Chapter Seven #2
Sensei looks at me, nodding in agreement. “He completed a coup d’état over his Uncle Rico, and it was just the trial run. With everything he set in motion, all the pieces he’s put in place, he wants the ultimate power in the United States—”
“Movement!” Vibe snaps, pointing upward.
I look up just in time to see the glint of a scope on the catwalk. The shot rings out, deafening in the steel and concrete tomb. Dust explodes near my head as I dive sideways, rolling behind a crate.
“We’re blown! Contact! Soldiers incoming!” Lift shouts.
Bullets erupt like firecrackers, the roar of automatic fire turning the warehouse into a war zone.
Flashes light up the dark like strobe lights, sending long shadows dancing across the walls.
Gunfire rips through the wood, propelling splinters in all directions.
Sparks glitter through the air like fucking fireworks as the bullets slam into metal, pummeling continuously.
The air reeks of gunpowder, sweat, and blood as we duck low, using crates and steel beams for cover.
“Ambush! They were fucking ready,” Trax bellows over the comms, his gun barking as he unloads on the catwalk above.
Ace lets out a string of curses, switching positions and laying down heavy fire, his rounds slamming into the upper railings where shadowy figures duck and weave. Vibe is already on the move, flanking left, squeezing off controlled bursts at anything that twitches.
I catch one of the bastards in my scope and drop him with a clean shot straight through the shoulder. He crumples, but another takes his place, firing back with military precision.
Figures dart through the haze. Three of them, fast, using the crates for cover. They move in sync, communicating without words, backs to walls, covering all angles.
They aren’t sloppy.
They aren’t scared.
They’re trained killers.
Suddenly, I hear a sharp, guttural grunt, and then a body slams to the floor.
“Lift!” I shout, spinning just in time to see him stagger out from behind a steel crate. Blood instantly spreads across his side, dark and wet. He collapses backward like a lead weight, landing hard on the concrete.
“Shit! Fuck! No!” Vibe dives toward him, gunfire sparking off the floor near his boots.
“I got him!” I bolt from cover, throwing wild shots behind me to keep the Cartel’s heads down. I slide in beside Lift, grabbing him under the arms and dragging his heavy-ass frame behind a stack of pallets.
His face is pale, jaw clenched so tight I think he might break his teeth. “Son of a bitch got me, Pres,” he grunts, fingers slick with blood as he tries to press on the wound.
“You’re still breathin’,” I snap, dropping to my knees and shoving my hand over the wound. Blood seeps between my fingers, hot and fast. “Which means you ain’t dyin’ yet!”
“I can still shoot,” Lift growls.
“You’ll shoot when I say you shoot. Right now, your job is to stay the fuck conscious.”
“It’s just a scratch,” he lies, switching to his pistol, clearly ignoring me.
“Bullshit. Vibe, get a pressure bandage on him,” I order, and Vibe ruffles through whatever he can find to create a bandage, then applies it to Lift’s side.
“Torque!” Trax shouts over the gunfire. “They’re pushing left.”
“Hold that flank,” I bark, my voice echoing off the corrugated steel and concrete walls as more bullets tear into the crates shielding us. Splinters spray across my face. The roar of Trax’s weapon echoes close behind me, the rhythmic blast of his shots matching the pulse pounding in my skull.
Lift is still breathing, propped up with Vibe pressing hard on his side, but we’re boxed in.
These motherfuckers aren’t letting up, not even a fraction.
But neither are we.
Gunfire keeps coming, an unrelenting storm of hot lead.
No pause.
No mercy.
They’re trying to break us.
They’re trying to drown us in bullets.
But Chicago doesn’t bend.
We bite back.
“Reloading,” Ace shouts.
Surge hollers back, “I got you!” as he stands and unleashes a hail of cover fire, sweeping left to right with brutal precision.
I lean out from behind a metal drum just long enough to fire off a few rounds before diving back, bullets ricocheting past my head, the heat of a stray slices my shoulder. “Fuck!” I groan, pressing my hand to my skin, blood seeping through my cut.
Blood trickles down my arm, but I ignore it as I look out at my men. “They’re tryin’ to pin us down,” I shout. “Keep movin’. Don’t let ’em surround us.”
“Torque, come in…” Surge’s voice crackles through the comms, rough with strain. “We got civilians in the office wing. The Cartel’s using them like meat shields. I can see them through the damn glass.”
“Can you get to ’em?” I demand, ducking as another barrage of bullets slams into our cover.
“Not unless I want my head turned into a canoe. It’s a fucking meat grinder out here.”
