Chapter 30 Maverick
MAVERICK
“Look,” Boone says, grabbing my hand as we turn into Whitaker’s neighborhood, “you’re a great driver, but you are lawless as hell.”
He kisses my knuckles and sends me a smile.
“Thanks, lover.”
We’re not that far behind Hopper and Silas, and H and H have been doing a good job of bringing us up to speed on the Whitaker family. Boone asks some really fucking smart questions.
“Why does it seem we’re going rogue?” for example.
Honoré grimaces. “Because Whitaker is supposed to be untouchable.”
Holmes shakes his head. “Something clearly changed because this is going down right now.”
After the info dump from those two, I’m with Hopper and Sy on this one.
That motherfucker needs to die.
By the time we make our way past the guard shack—fun fact: one of those lunatics used a tranquilizer gun on the poor guy—there are already piles of ash on the street.
We barely get a block in when Silas steps into the middle of the street, rifle pointed right at us. I have to stomp on the brakes to avoid hitting him. Hopper jogs up to our window, grinning, his face striped with blood splatter.
“Oh great, so glad you decided to join us. We got in and realized that going after Whitaker himself…not enough. Not nearly enough. So, we’re taking out the entire neighborhood.
Thankfully, only one toddler with a dead mom…
” He looks around, checking his pockets as if trying to remember where he put the kid, and Silas steps over to whisper something into his ear.
“Right. She’s in the last house down that way,” he says, pointing in one direction.
Silas clears his throat, and Hopper points in the opposite direction. “Oh right. That direction.”
My stomach turns. Hopper must see something in my face because he shakes his head. “Sorry, let me be very clear. We didn’t kill her mom. She died last month. Silas pulled up the records when we went in on the house. CPS has been alerted.”
As he’s explaining things, a man jumps over the fence near the guard shack and is making a break for it. Silas’s lip curls, and he pulls up his rifle with a sweeping motion. Low light, low pulse. Ash flies horizontally for a few feet, then falls, like rain falling on wet grass.
Hopper shakes his head. “These bad guys aren’t very good at it. Like at all.” His gaze lands on me, and he points. “Do you remember when we showed you how to load and unload a gun? How to identify which guns have safeties, and how to disengage them?”
“Of course.” I gesture at my brother. “Holmes here is the family champion in the clear, disassemble, assemble, and functions check category.”
“Exactly.” Hopper gestures in a circle, his lip curled. “Whitaker clearly never taught his asshole family how to do any of that.”
Silas nods along. “Putting his entire family in this one closed-off neighborhood and not even making sure they know how to handle a gun properly? It’s a form of neglect, if you ask me,” he says, raising his rifle and calmly ashing another member of the Whitaker family.
This one falls in a narrow column of gravely bits.
I hold up a finger. “No one ever taught me how to use one of those pulse rifle thingys.”
Silas glares at Hopper, who protests, “I… He’s not my kid!”
“Still.”
Silas stalks over, hands me his rifle, and gives me a few pointers. I get most of what he says the first time around, and it’s got a dead-simple firing mechanism. Boone listens in, like maybe he wants to shoot the pulse rifle thingy too.
So cute.
Sy points out another runner, and I raise the rifle, track him for a few feet, then hit my target, dead center.
I’m proud of the shot, but it only takes out the guy’s middle, and he falls apart into two distinct…segments.
Er. I turn to Sy, and he leans in. “Don’t forget the sweeping motion.”
I take aim again, this time getting a perfect ash on the guy.
Before Boone can give it a go, two nearly silent helicopters fly overhead and circle the field next to the neighborhood playground.
Hopper seems excited by this development. “You called in reinforcements?”
“Sorry, Uncle,” Honoré intones soberly. “I had to.”
“Never apologize for doing the right thing!” Hopper pats his cheek. “The more, the merrier!”
Various members of my family, blood and otherwise, disembark from the helicopters, looking ready to go to war.
“Oof,” I say to Boone, pointing out the curvy woman yelling orders, rifle in hand. “That’s Hedy. She’s in charge. Maybe? Of whatever it is that my family does.”
“Hedy’s the best!” Hopper says, grinning at us. “I can’t wait to introduce her to my son!”
Hedy, flanked by my uncles and fathers, is an impressive sight. Hopper takes off toward them, and we follow, trying to catch up with him.
“The whole gang is here!”
Hopper is very excited.
“Are those really our fathers?” I ask as we intercept the contingent of badass warrior-types.
Holmes grins. “Yep. And I can’t wait to tell ’em you’ve already got a couple of kills on the books.”
I sidle up next to Boone. “So…you’re about to meet my dads.”
He grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Can’t wait.”
Hedy is yelling at Hopper by the time we join the group.
“What the hell have you done?” she asks, gesturing at the carnage. “There are children in this neighborhood.”
“One child, and we put her in that house over there,” Silas says, pointing in the correct direction. “We gave her some earmuffs so she won’t have, like, trauma or whatever.”
