and take them to a different location?
God, is there another group out there trying to steal from Dom?
And if so, who the fuck are they, and can I use them?