Chapter 34
Bolo
Ilooked over at Ruck and the others as we waited for his signal.
This was it. The first round of attacks we’d be raining down on these factions of The Collective.
This wasn’t like how it was with Carrick.
The head honcho for both these factions liked to take a hands off approach.
So we were going to have to go after him separately. But after we took out his guys.
Lucas Parker. The name was fucking bland, but he was the asshole in charge of all the money printing and laundering for The Collective. He headed up both branches. And he wasn’t going to make it very long once we took out the hired guns he hid behind.
We’d be hitting their apartment complexes one at a time, taking them out as we went. Normally, that would be dangerous because we risked someone alerting the others and having a welcoming party at every subsequent building we went to.
But we weren’t planning to leave anyone alive to warn the others.
This time, thanks to The Collective’s arrogance—whoever was in charge of filling out their business paperwork was going to be in deep shit after this—we knew exactly where these scum bags were living.
We knew every apartment number they were staying in.
And we were going to systematically take them down until only Lucas Parker was left.
Once he was gone? The rest of The Collective was our new target.
No way they were going to stand by after all we’d done and not throw everything they had at us.
It was going to be an all-out war. Which was why Glitch was helping us find a new place for all our families to live—under different names on our own fake rental contracts—until this was all over. That way they’d be safe.
Ruck frowned at me, jerking his chin downward. My eyes followed the motion and I saw that my cell was lighting up in my pocket. Pulling it out, I connected the call. “Yeah?”
“We have a major problem.”
Glitch’s words rang in my ears. “What’d you mean a major problem?” My gut churned because he knew what we were doing tonight. And he wouldn’t bother us unless it was…well…major. And since he was calling me…
“Sophie’s house is on fire. Some asshole just started it in the garage, but it looks like he’s going to spread it through the whole house. I’m catching glimpses of him on the camera.”
“What?” I barely managed to keep from barking the question out.
We didn’t want to wake up any of the residents of these apartments.
Once again, there were civilians living here, surrounding Collective members.
At least this time we didn’t need to bother them since we knew which apartments we were going into.
The silencers on our pistols would keep anyone from knowing we were even there.
Unless I woke them all up by shouting outside. “Are Dev and Sophie out of there?”
“Not that I can tell,” Glitch said, his voice tight with worry.
“Fuck. I’m on my way over.”
“I’ll get Butcher and Toxic rolling that way, too.”
Ruck had asked our Tucson allies to send a couple of their guys to keep an eye out on more factions of The Collective here in Phoenix—to make sure they didn’t join in the fun if anything went wrong—and to help watch over our families.
Lockout had only been able to spare two guys, but it was Butcher and Toxic.
If we only got two of their guys, I was glad it was them. They were troublemakers half the time, but the rest? They were fucking death on wheels. I was glad to have the help, but no one was going to beat me to Sophie’s place. Not when Devyn and my baby were in trouble.
“Go,” Ruck said, eyes determined. He’d heard everything since he was sitting right next to me on his own bike.
“Thanks.”
“I’m going, too.”
I looked over in shock at my brother. “You sure?”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s my sister-in-law and nephew. Fuck yes, I’m sure. Besides, if The Collective is involved, I need to make sure they don’t snipe your ass when you pull up.”
There wasn’t time to say anything else. Nodding to the rest of our brothers, Relay and I took off like we were escaping hell.
I’d already taken too long just acknowledging that Relay was coming with me.
It was just so shocking that he was choosing to stay out of the violence—potentially—that it’d stopped me short.
But that was my brother. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Even though he was different now, at his core, he was still the same man I’d always known. The same guy I’d grown up with. Even though he’d never admit it, he’d lay down his life for me. And now that extended to Devyn and my kid.
I wasn’t sure how we made it to Sophie’s place without getting pulled over—or dying because I wasn’t exactly driving carefully—but I was parked in front of the house and off my bike before I realized it.
Swearing under my breath, I took in the inferno.
The fucking thing was already up in flames. And I didn’t see Dev or Sophie outside.
