Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Fucking stop,” I growl, my tone so low and lethal that it leaves absolutely no room for argument. “None of us thought of it. How many do we think are down there?”
“Vortex sent his thermal drone out over the canopy. Picked up six heat signatures so far.”
“That’s not where she’ll be,” I state flatly.
“Yeah,” Pope agrees, a heavy sigh crackling over the line.
“I've never dealt with this bastard before, but from the horror stories I’ve heard and what we’ve learned from Marigold’s past, you’re exactly right.
He’s going to want her all to himself somewhere.
He won’t be too far from his men, though.
Damon is so used to having them around for protection that I don’t think he’ll be close enough for them to get to him quickly if shit hits the fan.
Vortex is running the drone outward through the city now.
Cypher is still burning up the traffic cameras.
You might beat the rest of us to finding his exact location once you squeeze his men. ”
“Drop me the pin of their coordinates right fucking now. I want these motherfuckers, Pope. I’m about to lose my goddamn mind if I don’t lay my eyes on her soon.”
“We’ll find her, Tomcat. The bastard is going to get exactly what’s coming to him,” Pope says.
He gives me everything I need before hanging up.
I gather my brothers beneath the flickering gas station lights, sharing the intel in a tight huddle.
Joker wastes no time, mapping out a plan.
Stealth is our top priority. We’ll ride to the edge of the woods, ditch the bikes, and move in on foot.
Vortex will track their heat signatures, making sure the targets stay put until we close in.
As soon as the plan is set, my mind sharpens, colder and steadier than it has been since Storm’s desperate warning on the highway.
Inside my chest, everything locks down so tight that only lethal determination slips through the ice.
Goose, a solid prospect who’s been earning his place with us for the last year, meets us at the drop-off, driving the weapon cage. He cuts the engine and slides open a side panel, exposing a hidden steel compartment packed with weapons.
“Grab what you need, brothers,” I order. “We have no idea what defenses or firepower we’re up against. Be ready for anything.”
I reach into the cage, grabbing extra loaded magazines for my sidearm, a heavy tactical blade, a high-tensile wire garrote, and a solid ball-peen hammer.
I test the weight of the hammer, swinging it through the air in a short, brutal arc.
I can already picture the exact feeling of cracking Damon’s skull open with it, watching his brain matter spill across the floorboards, and a dark, vicious satisfaction purrs deep through my chest. This.
This specific tool I am going to save especially for that motherfucker.
Unless my woman gets to him first.
Once we’re fully decked out in gear, we slip into the tree line and make our way through the dense woods.
For a group of bulky men whose steps are normally heavy as fuck on the asphalt, our approach to their perimeter is barely a whisper through the leaves.
Every man in the line knows exactly how high-stakes this mission is, and not a single one of us is willing to fuck it up.
“There are four targets clustered in the middle of the clearing, two at twelve o’clock, three at nine o’clock, and two more stationed at three o’clock,” Vortex’s mechanical voice crackles quietly through the comm-pieces we all have securely in our ears.
Manic, Blitz, and Ducky immediately pivot to neutralize the three stationed near our primary entry point. Gavel and Munch silently ghost to the right to handle the two men at three o’clock. Gris, Blitz, and Bugsy shift left to hunt down the three at nine o’clock.
Basilisk takes a heavy stance right at my side as I give a series of sharp hand gestures, letting the rest of the officers know that I am going straight through the brush for the four bastards sitting in the fucking middle.
Dogbreath and Ratso flash me a quick nod, letting me know they’re flanking around to take out the two lookouts at twelve o’clock, and then we all break away, completely vanishing into the thick brush toward our targets.
As Basilisk and I make our approach, my brothers start executing their kills, the cold clearing counts clicking rhythmically in my ear.
“Three done.”
“Nine down.”
“Twelve clear.”
Through the dense leaves, I see the four men sitting in the middle of their makeshift campsite suddenly becoming antsy. They’re shouting into the walkie-talkies they were using for guard rotations, their voices rising in panic when their perimeter guys completely fail to reply to their calls.
