23. ~Emilio~
23
~Emilio~
We’d walked into a shitshow.
Caterina’s intel had warned us of something big taking place down by our three warehouse targets of the sickening operation we were to demolish tonight.
She’d flagged the movement of Wharton Transportation Services trucks, a dozen of them headed into the area, as we’d been on our way. She’d delved deeper than the surface level as she always did and determined there had been two guys to each truck, which put us at a disadvantage numbers-wise right off the bat with that being twenty-four to our twenty-two—me, Tony, and twenty of Nico’s soldiers. That wouldn’t have been a big deal if it hadn’t been for the two dozen we’d already identified at the warehouses to begin with.
Or the fact that last night, they’d moved their product —hostages, really—into said warehouses that we’d been slated to burn to the fucking ground.
They’d brought in over two hundred of them, their total supply from all over, that they were now going to ship out to numerous buyers in a rush via those dozen trucks they’d brought in.
It was a panicked move and clearly a desperate one to save their business, knowing that their HQ was going to be hit.
They’d fucking known we were coming!
Nico was back in Tolhurst sorting out the details for the multi-pronged attacks tomorrow night along with Caterina, while Julian was taking the brief calm-before-the-storm to attend to Carver Group in person, now that he was doing better physically.
I’d reported in the unprecedented issue of the hostages being here during our takedown, and Nico had given me the option to hold back and wait for him to send reinforcements. But that would have taken hours. I’d cited that we’d likely lose the hostages to these fuckers, to which Caterina had told me we could track them down and rescue them after the fact.
But that would have strapped our resources even more so, while we needed all we had for tomorrow night and what would hit us beyond that. This mission was supposed to be a reeling blow to Santino and Marco to throw them off tomorrow.
Plus, and something that had hit me deeply, was the fact that I could liberate the hostages here and now, this very night, and spare them any further pain and abuse. If we delayed the op, it would prolong their suffering, and the thought of them being shipped off and sold to some sickos and even being in their presence for a limited time made me sick to my stomach.
Julian had only been in Angelo’s clutches for days and look at the damage that had been done.
No, I couldn’t stand the thought of it.
Nor the thought of that sick bastard slipping through our fingers again.
I’d insisted that it had to be now, that I’d handle it.
Giving me that option was just Nico and Caterina worrying about me. They didn’t want me hurt. Thank fuck Julian didn’t know about this and he was currently out of the Manor attending to Carver Group business down at his flagship Opulent Grand hotel tonight. He wouldn’t stand for it.
But this was bigger than that.
It didn’t mean it was gonna be easy, though.
Especially now we were in the thick of it.
When we’d first arrived, we’d caught sight of Shawn Price himself directing his men to drag the hostages toward the trucks. He’d been frantic, clearly panicking, and also irate.
How the fuck had they known to expect an attack?
All of our soldiers were solid and loyal to the core. We’d made sure of that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
It was something to figure out after the fact.
That was made clear to me as I hauled another opponent over my shoulder and dropped him hard on the asphalt, only to be tackled by two more who slammed me into one of the transport trucks. One of the eight whose drivers and front seat passengers we’d killed with sniper shots when we’d first arrived to thin the herd. We’d also put every single one of the trucks out of commission, blowing out the tires, and thereby preventing the assholes from being able to send the hostages out of here to their buyers.
At that point, all hell had broken loose with Shawn directing his guys to move the hostages into the warehouses.
The fuck we were gonna let that happen.
So we’d run into the fray.
I had five soldiers laying down cover while several were leading the hostages away from the fight and into the lot a few blocks away behind an empty apartment building where we’d parked our vehicles when we’d arrived. Nico had reached out to one of Julian’s contacts and the guy was sending a team to take the hostages to safety. The rest of the soldiers were with me, including Tony Amato.
As I ripped one of my attackers off me by his fucking hoodie, and smashed his face into the side of the truck, wherein he dropped like a rag doll, Tony was there, shooting another running at me. A bullet ripped through his throat and he collapsed, spurting up his own blood. I blocked a hit from the other guy still trying to hold me, wrenched his arm until he screamed and a satisfying crack sounded, then I jerked him down to me as I slammed my knee up, shattering his nose and knocking him out cold in the process.
Tony was there in the next second, putting a bullet in his chest, along with the other one I’d put out of commission moments ago.
“You’re not going for the kill,” he commented.
“We haven’t laid eyes on Angelo yet.”
“You want to leave some alive for interrogation on that fucker’s whereabouts if we don’t find him cowering inside one of those three warehouses over there?” he asked, gesturing at the buildings a few feet away.
“Yeah,” I grunted. I couldn’t let him get away again.
“Our snipers are watching the warehouses, Emilio. There’s been no movement. Nobody’s gone in or out. If he’s here, we’ll get him.”
“If he’s here. These fuckers knew we were coming. As we were heading up here, they fucking knew.”
“You’ve ordered no kill shots against Shawn Price, so we’ll use him to find that fucker if he’s already slipped away. Leaving any of the rest alive is too messy, though. Nico won’t like it.”