“Call the fire department,” I told Relay. They had to be on their way already. Glitch would have called them after hanging up with me. But I didn’t see them here, so someone needed to get their asses moving.
“Where the fuck are you- Bolo!”
I ignored his call and rammed the front door at full speed. The wood gave way without protest and I stumbled inside. I had to pat at my clothes to put out the fucking flames that had transferred to me when I’d run through the fire engulfing the porch. “Devyn!”
Yelling had been a bad idea. I instantly inhaled a mouthful of smoke.
Coughing, I made my way back down the hallway toward the guest room I’d left her in earlier.
I couldn’t think about the condition she might be in.
Not her. Not my baby. And not Sophie. If I did, I was going to lose my shit and there wasn’t time for that.
“Dev!” My eyes were burning from all the smoke and I could hardly take a breath. I was almost at the door to the first room when I saw the figure laying on the floor in the hallway.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Please be alive.
I didn’t need to check to know it wasn’t Devyn. Even from just her outline, I’d recognized her. Falling to my knees, I put two fingers to Sophie’s neck and breathed a sigh of relief when her pulse thumped against them. Then I immediately began coughing because of that damn breath.
“Hold on, Soph,” I said, lifting her into my arms. It was killing me not to keep charging down the hall to look for Devyn, but I couldn’t leave Sophie here to die.
Dev would kill me, once we all made it out the other side of this, if she found out I left her sister lying unconscious on the floor and didn’t help her.
Turning, I swore and squatted down, curling my body around Sophie’s as a bat swung out of the smoke and nearly clocked me in the head. Shifting my and Sophie’s weight onto my left foot I kicked out with my right.
The thump hitting the floor told me that whoever had just taken a swing at me was down for a minute. And that was about all I had to get Sophie out of here.
Lurching to my feet, I moved past the figure on the floor and ran for the door. Relay met me at the front of the house, taking Sophie in his arms as I handed her over. “Get her an ambulance! Someone just went after me inside.”
“I didn’t come here to play emergency coordinator, Bolo. Bolo!”
Once again, I left my brother yelling my name and swearing after me as I ran back into the house. Whoever was in there wasn’t going to stay put, and I was guessing he was the one responsible for setting this fire. I was going to kill the bastard for coming after my family. Didn’t matter who he was.
Not to mention I still had to get Devyn out of there. She was probably back in the bedroom. It was two in the morning and both women had been asleep when this damn fire had started. There was no way Devyn would have made it out and left Sophie behind. She was still in the house.
The hallway was clear. Swearing, I looked around, holding up my arm to shield my eyes from the bright flames. Their movement and the smoke rolling through the house was making it fucking impossible to see.
Later, I’d blame that for the reason that bat hit me in the damn back.
Grunting, I stumbled forward, then jerked to the side and into the kitchen as the fucker wound up and swung again.
He missed this time, hitting a vase sitting at the front of the hallway on a small table.
It shattered as I swung around and faced my attacker.
“Bowers,” I bit out. The police detective was standing there with that fucking bat, grinning at me like a lunatic. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting your attention, Dunn,” he said as he started to shift from foot to foot. He didn’t have the time to swing that bat now that I had him in my sights. If he tried, I’d take him down. The little fuck must have realized that because he pulled out a pistol at the same time I drew my own weapon.
“Why the fuck would I pay attention to you?” I asked, trying to goad him into doing something stupid.
He just smiled at me. “And yet, here you are.” He was coughing about as much as I was, which made me feel a little vindicated. It’d be even better if the fucker choked on all the toxic air.
“Why would you do this shit?” I asked. “You’re going to lose your fucking badge for this.”
“You pissed off some very important people. You all did. And you’re all going to pay.”
“Are you fucking shitting me?” I muttered. “You’re working for The Collective?”
Bowers hadn’t done anything that triggered our suspicions. Not about that anyway. We just figured he wanted to nail our asses for breaking the law. In fairness, we were making a lot of paperwork for the cops. But dirty cops were a different level of scum.