Chapter 7 Creed
Creed
“I’M A FUCKING MUSICIAN. NOT A GANGSTER.”
What in the ever-loving fuck is happening right now?
Who let Jett the fucking Barbarian in here?
You know what, I don’t give a shit why he’s here, the more men, the better.
All I have the capacity to focus on is getting the fucking plan out of somebody before I stuff my fist down one of their throats and go searching for the answers myself.
I look between Lachlan and Asher in question and the former answers. “I’ll explain later.” Fair enough. He walks to the back of the room, then turns to us. I do my best to ignore the burning sensation in the side of my skull where Jett is currently murderously staring at me.
“Everybody, listen up,” Lachlan calls out, his voice now carrying a harsh command. “We’ve already scoped the area. I want this operation to be swift and silent. We get in, kill any man you see on sight, retrieve the two captives, and get out.”
He continues on, talking about foot soldiers and their roles in taking out the security. How he will scan for alarm systems and snuff out any access they have to cameras or any kind of security that would alert Guy that there’s been a breach in the perimeter of the warehouse.
He tries to tell me that I’m to wait for Collins and Riley in the armored-out SUV, but after some manic laughter, a hefty “fuck that”, followed by a snarled “fuck you”, I’m now a part of the group that will follow in after Camdan.
My dad opted to wait in the vehicle with Lachlan, so should the whole operation go tits-up, he’ll be the one to get any survivors the fuck out of there.
After going over the entire plan and making sure that everybody knows what their job will be, I was fitted with a bullet-proof vest, a balaclava, an earpiece, a handgun, two knives, and a utility belt with extra magazines slid in place.
I know how to handle a gun, but that didn’t stop Camdan from giving me a rundown.
I was too anxious to get in the fucking car to get to Collins and Riley that I snapped at him to hurry up, and I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes with the way he glowered at me.
But boy was I knocked on my ass at the way his stony-ass, stabby expression softened to squishy teddy bear levels when he said his goodbyes to Millie.
The two make no sense when you put them side by side.
She’s so tiny and dainty and sickly sweet while he’s a massive, feral animal and a total fucking grump.
Seems like she’s tamed the wild beast, so more power to her.
After seeing the women off to the safe house, we all file into a row of blacked out, armored SUVs. When I shut my door and turn to see who I’m riding with, I roll my eyes and instantly make to get out of this car and into another.
“Creed, you’ll have to stay,” Lachlan states lackadaisically from the passenger seat while his driver starts the engine.
“The fuck I do,” I grit out, reaching for the handle again.
“Get the fuck over yourself and buckle up.” This time the rebuttal comes from Jett, and I turn to focus my glare on him as the convoy pulls out of the parking garage and onto the highway.
It’s still hardly the asscrack of dawn, and there’s no traffic in the city yet, so we’re able to set a good pace.
The drive out to their location is eating at me, feeling like an entire eternity is passing by before we get even remotely close.
Jett’s presence next to me is grating on my very last nerve, and finally I snap, needing to know why he was allowed to join this rescue mission.
I continue to stare out the window when I open my mouth.
“What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be in California, protecting strippers?” It’s an intentional barb, and an unintentional insult to the workers there, but I can’t find it in me to care right now.
“Shouldn’t you be halfway across the country, protecting Collins?” he spits back at me with so much venom that it nearly has me wilting in my seat. He’s right. I should be protecting her. I should’ve done more.
He doesn’t apologize for his blunt assholery, but I do see his expression lessen in severity when he takes in all the pain that I’m sure is radiating off of me in thick waves. I take a breath and ask again, a little calmer this time, “What are you doing here, Jett?”
He gives a pointed look that says you know why, and while I technically do know, I want to know how he ended up here. Lachlan speaks up before Jett can even open his mouth, answering my question.
“I continued to monitor Collins’ phone after she and Riley were taken, and I combed through older messages and ran a tracer in tandem with the newer threats.
I was trying to see if any of them could generate a shared location crosspoint, anything that could feed me hints of where he could’ve possibly taken her.
