Chapter 20 #2
My gaze catches on the screen in the top left of what looks to be the long, winding driveway.
There are SUVs with the doors wide open and men moving around, some falling, some running and then I see him.
Reid’s movements are so recognizable to me, even on a tiny screen in a small pantry underground.
He moves with lethal grace as he stalks his prey, first taking one shot, then standing over the man on the ground and firing once more.
This may be a fight to the death, but Reid is still humane, minimizing the suffering of the men he’s protecting us against.
“Red Team, we got drones coming in, get low,” Chewy says in her slightly robotic voice, gaze jumping around the screens.
“Argh! You motherfuckers! We got men down!” Pops’ voice comes over loud and clear before cutting out.
“Pops? Dex? Shit, Red Team comms are down.” Remy mutters as her fingers fly over her keyboard.
“White Team, we got another wave of men coming from behind, situate yourselves.” Marx barks, rolling his shoulders and hunching closer to the screen, jaw jumping. “Fuck, we got a team in the house. Blue! Inside now!”
My insides twist. Pops’ team has been hit and he’s not answering anymore.
There are men scrambling all over the screens, Reid’s team are fighting men, so many men.
There are flashes of people I recognize on the screens but they’re all moving too fast and are in parts of the ranch that I don’t recognize.
They’re everywhere and yet none are here in the house to stop the men who have broken in and I’m finding it hard to breathe.
What if they find us? What if they take our babies? What if Reid gets hurt…
“Shit! Joy, I need you to breathe! Ana!” Remy’s voice sounds far away as I float off my wooden stool and crumple to the ground.
Pain slashes across my face and dark eyes fill my vision as I jerk out of the fog that was threatening to pull me under.
“There she is,” Ana smiles tightly, before wrapping her hand around my bicep and dragging me back to my seat with a vice like grip. “You had a freak out girl, had to slap you to breathe. If it leaves a bruise tell Switch that it wasn’t me.”
I blink slowly at Ana, before doing it again. “Why would Reid care?”
“Because Ana has powerful man hands and probably slapped six colors of shit outta ya,” Nat says leaning on the doorjamb.
“Right, now that you’re sufficiently calm, you’re out here with us. Leave the Nerd Squad to deal with this,” Ana waves in the direction of the screens. “Aint nothing good ever happened from watching that stuff in real time.”
Marx’s dark eyes meet mine and he dips his chin so I give him a watery smile and head out to find my baby. If this is all the time I have left with her, then I need to make it count.
Sage
“What are you doing, Stinky?” Elio rolls his eyes at the nickname he earned as a baby. I don’t even care that he’s close to nine years old. He’ll forever be my Stinky until he’s old and grey.
I smile a little at that thought, as I watch him, calm as always.
I wish I felt that way naturally, but calm has always eluded me.
Which is why I’m here, bugging my little brother instead of with the rest of the women.
I may be two years into my nurse training but I can't work on Niko. Not even if I tried. He’s my big brother, my protector, and I can’t stand to see him in pain, writhing on the table as Vi and Joe work to close his wounds.
I blink quickly to hide the tears, Elio won’t like to see them.
I side eye him as his mouth forms a grim line and he side eyes me back.
I know in time he will tell me what he’s working on.
He always does. He and I are cut from a similar cloth.
I may not be ridiculously clever like Elio, but I prefer the quiet, much like he does.
Cove is her own person, and Niko has somehow become a mini version of our uncles which means they do what they want and never ask for forgiveness.
But Elio and me? We feel things differently.
“I’m creating traps in case the bad guys break through the basement perimeter.”
I nod at Elio’s answer, knowing exactly who he’s talking about. The men who are coming for our cousins. The men who want to take them away. Elio may not fully understand what these men intend to do with his cousins, but it doesn’t matter to him. All he knows is that he needs to protect them.
“Need any help?” He stares at me with his black as night eyes before dipping his chin once.
I watch him for a moment, then follow his lead as we twist red and green wires together. The glass jars he has lined up have gnarly contents, and if he was any other kid I’d be concerned, but he’s not any other kid. He’s spent time with Aunt Chewy and Pops and he knows what he’s doing.
“Sage?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you be sad if Chef gets hurt?”
The question takes me aback. I’ve been so mad at Chef, for months now, that it’s easy enough for me to pretend he doesn't exist. At least that’s what I tell myself.
It was harder to pretend when he turned up here, looking all handsome, even more rugged than I remember.
The lingering looks he gives me don’t help either.
But he hurt me in a way I had never let anyone hurt me before.
He not only broke my heart, but he took away my voice.
My choices. He didn’t want to hear what I had to say about our relationship.
Instead he decided I was too young and needed to live a little before tying myself to him.
Well, now we both get to be miserable. Him more than me because I am trying my damnedest to move on.
“Sage?”
Swallowing, I look at my little brother who sees too much. “Yes, Stinky, I’d be sad if Chef got hurt.”
His brows pull together a moment and he doesn't look at me as he works through my words. “But he hurt you. I saw you crying. You should want him to hurt too.”
Tilting my head I take in Elio and what he’s asking.
His world is black and white. He sees people hurting his family and he wants them to hurt too.
But this thing between Chef and me? It’s not something Elio can categorise in his nine year old mind because he doesn’t know what it’s like to think you’ve found your person.
“There is a difference between people coming in here and physically hurting us, and people who we love who hurt our hearts. Chef hurt my heart, and I was sad and angry, but that doesn't mean I want him to get hurt.”
Elio frowns deeper still, his little fingers working hard at the wires he has in his hand. “There’s a difference between physical hurt and heart hurt?”
