Chapter 21 #3
It does no such thing, but the child seems pleased, and I finally manage to shake the creature off my leg and rush over to Henry.
“This way,” I say, and Henry hurries after me as we make our way into the estate. I’ve lost sight of Raul, but I know he’s here and that’s all I need.
There are too many people milling around, so I give Henry a nod, clearly stating, “Go over there, we’ll block his exit and drive him upstairs to an empty room where we will get information out of him without anyone knowing.”
Henry gives me an “I feel like a Ducking Badass Motherquacker” look, and I can’t help but wonder why he isn’t taking this seriously. I swear, my friends are out of control.
But once I motion to him, he does split off, and we each go down opposite hallways that converge back together. We pass a few people who don’t take much notice of us, but a woman who I recognize as Raul’s wife does stop and scowl at us.
“I swear, if he insists on having you, why the hell do you look so horrible? Where did he get these outfits? The dumpster? They should go back in the dumpster,” she growls before she starts yanking my costume around.
The woman is displeased and shows it with a few more jerks of my costume.
She does it so hard that the head gets misaligned.
“Jesus, Michelle, leave them alone,” Raul shouts. “You didn’t want guards around, so I covered them up like you asked, and now you’re bitching about that too?”
“Knock it off and stop cussing! There are children around. And you really think it’s wrong of me to not want your guards frolicking around with children? This should be a safe place!”
“Made safer by my guards,” he snarls.
People, noticing the tension, turn to look, but Raul and his wife immediately play it off like nothing is amiss.
It’s honestly quite impressive.
They both hurry off, her outside, him deeper into the house.
I glance over at Henry, who was just watching me get assaulted without a care in the world.
It kind of looks like he’s enjoying it a bit, and I really wouldn’t blame him if he was.
He seems to enjoy watching others suffer, and I don’t want to knock what brings him joy.
We start trailing after Raul, but I don’t get too far before some parents slip in front of me, blocking my path.
“You could carry the presents out,” one of them says as she tries handing off an armful of junk.
Like who needs this much shit? It was a rare day that I got one present growing up.
I can’t fathom what I’d do if I got this many.
I mean… besides Jackson and Waylon. I would buy them a whole store if they’d like.
“I’m busy,” I state.
“It’ll take you two minutes,” the woman insists.
I look up at Henry, who is watching me again.
Like does he not care about my evident distress?
He could distract them in some way instead of leaving me to suffer.
I give him a nod, obviously signaling for him to save me, but he just offers me a wave.
Is that a “Goodbye, it was nice knowing you” wave, or a “You got this, I believe in you” wave?
I have to assume it was the latter because that man adores me.
Somehow, I need to distract them so I can slip on past and follow Raul who is heading straight up the stairs and out of my sight.
I try saying, “I am so sorry but I can’t.”
The woman is ruthless. I feel like I could be bleeding out in front of her and she’d tell me to suck it up buttercup and deliver those presents to her child with whatever limbs I still had left on my body.
“I’m going to shit myself if you don’t let me through. Would you like me to deliver the presents with an aroma of shit trailing behind me?” I ask.
She looks disgusted and then enraged. “I don’t understand why the fuck Raul hires such crude assholes,” she snarls, and off she goes using her own arms while she storms away.
I quickly meet back up with Henry. “That was a good one, eh? Come on, Daddy Duck,” I say as I hurry him up the stairs. I’m assuming Raul won’t be alone, which is why it’s disappointing that I can’t contact the others to tell them that we’ve got Raul upstairs.
Henry trails after me as we reach the second floor, but I’m not quite sure which floor Raul went up to.
If we pick the wrong floor, and Raul heads back down, I’ll lose that moment where we have him separated from the others.
Down the hallway I see a door cracked open, so I inch toward it, but when I push the door the rest of the way, I see that it’s a guest bedroom.
A noise coming from above me alerts me, so I point to Henry and motion for him to head upstairs while I go to the far end of the hallway and take the other set of stairs up. That way, we’ll catch Raul no matter what if he’s coming down the stairs.
The two of us split and I hurry down the hall, listening carefully and checking every room I can before I reach the stairs leading up.
