58. Obi
OBI
It wasn’t hard for Ciel to hack the cameras of City Hall, but the mayor wasn’t there. Instead, she was in meetings at a nearby municipal building. We’d armed ourselves with as many weapons as we could carry as quickly as we could and then piled into one of our armored SUVs.
“Okay, everyone’s good with the plan?” Max asked from beside me in the front passenger seat while we drove there. I swerved through the city traffic. “We need to find and secure the mayor first. Then we’ll see what Greco does.”
Max and I had given them the high-level explanation of how we could take down Greco. The family had agreed before we left. We were proceeding with the plan. But it took every ounce of control in my body to not turn the car around and lock Leona up at home.
This was why I needed power. This was why I had to take Greco’s place once we eventually crippled the Camorra and eliminated his leadership.
The power he had was the only way we could survive, the only way I could believe that my family was finally safe.
I needed to be at the pinnacle, where no one could touch us.
We could become the ones laying traps instead of willingly walking into them.
“We’re good,” Caspian said. He pressed a kiss to Leona’s forehead. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Ciel typed away on his phone. “The mayor is still in a meeting. There’s no sign of alarm or indication that something is going wrong.”
I gripped the steering wheel harder. I’d done all that I could do. I’d sent out my messages. I’d called in my favors. Now was the time to see how the game resolved. Would my strategy be enough? Would my contacts come through for me?
Leona’s life depended on it.
There was no street parking, so I drove us to the lot beneath the building. Ciel hacked the cameras and ticketing software so we could enter without paying or being seen. We took everything from the car, knowing that we likely wouldn’t be coming back.
“Any movement, Ciel?” I asked as we made our way to the elevators.
Ciel flipped through the different camera feeds.
“There’s no one in the elevator from what I can see.
The Mayor is on the third floor. We’ll be better equipped to intercept her if we take the stairs, though.
Her security is standing outside the room where she’s meeting, but still no alarms or concern. ”
“Is it possible that Greco won’t follow through with his attack?” Several of Ryu’s knives glinted from the exposed placements of his sheaths.
“It’s possible,” I said carefully. “We might have misjudged him.”
“I don’t think so,” Max said. “You know him well enough. You’ve spent years studying him. What’s your gut say?”
I looked down the barrel of my gun, inspecting the scope alignment. “My gut says he’ll follow through.”
Greco intended to trap us in a lose-lose, but the question was how. We’d have to thread this needle carefully. Keep the mayor alive. Fall into the trap. But get Leona out of it.
“Okay, then,” Leona said, nodding. “Let’s go up to her floor. We’ll protect her from whatever is coming.”
“What if she refuses our protection?” Wynn said. “What if she doesn’t believe us?”
Leona bit her lip. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to play it by ear.”
As a unit, we made it to the stairwell. We were climbing to the main level when Ciel put a hand out. We paused.
“Wait,” he said, eyes locked on his screen. “Her security is whispering something in her ear.”
Her head whipped up, alarm on her face. She pushed from the conference table while a group of three men in suits formed a triangle around her. They escorted her from the room. Ciel flipped the feed to a camera in the hallway. They rushed toward the stairs.
“Looks like she’s aware there’s a threat now,” Ryuji said.
Ciel flipped through more feeds. His lips thinned into a grim line. “Speak of the fucking devil.”
A group of seven mercenaries, dressed in head-to-toe combat gear, was infiltrating the other side of the building.
“Is it just me, or do those look exactly like the fucking mercs who attacked the penthouse?” Caspian asked.
They did. Highly trained. Easily called upon. Effective. They also had no direct ties to the mafia. If the mercenaries were successful, it would look like a hit, but it would be difficult to trace.
“Same agency,” I replied quickly. “Let’s move. We have to intercept them. Ciel, are there any PA or announcement features in the building?”
He typed and hissed in frustration. “Fucking phone. I need my fucking computer for this...” he muttered. While he typed, we reached the ground floor. It kicked us out into a long hallway that stretched to both sides. “I don’t see one.”
Leona glanced around the hall. “How about this? Worked the first time.”
She didn’t wait for a response before she pulled a fire alarm. Instantly, sirens blared through the building. Flashing lights directed us toward the exits at both ends of the long hallway.
Ciel watched the feeds. “The mayor is headed toward us, away from the mercs. We can intercept in the main stairwell bisecting the building.”
“Let’s go,” I ordered.
We sprinted past dozens of people fleeing the building at the same time we headed deeper inside, closer to the lobby.
“Shit, more mercs!” Ciel said, whirling to the left.
I reacted instantly, training my gun on the ground floor entrance.
I fired, dropping two bogeys before I grabbed Leona by her now-custom Kevlar vest and pushed her to the side.
Bullets rained down on us, but Ryuji and Max followed them up quickly.
They took out the two remaining opponents.
Citizens screamed as they saw the bodies and our weapons, but we didn’t have time to explain.