“No,” I agreed. “He wouldn’t.”
And normally, neither would I.
I swung my head to see Price still bogged down under cover of one of the now out of commission trucks, four of his guys flanking him and protecting him. The guy was at least fifty, decked out in a cheap brown suit that barely fit, his curly gray hair all wild and in his face.
My earpiece buzzed, and I tapped it, opening a transmission from one of our soldiers.
“All hostages clear.”
“Copy that. Stay with them. The contact will be here in ten.”
“Got it.”
“Time to take this up a notch,” I told Tony.
His eyes gleamed with excitement, the kind that Julian got at the prospect of going all out and being able to revel in the dangerous thrill of it all.
We both jerked back as shots rang out near us, and we flattened our backs against the side of the truck.
I scanned the area, noting that our snipers were busy covering some of our soldiers forty feet away who were in the throes of a brutal fight with a dozen of Price’s guys who’d strategically convened over there during the battle to attack en masse.
I shot a look back around the corner just before another shot rang out to force me back and reported what I’d seen to Tony. “Six moving in.”
He readied his weapon. “I’ve only got two shots left. You?”
“One.”
I eyed the fallen guys near us, but they’d already been out when they’d set upon us. It was why they’d engaged us hand-to-hand and come at us in a rush.
I saw several of our guys notice our predicament, running toward us, firing off shots, but they couldn’t bend fucking bullets around the corner of the truck and actually hit those coming for us.
I signaled them to head over to Price and his bodyguards instead.
Despite their hesitation to leave us as somewhat sitting ducks, they followed my orders and redirected their attention over there, managing to take out a couple of the bodyguards.
We were getting closer to Price now.
So close.
Suddenly, the warehouse door flew open, and I caught sight of an RPG a moment before the person holding it came into focus.
My heart stopped in my chest.
“Julian,” I choked.
What the hell was he doing here?
How had he gotten inside the warehouse?
What the—
“Get down!” he yelled over to me and Tony.
There wasn’t much else we could do when he took aim right where those fuckers were about to close in on us.
We bolted forward and dove onto the ground several feet away a second before he fired the fucking thing and it shot through the air with a sharp whistle, then blasted into the guys and blew them all to hell, taking a chunk of the truck that we’d been against mere moments ago with it, a ball of fire exploding high into the air as screams and a deafening thunder rang out.
“Holy shit,” Tony breathed, pushing onto his knees as I hurried to my feet as well.
A deathly still silence filled the area as I stared over the distance at Julian, trying to make sense of what was happening, how he was here, all of it.
But he wasn’t done.
He’d dropped the RPG and was reaching into his pockets.
In the next second, I caught sight of grenades, just before he started tossing them near Price’s position, strategically forcing him and his remaining bodyguards from their point of cover.
He pushed from the warehouse and stalked toward them as my guys had jumped back out of range of the crazed grenade blasts.
I saw Julian stagger a moment later. He was still recovering, not at his best, and wielding that RPG and then throwing those grenades had obviously taken a lot out of him.
All of it caused a hell of a distraction, though, and then he was screaming and diving at Price. He tackled him away from his bodyguards and my guys had to move in frantically to take his security out before they did that to Julian.
“Where is he?” I heard him screaming, as he smashed his fist into Price’s face, then wailed on him with unadulterated fury. “Where the fuck is Angelo? Tell me, motherfucker! Tell me!”
I bolted forward only to be pulled up short abruptly as a violent thunder reverberated all around us as a series of consecutive explosions erupted from all three warehouses, windows blowing out with glass spraying out everywhere, debris flying every which way and more fire shooting up toward the sky as the structures were fucking decimated.
I watched as a figure clad in heavy duty black tactical gear with a balaclava covering their face emerged from behind the farthest warehouse, a sniper rifle in hand. He fired off a series of rapid-fire shots at all the remain hostiles.
Julian rolled off Price at the shock of it and a second later, a bullet drove into Price’s skull, killing him in an instant, just like our remaining targets.
Instinctively, I took aim with my gun, all my soldiers in the vicinity doing the same.
The mystery guy held up his free hand in a gesture of surrender and even lowered his gun.
“I come in peace, Alleati!” he called over to us.
I started. His pronunciation left a lot to be desired, but I managed to make out his attempt at referring to us as allies.
What the fuck was happening tonight?
Every part of this mission was going off the fucking rails!
At a time when things needed to be going off without a hitch.
I mean, shit!
“Who the fuck are you?” I called over.
“A friend of Caterina’s.”
I signaled my soldiers to hold fire, and I started over there, closing the distance between us.
As I did, Julian staggered over too. “You killed our best lead to finding Angelo!”
“Your presence is what alerted Angelo and Price to an incoming attack.”
“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Goddammit . Julian was out of his mind right now—in so many ways.
“Stop,” I grunted, grasping his arm when I was close enough as the mystery guy continued his approach. “Stover?” I asked.
“Correct.”
When he reached us, he pulled something from one of the pockets of his tactical vest and I studied the small metallic square device.
