8. Tennant
Javi watches me carefully from his seat. The look in his eyes almost dares the monster in me to come play with him, and I meet his gaze, almost willing him to try something so I can use the needle in my pocket on him.
Javi huffs and shakes his head, amusement filling his expression. “I thought you’d be more fun, Ten…”
I smirk. “Oh, I can be… Give me a reason to show you, Javi.”
He lets out a small, incredulous laugh, but doesn’t say anything more, allowing a calculated expression to cross his features. If he thinks he can bait me…well, he hasn’t been paying attention. I don’t play games, unless they’re my own.
Speaking of games… I can’t wait to get this over with so I can see how well my Boys have been taking their instructions.
I’ve always loved a good show, and Sandro and Emilio?
Fuck… Hopefully, they’re not too worn out from each other, because this Daddy might need to reward them, if they were as good as I imagine…
Thankfully, we begin to approach our target. We’re lucky this warehouse is surrounded by others, though it does create concern over whether they’ve expanded outward without our knowledge. Exiting the van, we slip into one of the smaller abandoned warehouses to mostly stay out of sight.
Nario slips out of the shadows to greet us, and it amuses me when some of the men jump at his sudden appearance. It also puts them on my list to be re-trained.
“More men have joined since earlier. I believe the attack on the house triggered something, so they’re being extra cautious, which of course makes this a valuable target.”
“Good, more fun for us then,” Javi says, bouncing a little.
“Any movement anywhere else?” I ask.
Nario shakes his head. “No, sir. They’ve fanned out their perimeter, and I tested the boundaries, which meant having to take a few of them out so as not to blow my cover, but they haven’t caught on yet.
” He grins, and there's a lightness to his hazel eyes that has me shaking my head. “They don’t appear to have anyone guarding the roofs, so their vantage points are all on the ground. I would suggest taking advantage of that.”
“What an excellent idea,” I reply. “Good work. Continue to keep an eye out for us.”
With an incline of his head, the twin disappears, back to blending into his surroundings like a good little ghost. Pride for my Boy, and for Jude’s Boys, fills me, because they’re the ones who have nurtured such talent.
I turn to Joel, and without a word, my bodyguard sighs but heads out to the van to get what I need. “Looks like you’ll be unsupervised on the ground,” I tell Javi. “Make it count, but don’t you dare make me have to chase you down.”
The psychiatrist grins, a feral twist of his mouth that would have most people running for their lives.
“I’ll play nicely, don’t worry, but don’t expect me to give mercy.”
“Never.”
Joel returns with a long-range gun, and I let the cold nothingness of my monster take over as I put it together. Everything, even Javi’s insanity, gets pushed to the side as I slip the strap over my shoulder.
“You know your orders,” I tell the men gathered around me. “Take out who you can, and then light the place up. I’ll be keeping overwatch.”
Following a chorus of “yes, sir,” they disperse, while I break off from the already agreed-upon path to find my own.
“Hollis is going to murder you,” Carter says pleasantly in my ear.
I laugh. “Better keep me alive then, pretty boy.”
He huffs, but directs me to one of the other warehouses across from our target.
It’s easy to find the roof access, and it's even easier to set up a nice little sniper’s nest. Really, is the Senator that arrogant or just incompetent?
Maybe both? Either way, his men should have known to have a plan to cover the rooftops once shit started going down.
They may have widened their on-the-ground guard, but that only makes them easy targets for someone like me. I manage to kill three before my men get to their count and descend into the madness.
From my vantage point, I can watch it all going down, picking off the scrambling idiots as they lose focus and control of the scene almost instantly.
It’s rather sad, and if I were the Senator, I would be ashamed of the people working for me.
No wonder that idiot, Lachlan, and his son tried to stage a coup.
My bloodlust rises, and I itch to get down there in the action. Especially when Javi sets the warehouse on fire, even as men are pouring out the doors. Crazy bastard didn’t wait until it was empty first. I approve.
I can almost hear the screams from this distance.
“Fuck!” Carter swears. “Ten, get down there now. The fucking Senator was on-site. He’s getting into a car. Fuck! Javi, no!”
“Motherfucker!”
I don’t bother breaking down the gun, I simply sling it over my head and race back the way I came.
“Where?” I ask as soon as my feet hit the ground floor of the warehouse I’ve been on the roof of.
“South side of the building. There’s a small parking lot. Javi, I know you can fucking hear me! I’m going to chain you to your bed for the next fifty years if you don’t fucking stand down.”
In any other situation, I’d be impressed by not only Carter’s authority but his swearing. Now’s not the time to admire either, though, sadly.
Pulling my gun, I shoot at men as I run into the fray, hoping like hell that I don't get shot in the process—Hol really will kill me then.
Rounding the corner of the warehouse, I just about catch up to the psychiatrist as he shoots around the corner, before disappearing to the other side.
“I’m going to let Jude spank you for real,” I mutter into the earpiece, hoping the asshole hasn’t taken his out yet.
My shoes slip on gravel, the tread barely catching as I take the corner too fast. I'm just in time to see Javi shooting at what must be the Senator’s armored SUV. Then the car backs up…and hits something—or someone.
The screams can be heard even over the fire as the SUV runs them over again before they peter out to nothing.
Crossing the distance, I grab Javi as I catch up to him. He tries to fight me, but I keep a death grip on his bulletproof vest. Though my grip loosens now that I’m close enough to see the poor bastard who got caught under the SUV.
“Fuck! Get one of the ambulances here now!” I bark into my earpiece.
My knees skid on the ground as I hover over Nario. The twin looks up at me with hazy, pain-filled eyes. His entire body is shaking already, the shock setting in.
“This is going to hurt,” I warn him. I jerk the rifle off and then my vest, the cumbersome thing fighting me for a moment before it falls to the ground.
Tearing off my shirt, I press it against the large, tangled mess that was once his left leg.
“T…” he whispers, flinching and shaking more as I put pressure on the wound, hoping to slow the bleeding enough that he’ll have a fighting chance. “T…ell Sir…I l-love him. T…the others…t-too.”
“What’s Doc’s ETA?” I ask, barely looking up as someone drops to the ground on Nario’s other side, their hands working to keep pressure on his right leg—though at first glance, it doesn’t appear as bad.
It takes longer than it should for Carter to come on the line. “Ambulance is on its way,” he says, his voice almost hollow.
“What happened?” I ask coldly.
“Focus on Nario, Ten,” he replies.
“What. Happened? Is Roman okay?”
Carter lets out a breath. “He’s fine, but Cristian was shot. So far, he looks good. They’re heading home now. Roman is worried, though.”
Any warmth from killing and seeing the Senator’s assets go up in flames vanishes at his words.
A hand reaches over to squeeze mine quickly before getting back to work, and I look up to meet Javi’s mismatched gaze.
Morbid curiosity more than concern lies there, but the fact that he stayed, that he didn’t decide to follow the man who killed his family over helping me with mine, means more than any false comfort he could give.
Looking back down at Nario’s face, I hope more than anything that the odd color to it is more a trick of the flickering firelight than anything else.
Because I don’t know if Jude’s other Boys could survive losing one of their own, and my Agnellino already has too much on his shoulders to bear a loss such as this.
I meet Javi’s eyes again, and the promise of pain and death within them matches the dark, swirling feelings rising in me. These emotions are ones I embrace and revel in. The Senator better enjoy his last bits of life, because this was his final chance to surrender. Now, it’s game over.