Chapter 22 #2
“Should’ve stayed in the city. At least there we had heat and running water.”
Two men step out of the hallway into the main room, still talking, not paying attention, then they see us and everything changes. They’re big fuckers.
The first one, bald head, scar on his face running from temple to jaw, easily two fifty of solid muscle, assesses the situation in a split second. “Who the fuck are you?”
The second, with long dark hair pulled back, shifts his weight into a fighting stance.
“Your fairy godmothers,” Kane growls.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The bald guard moves first, grabbing a heavy metal flashlight from a side table and swinging it at Kane’s head with brutal force. Kane ducks smoothly, and the flashlight whistles through empty air where his skull was a heartbeat ago.
He drives his elbow up and into the guy’s ribs with enough force that I actually hear something crack, ribs breaking or cartilage separating.
The guard grunts in pain but doesn’t go down, swinging a backhand fist that catches Kane’s shoulder with a meaty thud.
Meanwhile, the dark-haired man charges at me like a linebacker with a death wish, head down, arms wide, trying to drive me straight through the wall.
I pivot hard to the side, but not fast enough as his shoulder clips my ribs with the force of a battering ram.
I stumble, pain lancing through my side, and I grunt, staggering another step, breath knocked tight in my chest.
He doesn’t get off clean either. He crashes into the wall, and that throws off his balance as plaster cracks under the impact, a spray of crumbled drywall raining down around him.
I turn on instinct, riding the burn in my ribs, and grab his jacket before he can fully push off the wall. My knee drives into his kidney once. Twice. A third time. Fast and vicious.
He lets out a strangled howl, more animal than human, spine buckling as he tries to twist toward me.
I grab him and use his own momentum against him, throwing him across the room into the opposite wall. His head bounces off the drywall with a sickening thud, and he slides down, leaving a visible dent and a smear of blood.
But he’s not out. He shakes his head like a dog shedding water and starts to push himself up. Fuck!
The bald guard is still trading blows with Kane. The man grabs a kitchen knife from a side table near a couch.
“Really?” Kane sounds almost amused despite breathing hard. “You’re bringing a knife to this kind of fight? That’s your play?”
The guard doesn’t waste breath responding. He lunges with the blade in a surprisingly skilled thrust aimed at Kane’s gut. This guy has knife training, knows what he’s doing.
My guy is getting back up, blood running from his nose and a cut above his eye, and there’s murder in his expression. He comes at me again with a roar, just raw fury.
I let him get close, then I drop low, hook my arms around both his legs, and drive forward, sweeping his feet out from under him.
He slams onto his back before he even realizes what hit him.
I dart to his back and get him in a rear naked choke, my forearm across his throat, needing him to join his friend outside and pass out.
He thrusts, throwing punches at my head… fucking ass, but he’s weakening fast.
Kane leaps back from a swishing blade, but the edge catches his jacket and probably cuts into flesh.
He doesn’t even flinch. He counters immediately with two brutal punches delivered in rapid succession, one to the throat and a second to the jaw.
The guard makes a horrible choking sound, then his knees buckle and he drops like someone cut his strings, the knife clattering away across the tile.
I release my guy, who’s gone limp in my arms, and I drop him.
“You good?” Kane asks, breathing hard and holding his forearm where the knife cut him. Blood is seeping between his fingers, but it doesn’t look arterial.
“I’m upright,” I gasp, my ribs screaming where that first charge connected. “You?”
“Same. Cut’s not deep.”
Before we can catch our breath properly or assess our injuries, I hear more footsteps from the back of the house, heavy boots on hardwood, moving fast.
Someone is approaching, probably heard the fight.
“Fuck!” I pull my Taser from my belt, hands shaking slightly from adrenaline, and the second he rounds the corner from the hallway, I hit him center mass without hesitation.
The probes catch him in the chest, and he convulses, every muscle locking up, then drops to the floor, twitching.
“Fuck, I don’t have the energy for another fistfight right now,” I mutter, changing the cartridge on the Taser with fumbling fingers.
“You and me both.”
We drag all four unconscious bodies into the kitchen—they’re heavy as hell, dead weight—and zip-tie them together in a pile against the cabinets.
Kane is checking the criminals’ faces carefully now, pulling out his phone with his uninjured hand and opening our current active bounty list. He flips through photos methodically, comparing faces to the men we just took down.