“Be still,” he warned Julian. “This won’t hurt and I won’t touch you either.”
I released Julian, and he stood there staring at Stover with a whole lot of confusion as he ran the device the length of him, from bottom to top. It started beeping when it reached his neck. Stover walked around behind him, his eyes narrowing as the beeping became rapid and shrill, a red light starting to flash as he reached the back of his neck, just under his hair.
“Sunshine, hold still,” I said, lifting up some short tufts of his hair to see a small two-inch scar there from what appeared to be an incision.
“He’s been tagged,” Stover told me. “That’s how they knew you were coming. He was ahead of you, already here more than a couple of hours before you, scouting the area.”
There was only one explanation for it. “Angelo did this,” I ground out.
“No,” Julian said. “You guys checked me for any bugs or tracking shit before I entered the Manor after I was discharged from the hospital. Your tech would’ve picked it up.”
“This runs on a special, unique frequency. Only this device can detect it,” Stover explained. “It’s tech created by Knightsridge Engineering. As is this device I hold in my hand.”
“How did you know?” I asked him.
“I keep an eye on everything concerning Caterina. During the time that Julian was in Angelo’s captivity, there was a break-in at one of Knightsridge Engineering’s storage facilities by somebody matching Angelo’s description. Although, it wasn’t reported to the police, due to the nature of the covert tech that’s developed there, Roman Knight reached out to me, concerned it could impact Caterina and her loves, as he put it. I wasn’t certain that Angelo actually had the brains to use it, but when the connection between him and Shawn Price was made apparent, the likelihood increased. These guys chip the women they traffic. Not with this kind of tech, but they have people on staff who are able to perform these minor surgical procedures efficiently. One of those was with Angelo at the location where Julian was being held.”
“Why didn’t you take that fucker out? Too busy trying to rig the warehouses that you couldn’t spare the second it would have taken to end his miserable life?” Julian bit at him.
“That wasn’t my mission. Tearing down this operation was. Not to mention, Angelo has vital intel on the Leone Family, current and future plans and strategies.”
“You’re saying he’s an asset to you?” Julian growled.
“If you weren’t so emotionally involved, you’d be able to see it too. All of you.”
I took a dangerous step forward at his accusation. Emotionally involved? After what Angelo had done to those we loved, how could we not be?
Stover held up his hand while opening his tactical jacket with the other, then pulling out a silver flash drive. He held it out to me. “Give this to Caterina.”
“What is it?”
“A gift.”
What the—
“I need to sanitize the area before the authorities are alerted. We don’t want your involvement being discovered. Well, not by the law. But Santino and Marco are another story. I realize you want them to know of this.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“For Caterina,” he answered simply.
“Why step in now?”
“Because it’s time.”
“Cryptic bullshit,” Julian ground out, pulling from us and throwing his hands in the air.
He started going off then, yelling out into the night, my soldiers looking on as he lost his shit and started wailing on one of the transport trucks, smashing his fists into it over and over.
I rushed over to him and snagged him in a bear hold, pulling him from it, and stopping him from damn near crushing his knuckles to shit in the process.
“Take a breath,” I breathed in his ear. “It’s all right. It’s all gonna be okay, Sunshine.”
“No!” he yelled. “He’s in the wind! Again! He… he tagged me like an animal! Like his fucking pet!”
“We’ll take care of it. We’ll take care of it all. I swear to you.”
He screamed out into the night, an absolutely awful pained scream that tore right through me.
And then he slumped in my hold and I eased him down as he sank to his knees, burying his face in his hands and sobbing.
I crouched down beside him and looked out to see Stover pulling his phone out and calling for a swift sanitization.
As I held Julian and he sank into me, shaking with his upset, my earpiece buzzed.
I tapped it and my soldier taking point on the hostages sounded down the line.
“Julian’s contact is here with a team to move the hostages and get them to safety.”
“Good. See to it, then meet us back at the lot. We’re moving out.”
I swung my head toward Tony, who was looking on in shock at the state of Julian.
“We’re done here,” I told him. “Have the team move out. I’ll be along shortly.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, clearly concerned.
“Yeah, I’ve got him. Head home, I’ll follow.”
He nodded and then guided the rest of the soldiers away.
Stover finished on the phone and turned to me. “Tell Caterina that I’ll see her soon.”
“I’m gonna need more than that.”
“Not yet.”
Without another word, he strode away, examining the scene and the many dead bodies, and he appeared to be making notes on his phone as he went, zoned out and ultra focused.
Jeez, the guy was intense. An oddball too, no doubt.
And I couldn’t determine whether I was pissed that he’d intervened in my mission, or if I was grateful.
I couldn’t determine a lot of things right now, all the while Julian was in this broken state.
Coming up here, especially when he definitely wasn’t field-ready… the risks had been off the charts. His desperation to get to Angelo was another level, beyond what I’d already perceived from him, beyond what me, Nico, or Caterina had even realized.
This was bad.
So fucking bad on too many levels.
And all I could do as he continued to break down in my arms was hold him to me.
It’s not enough.
Nowhere near enough.