Once on the third floor, I see Henry at the other end of the hallway while we creep toward the open door.
There are a few guards outside of the room I’ve focused on, so I try to walk up casually.
There are three guards, but I can’t tell how many are in the room with Raul. If he calls for backup, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to handle the situation without putting Henry in danger.
I give a nod toward the men, implying that I want Henry to take down the one closest to him and I’ll handle the other two. Henry just shakes his head and lifts his hands in a very clear “I have no idea what you’re talking about” manner.
How could he possibly not? This man can read me damn near as well as Jackson and he’s going to give me a fuss now of all times?
I mime strangling the guy near him and he mimics the motion back at me.
I give him a nod and a thumbs-up before I realize exactly what the issue is. Doing anything wearing these goddamn gloves is impossible. Annoyed, I tug them off and drop them then give Henry a thumbs-up.
That’s when the door behind me opens and I hear a “Who the fuck are you talking to?” whispered at me.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I turn around and look at half-priced Donald Duck before glancing over at discount bin Donald Duck and realize that I’ve been working with the wrong duck.
“Shit,” I mumble as Donald Duck the Inferior nudges a guard and points at me.
“What did you do?” Henry asks.
“Nothing. What are you talking about? I did nothing at all. I was just like… telling this guy how there’s a much better duck out there,” I say as I hurry forward and sock the guard closest to me right in the face.
I mean… at this point, what else can I really do?
I’ve just told Not Daddy Duck that I was going to take out all of these guys, and he even got a hardcore confirmation from me!
The guy closest to me reaches for his gun, and I grab it before he can even get his hands on it. Raul really needs to work on teaching his killers how to fight better. I duck out of the stupid head, but releasing myself from the suit would take more time than I can waste.
I slam the butt of the gun into his face twice before I notice Daddy Duck pummel Not Daddy Duck to the ground.
Henry rips the man’s duck head off and punches him in the face.
Henry is apparently put off by the fact that another man tried waddling into his space.
I move past the gunmen into the room and press the gun against Raul’s head before they can even react.
Raul lets out a laugh.
“It fucking irritates me how quickly you did all of that,” he says. “I’ve seen you in action and no matter how well I train my men… Lucas just had a way of making true monsters.”
“Tell your men to drop their guns and phones as well as any devices they can use to contact someone.”
Raul is quiet while the four men still standing watch us closely, guns held tight.
“You really think I would have put myself in a position where I would have lost?” I ask.
“Even the Sandman can die,” he says.
“Yet I still stand. I want to talk, Raul.”
“Ah… joy, do I get to hear who hired you to kill my son and then me?”
“No one hired me, and I didn’t kill your son. Teo threatened someone close to me and when he failed, he drew me in another way, all so he could try to convince me to kill you so he could take over the family business.”
Raul snorts. “Funny.”
“Believe me or not, I don’t give a shit. But I did not kill your son. There was someone else there who killed everyone, and I watched him put a bullet in Teo’s head.”
“So you came here to tell me that?”
“I came here to tell you to remove the bounty on my head. Leave me out of your life and I’ll walk away,” I say, really hoping that Cassel is getting what he needs to destroy Raul so the words I’m telling him can turn out to be lies.
We’ll wait until we can destroy him to either send the information to the police or kill him. And next time, I wouldn’t have to crawl over a fence; I’d shoot him in the head when he least expected it.
“You think I’ll trust you?”
“You don’t think I could have shot you? Come on, Raul. If you’re so afraid of me that you put such a bounty on my head, you must know who I am. You must know that I could have shot you again and again. But I chose not to because I thought we could talk this out.”
He grits his teeth, irritation rushing through him as his fists ball up. “Why the fuck do you think I would trust you?”
“I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to stay the fuck out of my life while you continue to destroy your own.”
Raul grins at me, and the look is quite malicious. “Are you afraid?”
“Of you? No.”
“I think you’re afraid. You’re begging for your life.”
The earpiece suddenly jumps to life.
“Leland, you have two minutes. I have the information I need. Get out of there whether or not you’ve located him,” Cassel says.