“Get out of here!” Leona screamed at them. They jolted to life, scrambling over each other to escape through the door.
“They’re in the stairwell!” Ciel said. “Mercs from the top and us from the bottom!”
“A mayor sandwich!” Ryu quipped while we took off.
I slammed against the crash bar, pushing the door open so we could enter the stairwell. Gunshots immediately ricocheted past us.
“Josephine!” Leona screamed. “Tell them to stop shooting!”
The bullets immediately cut off. Leona leaned her head out into the center of the well. “Shit!”
She pulled her gun to her face and fired three bullets. The body of a merc in combat fatigues toppled down the well until it squelched into the concrete right in front of us.
The sound of another door bursting open and slamming shut echoed above us.
“They’re on the second floor, moving toward the exit to the east,” he said. “Her security is taking her toward the street parking. I recognize the cars on the news from this morning. It has to be her motorcade.”
We shot up the stairs, firing at two more mercenaries headed in our direction. They quickly fell to our firepower.
“We have to catch up with her!” Leona shouted. “Hurry!”
“This is a fucking goose chase,” Caspian said. “They’re going to think we’re the ones trying to kill her.”
My pace slowed. That was exactly it. That was the trap. I exchanged a frantic glance with Max as he realized the same thing. They’re going to think we’re trying to kill her.
“Come on!” Leona pushed open the emergency exit stairwell and catapulted down it. Wynn, Caspian, Ciel, and Ryuji followed her down while Max grabbed my shoulder.
“It’s something on the street,” he said breathlessly. “It has to be. He’s herding us all there.”
He was right.
“She has to get free of this,” I said. We had to get Leona out. We couldn’t step into a trap that would doom her alongside us.
He nodded. “I know. We’ll protect her.”
The stairwell fed out onto the street. We caught up to Leona and the rest of my brothers just as she opened the door onto a busy street full of people who had just fled the building.
The alarms still blared through the air.
Using the scope of my gun, I frantically swept the countless windows that stretched toward the sky above us.
Something on the street…
Herding us toward a close-quarters area…
“A car bomb!” Max yelled. “Leona, it’s a car bomb!”
Leona’s eyes went wide while we watched the mayor’s security push her closer and closer to the row of parked SUVs. We couldn’t stop her without shooting her security, and we couldn’t shoot her security without looking like we really were trying to kill her.
“Josephine!”
The mayor searched the street until her eyes landed on Leona. They went wide with fear.
“There’s a bomb!” Leona screamed. “Don’t get in the car!”
Josephine’s head snapped toward her waiting SUV. She took a step backward, then another, and another. Her security urged her to get in.
In one breath, she was shaking her head.
In the next, her SUV exploded.
The heat flared through the entire street. Instinctively, I reached for Leona to pull her close to my chest, to shield her, only to find that Max and Caspian had already done the same. Time slowed and sped up at once.
“Josephine!” Leona screamed again.
The mayor lay on the ground, flat on her back, surrounded by her security.
She sat up slowly, blood trickling from a cut on the side of her head.
One of her staff batted cinders from the shirt she wore.
The flames from the ball of wreckage that used to be her SUV cast flickering shadows across the mayor’s face.
Civilians were crying, screaming, and terrified.
But the mayor was alive.
It only took thirty seconds before people turned in our direction.
Fingers pointed.
The mayor’s security pointed their guns at us. Ryuji had just pushed Leona to the ground when a bullet landed in his shoulder. He shouted in pain.
Chaos erupted.
“Don’t shoot them back!” I shouted at my brothers. “Get her out of here!”
We scrambled to our feet and backtracked to the safety of the stairwell, but there was none to be found.
Another group of mercenaries was there, waiting.
I fired three shots at the same time Wynn fired four.
Ciel wrapped his garrotte around the closest one and dropped him to the ground.
Ryuji and Leona headed toward the hallway, while Ryuji pressed a hand to his shoulder to stem the bleeding.
This was the crossroads.
We could run together as a family and get out of here. We didn’t have to proceed with this. If we pushed hard enough, we could get back to our vehicle.
We didn’t have to separate.
I could come up with something different. I could find another pl—
“Obi,” Max said beside me as he reloaded his rifle. He dropped the emptied magazine to the floor. “Now is the time.”
I knew it was.
I just didn’t want to make the call.
I didn’t want to let go.
My teeth gritted until finally I made a choice. “Leona, you have to go.”
Wynn fired more bullets toward the mercenaries bearing down on us. The mayor’s security yelled at us from the street, just outside the door.
Her eyes went wide.
“We’ll lead them away,” I said. “A distraction. It’ll give you enough time to escape.”
Ryuji’s lips pressed together while fear flashed in his eyes. Blood pooled over his fingertips. “Go, hanii.”
She gritted her teeth.
“I trust you,” I whispered. “Trust me. Trust your men.”
She swallowed, eyes flicking around to each of us.
“Go.”