“Yup. When you cut yourself it hurts but you know that the blood will clot and your body will start to heal. When your heart hurts? That can take a long time to get better, but you’ll be a stronger person for it.”
Elio looks up at me, taking in my face, so much like his and Niko’s and Cove’s and he nods once. “Chef made a shitty choice because he’s an idiot and you are stronger than him.”
I burst out laughing and wrap my arm around Elio, giving him a little squeeze then releasing him before it makes him uncomfortable. “Yes, Stinky, he is an idiot, and thank you for thinking I’m stronger now.”
He nods once then places the last of his gnarly bombs at the end of the neat row he’s made of them.
“Now what?” I ask, intrigued to see what’s next and happy he’s taken my mind off of things.
“Now, we plant them.”
“Sage!” Vi’s voice bellows from the other room, “We’ve got more down, I need hands on.”
“Sorry, Stinky, I gotta run.” Elio stares at me sagely before nodding, gathering his precious bombs in his arms.
“Sage!” Vi barks again and I haul ass to the main room, stopping at the look on her face. “It’s Chef.”
Savage
“Blue! They’re in the house!”
“Fuck!” I curse at Marx’s voice through my comms.
We’d just pulled back from helping White Team after Chef went down.
The fuckers got him in the gut and it’s looking rough.
Shaking off the thought I hustle my team to the house.
There is nothing I can do for Chef now other than secure the house, keep it safe for the kids and the women that I know will give Chef a chance to see another day.
Running through the front door I’m pushed back when Rider shoulder barges me. “Fuck, sorry brother.” Rider runs a bloodied hand down his face, stopping to stare at it a moment.
“Chef downstairs?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Go!” I shove him out the door and turn to my team. “Fuckers are here somewhere. Fox and Nitro, I need you scouting upstairs, Judge and Omen, you're on first floor, Justice, you’re with me.”
All my men grunt their acknowledgement and we split off.
“Six men inside, two upstairs, two in the fucking kitchen and two heading down to the basement,” Marx says loud and clear so I signal Justice to follow me.
The kid is quiet as fuck, steady in a way that I’ve never seen in a prospect. From what Dex has said they had an incident not long ago where he had to take a life, and he seems to have gained confidence since then. I don’t know the kid enough, but I’m happy to have him at my back.
We move as one as we head toward the stairs that lead to the basement and where our families are holed up.
I’ve seen the bunker and it’s a shit to get into, reinforced steel walls, fingerprint reader for entry, all the bells and whistles, but with the mercenary training these fuckers look to have had, I’m sure they can get in.
And that ain’t happening. My heart is down there, Nat and Rosie, and I’ll fucking die before some bastard lays hands on them.
I take one step at a time, slowly, unsure if we’ll be walking into an ambush or not.
“Savage halt!” Marx barks through comms, making my eardrums scream. “Elio has just set booby traps. Back up, let the Big Littles take care of this shit. Clear out the rest.”
Justice raises his brows at me, and I shrug but signal him to back up. We move silently then freeze when a quiet “click” rings out in the quiet.
“What the fuck, man?” A muffled voice below us says and I know that Elio’s plan is about to reap its rewards.
“Move, move, move!” I hiss at Justice, following him up the stairs before gripping the back of his jacket and swinging us into the wall in the kitchen just as two men run past and head down the basement stairs.
“Savage, you got two coming your way.” Fox’s voice says over comms.
“Thanks for the heads up asshole,” I grumble.
“Our two are headed that way too. Their comms went off and they bolted.”
I let out a soft snort at the same time Chewy and Marx’s laughter can be heard over comms.
“Why the fuck is everyone laughing?” Omen bitches.
“These fuckers are about to get a surprise from the Big Littles,” Chewy says, her voice barely containing her excitement.
“Blue Team, house is about to be neutralized. Head out and see if you can find Red Team. They’ve been quiet since the drone hit earlier.” Marx’s voice takes on a somber tone and I can’t help the twist in my gut.
“On it, Prez.” I say quietly as my men and I head out, guns drawn, gaze scanning for threats as a loud as fuck explosion rattles the floors beneath our feet.
“Is that a fucking nine inch nail?” Judge asks, staring down at a nail that has exploded through the floorboard. One inch to the left and it would have gone through his boot.
“What is wrong with your children?” Justice asks, wide eyed.
“So many things,” Fox answers, a grin on his face.
I let out a sigh. I don’t want to agree with him, but at this point Elio and his little buddies just fucking saved us some time, so whatever the hell is wrong with our kids is fine by me.
“We gotta go find Red Team.”
Pops
“Buck up, kid. Ain’t no one dying on my watch.” I press harder into Saint’s shoulder and he grunts with the pain.
“I always knew you were the fucking Devil,” Saint grunts, “It’s the only way to explain how you are the only bastard without a bullet hole in him.”
I ignore the burn in my hip. I’m not a whiner baby. That old saying “The bigger they are, the bigger the pussy” really does ring true with this lot.
“We got sixty seconds then we move. By the sounds of it, everyone is heading toward Black team. We still got men coming through the front.” Dex says, tightening the tourniquet around his leg.
Tav checks the packing on his shoulder before gingerly moving it around. “You good, Pops?”
“I’m always good,” I answer automatically.
“You won't be when Mama Debs’ finds out you got hit in the ass.” He grins, white teeth shining through his dark beard, the little shit.
“It’s my hip you fucker.” I hiss then realize I’ve given away my secret. “You keep your fucking mouth shut.”
He mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key and I roll my eyes before turning to Dex, waiting for instructions. Which is bullshit given we all know that I’m clearly the one in charge.
“Let’s go. We got brothers to help.”
“And I got an idea how to get even.” I say, a slow grin growing on my face. Yeah. I know just what to do to get these fuckers back.