Basilisk and I burst through the edge of the clearing the exact second the four remaining bastards jump to their feet, drawing their weapons and standing back-to-back. As if that pathetic circle will do a single goddamn thing to save them from the wrath of the outlaws hunting them.
Basilisk cuts a glance at me, holding up two fingers as he points them toward the right side of the campfire, then taps his own chest. He’s taking the two on the right leaving the other two for me.
I give him a sharp nod, waiting a microsecond until he’s slipped into position so we can breach the perimeter at the exact same time.
The second we step out of the shadows and into the illumination of the clearing, hell erupts.
The two men on my side scramble, their weapons tracking toward my chest, but they don’t have the same reason to fight that I do.
Before the first guy can even level his sight, my blade sails through the air in a silver blur.
It hits him dead in the shoulder of his shooting arm with a sickening thunk, severing muscle and forcing him to instantly drop his weapon as he screams. He’ll survive long enough for questioning, I’m sure.
The other one? Well, he looks like someone I can have a whole lot of dark fun with.
“Where the fuck is she?” I growl, slowly approaching him with the ball-peen hammer held loose in my right hand.
The bastard tries to mask his terror, a smug, ugly sneer twisting his mouth as his finger caresses the trigger of his handgun. “Where she belongs.”
I purse my lips, tilting my head to the side as I track his stance.
“That so?” I casually twirl the hammer in my grip, lifting a brow when his eyes frantically bounce between the weapon and my face.
“Seems like someone has seriously misinformed you about how this shit works. And well, unlucky for you, now you’re gonna have to pay for that. ”
“With that little thing?” he nods toward the hammer, attempting a brave front as he shifts his weight to seek out his partner for backup.
The remaining color instantly drains from his skin when his perimeter sweep reveals that the only people left standing in this clearing are my men. My officers. My motherfucking family. Basilisk has already neutralized his targets, and the rest of my men are closing the circle.
I let out a dark, mocking laugh, taking another step closer. “Sure. Because I guarantee you, motherfucker, I will personally break your goddamn kneecaps before you can take me out with a bullet.”
When you grow up in a childhood always expecting trouble and then transition right into an outlaw lifestyle with the exact same, you learn how to observe people on a microscopic level.
You learn their tells. You notice the tiny, involuntary movements that ordinary people would completely miss.
The specific way a shoulder twitches right before a man swings a fist. The way a shooter lifts his finger off the guard just a hair before squeezing the trigger.
It’s all right there, laying out their next move like a blueprint, if you’re actually paying attention.
While this idiot is busy watching the hammer in my hand, I’m reading his entire body.
There it is.
His tongue flicks nervously along his bottom lip, and then that fucking trigger finger lifts a millimeter.
The heavy steel head of my hammer connects violently with his kneecap at the exact same fraction of a second I feel a sudden, sharp lick of fire plow across the meat of my left arm.
He lets out a horrific, curdling howl, his body dropping instantly to the dirt.
His gun slips from his useless fingers, forgotten as he throws up onto the leaves from the sheer, blinding agony of a shattered joint.
I don’t give him a second to breathe before I swing again, the hammer fracturing the bones in his forearm with a loud snap.
I purposefully stay away from his face and head for the moment, needing to draw this out just enough to appease the feral beast writhing under my skin.
Thick tears stream down his pale, pain-filled face as he begins to openly sob, begging me to stop.
“Where is my ol’ lady?” I ask him again, my voice terrifyingly calm.
I don’t really need a coherent answer from this piece of shit. The guy with the knife in his shoulder will give my brothers every shred of information we need to locate them, but no one can ever say I’m not generous with second chances.
“He’s... he’s got her!” he cries, pressing his uninjured hand against his ruined knee.
“Well, no shit, Einstein. Where the hell does he have her at?” I let out a heavy sigh, shaking my head in disgust. “You’re wasting my fucking time.”
This time, I lean into the swing, cracking the blunt end of the hammer directly against his jawbone, then following through into his orbital socket. “That’s for our fallen brother.”
But none of this is enough. It feels too detached. I need to feel his skin break apart under my bare hands to vent the poison in my veins. I shove the bloody hammer into the back waistband of my jeans and swing with my bare fist on the very next hit.