“Shit,” I growl. The corridor to the office is a death zone, choked with gunfire, smoke, and stealthy Cartel soldiers that move too fast to track.
Lift groans again, and Vibe curses under his breath as the pressure bandage saturates. Around us, crates explode into splinters, bullets tearing through every damn thing around us. The air tastes like copper and ash and is bitter on my tongue.
Still, we fight.
No giving in.
No surrender.
Just the unspoken understanding that brothers who bleed together, fight together.
I slam a fresh magazine into my weapon, crack my neck, and grab the radio.
I’ve had just about enough.
It’s time to end this shitshow.
“Pyro, I need you to create a distraction. Somethin’ big. I want their attention off that office. Now!” I call into the radio.
“Copy that, Pres. How big we talkin’?” Pyro yells through the static, the sound of gunfire still thundering in the background.
“Big enough to scare the devil, small enough we don’t bury ourselves alive.”
“Copy. Gimme a minute.”
Trax and Ace lay down suppressing fire while Surge tries to get an angle on the catwalk as shells clatter to the floor like hail.
I shift position, step out, and nail one of the bastards charging from the side.
He goes down screaming, his gun skittering across the floor, and I don’t hesitate, unloading another bullet straight into his head.
Then another pops up behind a crate and fires.
A round slams into the metal beside my head, rattling my damn teeth.
I spin, dodging another bullet before I squeeze the trigger.
He jerks back with the hit, his hand reaches for his chest as he gasps, then he drops, blood pooling beneath him on the concrete.
“Vibe, stay with Lift,” I yell before I take another shot, forcing a Cartel bastard to duck behind a stack of barrels. “We need every second Pyro can buy us.”
The tension stretches like a taut wire.
Too tight, too thin.
I stick my head out, only to be met with a Cartel soldier.
He slams his fist straight into my nose, disorientating me.
He brings his gun up, aiming it right at my chest, a sinister smirk crossing his face as I grit my teeth, trying to find my footing.
“You think you can outsmart the Cartel?” he growls.
I tilt my head, about to reply, when suddenly a shockwave tears through the warehouse like a goddamn bomb dropped from heaven. Pyro’s explosion goes off with so much force that fire erupts in a blinding flash, the floor lurches beneath us, and we’re all thrown off our feet.
My ears ring with a high-pitched whine, and dust and smoke flood the air in a suffocating wave.
I slam into the concrete, coughing while debris rains down all around me.
A section of the ceiling collapses, and I roll just in time, narrowly missing me, but it falls completely on top of the soldier who was about to shoot me, flattening him like a pancake.
Blood seeps out from under the slab while I grimace and slowly sit up.
Light flickers as overhead bulbs shatter. Emergency sprinklers kick in, spraying down water that hisses and steams where it meets flame.
“Fuck! Everyone good?” Trax shouts from somewhere nearby.
“Still breathing,” Surge chokes out, his voice raw.
My ears are ringing, but I push to my feet, my shoulder throbbing. I think some of the ceiling clipped it on the way down, exacerbating my bullet wound.
But the explosion did its job.
The Cartel is disoriented.
Now’s our shot.
“Lift, Vibe, make your way out to the loadin’ dock,” I bark, wiping dirt and blood from my face. “I’m goin’ after the civilians.”
I don’t wait for backup.
I sprint toward the office wing, boots pounding over scorched concrete, smoke curling around me like a living thing.
“Torque, don’t—”
But I’m already moving, using the confusion and smoke for cover as I sprint across the warehouse floor. Bullets howl past my head, but I duck low, keep moving, following my instincts through the maze.
The office area is a glass-walled structure built into the corner of the warehouse. Through the smoke-stained windows, I see huddled figures, workers in coveralls and work shirts, not tactical gear. Real people with real families, mortgages, and dreams, caught up in Javier’s war.
No doubt being blackmailed to be here—that’s Javier’s MO.
Two cartel soldiers guard the entrance, their weapons trained outward at my approaching brothers. They don’t see me coming from their blind spot.
I drop the first one with a knife thrust between his ribs.
The second spins toward me, but I’m already inside his reach, my combat knife finding his throat before he can pull the trigger.
I slice with ease, his blood pouring down his body as he gasps for breath, dropping to his knees, the life draining from his eyes when he finally flops to the floor.
“Everyone on the ground. Hands where I can see ’em,” I shout as I burst through the office door.
Six workers—four men, two women—drop to the floor immediately. Their faces showing pure terror but also hope. They know I’m not with the Cartel.