His expression changes, eyes going wide. “Noel… they’re not random guys living here.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re on our list.” He holds up his phone so I can see the screen.
“Carl Brenner, fifty-grand bail on armed robbery. That bald guy is wanted for aggravated assault and attempted murder, seventy-five grand. The one with the black hair is wanted for drug trafficking, hundred grand. And this new one I’m sure is on the list too. ”
I lean over to verify, and he’s absolutely right. They match our active cases. “Why the fuck would wanted criminals all be hiding in the same location? That’s the opposite of good strategy.”
Kane’s eyes go hard with understanding. “This house is collecting them. Someone’s gathering wanted criminals in one place on purpose.”
“A goddamn safe house for fugitives,” I breathe, the full picture becoming clear.
“Someone who benefits from having wanted criminals in their pocket,” Kane adds. “People who owe them everything, have nowhere else to go, and will do whatever they’re told because the alternative is prison.”
We search the rest of the house quickly and quietly, moving through rooms and finding no one else.
Bedrooms with mattresses thrown directly on bare floors. Minimal furniture, just what’s absolutely necessary. Empty food containers and trash piled in corners. The whole place smells like too many people living in too small a space without enough hygiene.
At the back of the house, there’s a door standing slightly ajar, cold air flowing through the gap.
We exchange a look, then carefully slip through to a backyard veranda.
Outside, in a small corral maybe thirty feet from the back of the house, surrounded by a hastily constructed fence made of scrap lumber and wire, are our reindeer.
They are pressed together nervously, stomping and shifting restlessly but alive. Thank fuck we found them.
“We’re at the right fucking place,” Kane whispers.
A loud bang echoes from inside the house, the sound of something heavy crashing and metal scraping.
“What the hell was that?” We sprint inside, moving through the house, following the noise to another room on the opposite side from where we entered.
I push down the handle, and the door swings open.
Corn Dog proudly stands in the room in the shattered remains of what used to be a filing cabinet, surrounded by debris.
“What in the world?” I mutter.
It looks like he chewed enthusiastically on electrical wires hanging from a destroyed breaker panel mounted on the wall. Half the panel is torn completely open, sparking components exposed and dead, explaining why the whole property has no power.
Papers are scattered everywhere, the same ones he’s been shredding with his teeth. And in his mouth right now is a thick ledger book, pages torn and soaked with reindeer saliva.
“Oh God,” Kane groans.
“Fucking hero,” I add, starting to laugh softly despite everything—the pain in my ribs, the blood on my face, the absolute insanity of this situation.
Kane lunges forward and snatches the ledger from Corn Dog’s mouth. Pages fall open as Kane holds it, and we both lean in to read it.
Neat columns of numbers. Names, some I recognize as the criminals we just encountered, others I don’t. Payment schedules with dates and amounts.
Professional. Detailed. Meticulous.
Corn Dog is at my side, and I pat him. “Good boy, destroying their power.” I lift my gaze. “What the fuck’s going on here?”
Kane gives me the book as he goes to haul open drawers and cupboards in the room now, his movements frantic. There are stacks of cash wrapped in paper bands. Hundred-dollar bills, some still in bank wrappers.
“This is easily seven figures just sitting here,” Kane states, his voice tight. “Maybe more. Who keeps this much cash on hand?”
“Someone running a serious criminal enterprise. Money laundering fits the bill. Pun intended.” I grin.
“You think that’s what’s going on here?” Kane asks. “Using these criminals he’s hiding. Laundering massive amounts of money through them, making them look like legitimate workers with paychecks. So that book is a complete money-laundering ledger. Fuck!”
“If this is Scot’s doing, he wasn’t just sabotaging Hannah’s events for petty revenge,” I whisper, understanding crystallizing. “Scot was sabotaging everything for money.”
Footsteps sound somewhere in the house. Our heads snap up simultaneously to the door. Before we can move, the door swings open. And fucking Scot steps into the doorway, flanked by two more guards with guns already drawn and pointed directly at us.
Of course he’s in charge. Fuck!
For a frozen moment, nobody moves. Scot’s eyes are taking in the scene, Corn Dog standing by the destroyed electrical panel, the ledger in my hand, the cash visible in open drawers.