3. Parker
PARKER
T he sounds of the chopper were fading fast as I was left standing amongst the wreckage of my asinine decision.
Sweat poured down my face and my shirt clung to my body due to the sun's oppressive heat on the pavement.
Add in being so close to the chopper and my adrenaline rush, I was surprised to have a dry spot on my body.
Using the back of my hand, I wiped the grime off my forehead as Anton pulled up in the SUV. It had taken a couple of minor dents but nothing serious. Not when it was bulletproof. The Chopper hadn’t fared as well, but it should still be usable.
Men groaning and panting in pain lay scattered around the pad. We lost a few. And that was unfortunate but not unexpected. Without letting myself linger on the ones lost, I searched for one who wasn’t mine.
One who was still alive.
“They took her!” Anton yelled as he jumped out of the driver’s seat, clutching one bloody hand to his chest. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he turned in the direction the chopper had gone.
The sight of Little Love being carted away while I was ducking from gunshots was seared into my brain. If I let myself delay on it too long, it would engulf my thoughts, and that was a handicap I couldn’t afford right now.
Fuck. I hadn’t thought they’d attack us like this. I hadn’t anticipated they’d hit us at the pad rather than us storming the warehouse. So many mistakes that were carving themselves into my skin so deeply I’d never be able to forget them.
I couldn’t do anything about saving Little Love now. The stupid, stupid girl was more of a liability than I thought, and I was the foolish pendejo who’d allowed her to come.
Grey was going to kill me, but first, I needed to figure out how to get us all out of this mess.
I struggled to get my emotions under control and managed to spot a man on the far side, almost hidden by the chopper. He had rolled onto his stomach and was attempting to crawl away from us.
It was a day for fools, apparently.
The fuckwad thought he’d find cover in the mostly dirt field.
I glanced at Anton as he started checking on our guys. His hand was still held to his chest. “Hit?” I nodded to his hand when he glanced at me.
He sighed. “I lost a finger, but otherwise unharmed. I’ve been applying pressure.”
Anger whipped through me. “You’ll get your pound of flesh. I’ll make sure of it.”
Anton grunted then turned over a man we’d lost. There was no room for doubt since the bottom of his jaw was blown out.
“Get the men who are injured in the chopper and fixed up. Stack the dead inside, and we’ll take them back to their families. Piss on Vicente’s men for all I fucking care,” I ordered as I stormed to the man, who hadn’t realized he had about ten seconds of peace left.
When I reached him, I reared back and kicked his shoulder with enough force that he flipped over. He screamed and clutched at his hip and thigh. Shot twice and would probably bleed out without any assistance. From the look on his face, he knew it.
So the man was crawling away to die alone.
Too fucking bad. He’d lose his life staring into my eyes as I pulled every secret from his useless lips.
I crouched down and tapped two fingers on his thigh right below the bullet wound. “Do you know who I am?”
“M-Mr. Adair, sir,” he babbled.
“Whose man are you?” I walked my fingers around the bloody wound.
“M-M-Mr. Castillo, sir. I wasn’t tr—”
I shoved my finger into the hole and wiggled it around. The man screamed as his back bowed, but he didn’t try to slap my hand away. That was good. At least he understood that would undoubtedly make his situation worse. If he knew anything, he would also learn that empty answers only brought pain.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t cut my fun short.
Cords stood out in his neck as he rolled his head side to side long after he stopped screaming. My finger was no longer moving, but I still left it in the wound. It was more efficient that way.
“Care to tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“I don’t—”
I sighed as I hooked my digit and dug into the hot, wet muscle. “I can do this all day, although I imagine you can’t. You’re not going to live, and I have places to be. So if I were you, I’d start talking and hope for a quick death.”
After a full minute, he relaxed on the pad, his harsh breathing only broken up by a mewling groan here and there. “We got here this morning,” he panted. “Mr. Castillo brought his brother and they wanted to draw out Mr. Nilsen.”
“How would they do that?” I pulled my hand back and reached for my knife instead. If you focused on one area too much, they’d get numb to the pain. At least in the short term. Plus, solely using one technique wasn’t nearly as gratifying.
The potent frenzy trying to take over my common sense would only be mollified with a bit of bloodshed, and this man was going to help me get it under control.
“I don’t—” His shrieks filled the air as I slammed my knife through his bicep, careful to miss the bone.
“Now, I could twist or pull the blade out. If you answer my question, you can choose.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, then another, without seeming to let out any air. His dark brown eyes were glassy and wild as he searched the area around us.
“You’re the only one alive from your team. The rest are gone or dead, which means no one will save you here. Now answer my question.”