“Trauma or whatever,” Hedy says, rubbing her eyeballs as teams from both helicopters begin splitting off and engaging with whoever’s left. “What the fuck have y’all done?”
“That little girl’s dad was a complete creeper,” Hopper says, checking his rifle. “When she gets older, she’s gonna thank us for killing him.”
“I’m sure she will, Hop.” Hedy looks defeated as she gestures to the piles on the ground. “Why did you have to kill everyone?”
Hopper and Silas share a look and then shrug as if the answer is obvious.
“I’m going to need your actual words, Hop,” Hedy says, and I can’t tell if she’s holding back rage or laughter.
“Because,” he says on a scoff, “Whitaker’s line ends here.”
“Duh,” Silas adds.
Hedy’s hand goes to her chest as she looks to the large house across the street from our position. “You haven’t killed Whitaker yet?”
“Keyword being yet,” Silas says, pointing out the large security force streaming out of the massive, multi-car garage.
Rolling her eyes, Hedy gives a brief gesture, and within seconds, my dads and uncles reduce the security detail to a red smear on green grass.
“Had to use the hollow points,” Sy mutters, reducing the bodies to ash. “Showoffs.”
Surrounded by high-end homes and carnage, Hedy lays into Hopper and Silas, reminding them in ways colorful and profane that everyone knows Whitaker is untouchable. That everything falls apart if he dies.
There’s an edge of desperation about the way she says it. Like maybe she knows it’s already too late.
Hopper isn’t convinced, and by the looks of it, neither is Silas, but they listen respectfully.
Hedy is crazy smart and always sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.
She’s also a bit long-winded, so she doesn’t notice an operative in black-out gear, his hair in a long braid, sneaking past the piles of ash into the house.
“Should we tell her?” Boone asks.
“That’s Dad,” I whisper out the side of my mouth. “I’m not getting between those two.”
Boone shivers. “Me either.”
A scream from Whitaker’s house stops Hedy’s soliloquy cold, and everyone turns. Dad’s dragging Preston Whitaker to the front yard. The expressions on our team’s faces are limited to various levels of stunned and horrified.
“Thank God. The sane twin.” Hedy wipes her forehead. “Odd hasn’t killed anyone in decades.”
“Maybe check your assumption,” Sy says, gesturing at Whitaker himself.
Whether or not my father has killed anyone recently, Whitaker is a bloody mess.
Dad searches the crowd and stops when he sees me. He puts his hand on his chest, and I mirror the gesture.
“Sorry, Hedy,” he calls out as he reaches for Whitaker’s jaw.
Boone grabs my forearm, and we watch in slow motion as Dad wrenches Whitaker’s neck several degrees in the wrong direction.
“No!” Hedy screams, shocked.
I don’t know what Whitaker did to make himself untouchable, but watching my dad break him so cleanly, I understand why Hedy was afraid.
Dad might be more sane than Uncle Anders, but even he would say that Whitaker drew that target on his own back when he came after Boone and me.
My father would agree that consequences were inevitable.
Dad lets Whitaker fall to the ground in a broken lump, dispassionate as the man struggles to breathe. This goes on for an uncomfortable amount of time, the wheezing and hitching audible from across the street.
That is…definitely not the first time he’s done that.
Shoulders drooping, Hedy orders the rest of the team to clear every house.
Boone takes my hand as he crosses the street, joining Dad as Whitaker takes his last breath.
Dad’s eyes fall to our joined hands, but he doesn’t say anything. He sneaks a peek over at Hedy. “How mad is she?”
“I think she’s more scared than mad.” I raise my brows. “Do you know why?”
“I do.” He sends me an apologetic look and points to a small group of dangerous-looking men in military gear that are trying to swarm us. “Later.”
I nod, and we move together.
I grapple the closest one to me to the ground, then cut off his airway with my forearm while kicking out, punching another guy’s knee in the wrong direction. Boone, who now has his own pulse rifle, ashes the guy before a third operative rushes him from the side.
I pull up my gun, track him for a second or two, and pull the trigger.
His head disappears in a spray of chalky bits.
Boone sends me a sharp nod. “Nice shot.”
Dad reaches down and grabs the wicked-looking knife from the guy’s waist, then turns and takes out the carotid of the guy trying to wrestle with Hopper.
Dad stares at me as I ash the headless guy.
“What was that technique you used?”
“Brazilian jiu-jitsu.”
“He just got his purple belt,” Boone says proudly as my father and brother join us, putting away their weapons.
I look around. The Whitaker family has been wiped from the face of the earth.
Father, who no one would suspect is rocking a state-of-the-art knee replacement, shakes his head. “BJJ professors don’t just give those away.”
I shake my head. “I never wanted a vanity belt.”
For a second, none of us speak. The neighborhood smells like bone dust and ozone; my hands are still buzzing from the adrenaline. Boone kisses my cheek.
My fathers and Holmes exchange a look, and Dad pulls me into a big bear hug.
“We should have always given you the option of joining us. At the very least, we should’ve kept you in the loop.”
“Yes,” I say. “You should have.”