But—” He turns in his seat to look between me and Jett, annoyance crossing his features before schooling them again.
“My digging was continuously interrupted with an endless stream of calls and text messages.”
“I was worried about her,” Jett says, running a thick hand over the faded buzz cut he’s now sporting.
Jett shrugs and glances out the window into the slowly fading darkness beyond before returning his attention to me once more.
“I always worry about the girls when I don’t hear from them for too long.
I expected communication with Collins to fade over time, but when I didn’t even get so much as a fuck off when I checked in on her time and time again, I felt it in my gut that something wasn’t right.
” He hits me with a glare that could kill, the ire reigniting in his eyes enough to make me flinch.
“But the last fucking thing I expected to hear—from a total stranger—was that she’d been fucking kidnapped.
And it happened right. Under. Your. Fucking. Nose.”
That pisses me off. He’s right, but motherfucker be damned if I let him add to the guilt that’s already eating me alive. I meet his anger with my own, letting him see the craze lurking just beneath the surface.
“If you believe for one goddamned second that I don’t fucking hate myself for what happened, you’ve got another think coming, motherfucker,” I snarl back at him.
“We had no idea just how resourceful Guy was. He’s a wealthy man who has a fuck ton of money and a lot more people in his pocket than we expected, apparently.
This prick somehow managed to even outsmart the fucking mafia,” I spit, and I swear I catch Lachlan flinching in his seat.
“He had hired a highly skilled marksman who took out twelve security guards in the blink of an eye. He hurt Collins, shot Riley, and threw the both of them into the trunk of a car like it was nothing. Sped off with them before we even got a fucking security alert.”
I’m full-on yelling now, my chest heaving with the force of my words as I spew them at Jett and his accusatory looks.
“If you’re here to help, then fucking help.
But don’t come around throwing accusations and judgment at me when you have no goddamned clue who the fuck we’re actually dealing with.
” I jab a finger in his chest and lean in close, my voice dropping to a threatening tone. “Get informed or get the fuck out.”
“Guys, shut the fuck up,” Lachlan interrupts, his voice leaving no room for argument. “We’re getting close.”
Jett looks like he wants to say something, but instead, he faces forward, his hands gripping and squeezing the straps of his bullet-proof vest. Silence fills the cab, but the air around us is charged with so much rage, fury, and anticipation that I could fucking choke on it.
We make our way down the two-lane road when an eerie sense of dread cascades over me like a tidal wave, and I find that for the first time tonight, I’m fucking scared.
I have to hold onto hope that Riley and Collins are both alive, but the terrifying truth is that I have no idea what we’ll be charging into.
Never in my twenty-nine years did I think that I’d be this deeply involved with the Scottish mafia.
That we’d be on our way to rescue the two people who make up each half of my soul.
Who were kidnapped by a violent, sadistic man, and that I’ve been armed with a gun and was briefly trained on how to shoot to kill.
To fucking kill someone. Multiple someones, according to Lachlan.
None of this shit was on my fucking life bingo card.
Turning in his seat, Lachlan pins me with a harsh glare as he speaks, “When we arrive, we stay in the vehicle—”
“No—”
“We stay in the vehicle,” he repeats over my argument, “until I have disarmed the CCTV system, and the security around the perimeter has been eliminated. Our goal is to retrieve Riley and Collins, but we can’t do that if you charge ahead and get yourself shot or killed in the process.
Once clear, only then will you move in. Camden will lead the team.
He and his men will do the initial sweep before they break off into smaller groups to clear out the rest of the building.
“You and Jett will follow behind. Always watch your surroundings, but keep an eye on Camdan. He will dictate every advancement you make until Collins and Riley are secure. You keep your guns drawn until all threats have been eliminated. You see someone who isn’t one of our men in these uniforms,” he gestures to his driver and to the foot soldiers now filing out of the vehicles, their dark forms barely visible since the sun has yet to rise this early in the morning. “You shoot. You aim to kill.”