Anton was in full-action behind me. Some of the men’s low conversation reached my ears, along with a few curses and the smack of dead weight on the floor of the chopper.
Though, this one at my feet was utterly oblivious to everything except his pain and my face. The wheels turned in his head and I started to believe he didn’t know how they got Lafe here.
“He’s pissed the club in California was torched. He wants to make you all pay, but he doesn’t want to kill you. Any of you.”
I canted my head. “Now that’s funny, because he’s placed a bounty on our heads, dead or alive.”
He furiously shook his head. “It’s a game. It’s all fun to him, but he doesn’t actually want you dead, just to teach you a lesson. For Lafe, the plan is to torture him just a little, then leave him here for you all to find.”
“What type of torture?” I purred as I tightened my grip on the handle. Maybe this man wasn’t so worthless, after all, if even a tenth of his intel was accurate.
Don’t worry, Little Love. I’ll come save you and my dear brother. And I’ll be smarter about it this time.
“He just wanted to slice him up a little. Remind him that he should be grateful to be so high up in the Institution. I swear! That’s all he wanted to do!”
“Twist or pull, your choice.”
“Pull,” he said with a grimace.
“Good choice.” I grinned and pulled the blade out, slicing as much of his arm as possible.
If he lived, which he wouldn’t, this arm would be completely useless.
He kept his mouth shut to muffle more of the screams. Before he was done, I slammed the blade into the lower part of his outer thigh, missing the femoral artery.
“Now, what do they plan to do with the girl?”
“I don’t know! We didn’t know she’d be here!” He nearly deafened me with his high-pitched cry.
I shoved a finger in my ear to ease the pain. “Make an educated guess. Why did your team take her, and what do you think they’ll do with her?”
He raised his hand to cover his face as a sob racked his chest. I gave him a few seconds to collect himself. He was dealing with quite a lot of pain. Not too much, since I needed him coherent, but enough that the answers should flow freely now.
Well, the facts, anyway. He’d had to put a little effort into any assumptions.
“Ever-everyone knows that your cunt—shit. I mean, everyone knows what your girl looks like. When we saw her, Manny knew he had an opportunity to take her. He ordered us not to kill you but to take her. And he got her.”
“It was rather lucky I wasn’t hit. But that didn’t stop you pendejos from shooting at me. How many men are here with Vicente?”
“Uh—twenty. Um—less now.” His gaze tried to dart behind me, but he couldn’t see anything on the ground without lifting his head.
“Got it. How did you know we’d reached the pad?”
“The security cameras.”
Fuck, I was stupid. It wasn’t often I was an idiot, and I didn’t fucking like it. This stopped now.
“How are the men spread out?” I asked, gripping the handle again.
His breathing quickened when he noticed what I was doing. “Most are stationed around the outside. Two in the security room,” he rushed out.
So they’d see us coming, regardless.
“Anything else you think I’d need to know?”
His eyes rolled back in his head as he thought about it. He was trying hard to find something of value. In the end, he shook his head. “No, I can’t think of anything else.”
“Fair enough,” I said, ripping the blade out of his thigh.
Another peel of screams. I raised my arm to slice his throat.
“Wait! Wait, wait!” He lifted a hand to hold me off. A weak attempt, but I’d see what he had to say.
“Yes?” I quirked a brow.
“Don’t kill me. Let me die on my own. We both know I won’t make it,” he gasped, as big, fat tears rolled down his temples.
“What’s it worth to you? Anything else you can think of? Something that might not have come to you before?” I asked drily. Every man knew more than what he was willing to part with. Even under torture. What did this man know?
His eyes widened and his lips opened and closed like a fish.
When he didn’t say anything, I sighed. Evidently, I was wrong. He didn’t actually know anything else. I struck before he had time to realize what had happened. The long red line across his neck bubbled, releasing a wave of blood.
“You should have let the asshole take his time bleeding out,” Anton snarled.
I pushed to my feet, watching the life drain from the man’s eyes. “I didn’t have time to babysit him. This was faster. How many do we still have in fighting shape?” I turned toward him.
His less dominant hand was bandaged and he held his gun in his other hand. The dark scowl on his face displayed precisely how much he wanted to rip something apart. He’d need it if they could see us coming. Anger and revenge were the advantages here.
“Six. Two dead. Two who need serious medical care. Some of the others have injuries, but not bad enough to knock them out of the fight yet.”
Nodding, I walked back toward the SUVs. In all the chaos, we’d gotten two over to us.
“Then let’s load everyone up. They’re watching the cameras and would have seen everything we just did.
They will be ready for us and will hit us with everything they have.
” I slapped him on the back as he stepped up next to me.
“How do you feel about playing a game of Frogger?”