Chapter 19 Good Luck #2
She nodded as she wiped her tears, leaning down to pick up her daughter, who gave me a small wave of her hand, her little face looking so sad and scared.
Bye, Ella.
“Good luck, Jaden,” Sloane said with a nod as she wrapped her arm around Katherine’s shoulder and pulled her along.
I dipped my chin in solidarity. “You, too.”
With that, the three of them turned away and began to quickly pace down the tunnel for however long it would take for them to reach the end.
They had better fucking make it.
Turning around, I shoved my way back through the door and up one level of stairs to enter the infirmary floor.
The place was a ghost town, and the remaining medical staff was likely scattered among the grounds, either tending to the wounded guards or abandoning their posts entirely.
Most of them were retired military medics, but if their patients happened to cross me up there, they would find themselves instantly useless.
The lights continued to flicker on and off in the dark hallway, making me rush quickly to Sid’s office to find the little “gift” he had said he’d left behind for me in his desk.
After rummaging through the drawers, I finally found exactly what he had implied on the beach before his heart gave out.
Snatching up the two familiar syringes, I looked them over, finding a single word written in Sharpie on each one.
The first said luck. The other said good.
Good luck.
Smirking to myself, I tucked each one into the side pockets of my leggings, shaking my head with a chuckle at Sid’s sense of humor.
Payback would certainly be a bitch if Darren made it home alive.
I quickly moved through the rest of Sid’s office, checking for any more hidden weapons I might be able to use as the house continued to boom and rattle above.
The surgical knives I found in the cabinets would come in handy, so I slipped a few into the sides of my vest. And then I came across a tube of petroleum jelly.
With fond memories, I lathered up my arms with as much as I could stand, then wiped my hands clean with some alcohol swabs.
Sid also happened to have a small Glock under his desk with two magazines of 9-millimeter ammunition. After sliding them into the back pockets of my vest, I decided to make my way back up the stairs to join the chaos I had welcomed with open arms.
Sigs drawn in both hands, I cautiously pushed my way through the door of the stairway onto the main floor, the sound of gunfire ringing throughout the dark house. Thankfully, it was still light outside. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to see shit around here.
Rounding the corner near Darren’s office, I found two of his guards firing off in some direction ahead of us.
With all the damn noise, it was easy to close the distance undetected, allowing me to put a bullet in the back of both their heads.
And then I noticed a shit ton of banging coming from behind the doors of Darren’s office.
“Let us out of here!”
“What the fuck is going on out there!”
“Open the door!”
“Let us the fuck out!”
I could feel the shark grin forming on my face and almost cackled.
Like shooting fish in a fucking barrel.
Darren must have left in the middle of his meeting with all of his little crime buddies, but with the power being out, those heavy oak doors wouldn’t be opening for them any time soon.
And since Darren obviously had everyone disarmed at the front door, they had no firepower to help them escape his office.
Not to mention, their cell phones were all fried from the EMP, so they couldn’t call for any backup or help.
They were hopelessly trapped.
And royally fucked.
Turning around, I collected an M16 from one of the dead guards, along with a few full magazines. Noticing one of them was also wearing a belt of grenades, I grinned as I unclipped it from his body and draped it over mine.
These will be fun.
After reloading the rifle with a full magazine, I rushed back over to the door and banged my fist against it.
“Hello?! Who’s in there?” I yelled, hoping to draw their attention.
“Hey! Open the fucking door! Let us out of here!”
“Get us out!”
“Open this damn door!”
“Okay! I’ll get you out, but you’re going to have to work together!
” I shouted back. “Listen to me carefully! I need you all to put as much of your weight against the doors as you can until it finally dislodges, okay?!” I smiled as I listened to them all confirm my instructions, the sound of the doors creaking against their added weight.
“Keep pushing!” I said as I removed one of the grenades from the belt.
“Almost there!” Pulling the pin, I carefully set the grenade between the two door handles and then took off in the opposite direction to hide inside another room.
Seconds later, the grenade went off, the sound rattling the walls as the blast ruptured the interior.
Exiting my cover, I headed back to Darren’s office to find a massive hole where the doors used to be.
Bodies and various singed parts of what was left were in pieces across the floor, the entire entrance of the room completely destroyed.
Stepping through my makeshift opening, I could see that seven other men were still standing, hiding away from the blast as the rest either groaned in pain or lay dead on the floor.
“What the fuck have you done!” one of them shouted angrily. “You crazy little—”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish his sentence, cutting him off with a fresh spray of bullets that sent him and his remaining colleagues to join the rest on the floor.
“Sorry, couldn’t hear you over all the bullets,” I said aloud.
After checking all the bodies to make sure everyone was dead, I turned my attention to the large bulletproof window that led out into the backyard of the estate, showcasing the ocean and the battlefield raging outside.
Men were running in all kinds of directions, firing their guns left and right at each other, some of the bullets scratching against the window.
The lawn was a mess. Bodies were scattered all around, and the grass was ripped apart from explosions and gunfire.
Several boats had also breached the shore, their hulls destroyed as men fired from behind the safety of the bow.
With smoke filtering into the air, the atmosphere was nothing but chaos.
Because Darren’s men couldn’t access all of their weapons, they were extremely limited with how many bullets they could afford to lose.
Every shot would have to count. But by the looks of things, the odds weren’t in their favor.
Turning away from the battleground, I looked around Darren’s office for what I knew would be the last time.
The place was obliterated. In their panic, the rats trapped inside tried to break their way out.
Furniture had clearly been thrown into the window because the broken remains were spread across the floor in splinters.
Bottles of liquor had been smashed into the walls and tables overturned.
Anything that was breakable was shattered in every direction.
But with the expensive rugs soaking up the blood of some of the most nefarious crime families, their bodies just as tattered as the walls from all the bullets, the room was almost befitting. Except for one thing that remained virtually unscathed.
Darren’s fucking desk.
Though no longer organized and pristine, it still stood there, fully intact, practically mocking me.
I glared at it with disdain as the memories of all the times I’d either been beaten or fucked over that damn thing came crawling back to haunt me.
What was worse was all my portraits from our wedding, the canvases I had painted, and the random candid shots of me hung from the walls just behind the desk, giving off a false sense of reality and happiness.
Fuck all of this shit.
Snatching one of my grenades, I ripped the pin from its slot and rolled it across the floor so it landed right under the desk.
I turned away and hustled out of the room for the last time to join the rest of the party, the epic sound of the sharp boom annihilating the remaining fragments of a life I would never be returning to.
Even if it fucking killed me.