Chapter Eighteen #2
Jake lifted the device that was the master controller for all our security systems from the front of our car. “Like fish in a barrel,” he muttered as we stalked across the carpark.
We all walked in through the door which had been forced open, and Jake clicked the button to lock us all in, metal shutters slamming into place. They tended not to be down as we didn’t want to draw attention to this location.
Everyone was now locked into this place, and the only way to get out of here was the controller that was currently in Jake’s pocket.
I slid the glasses from the inside pocket of my suit pocket, and put them on to allow me to see in the darkness.
The four of us spread out, each with our weapons raised and ready.
I stuck close to the wall, watching for any movement, my ears straining with every step I took.
The faint echo of voices sounded from the rear of the unit, the odd word reaching us.
I motioned for Lewis to go around to close off the exit from the rear of the office.
Stefan moved to the reception area since it gave him clear sight of where the men were currently searching.
Jake and I moved directly toward the men who had broken into our property.
“It would have been so much easier if you had just knocked the door during daylight when the staff are here,” I said from the doorway, resting my hip on the doorframe.
Four sets of startled gazes moved in my direction. Time seemed to pause for a moment, before they sprang into action, gunshots firing in our direction. I dodged behind the wall, Jake aiming into the room from his position on the floor. The man on the left flew back and slid down the wall.
While they were trying to determine where the gunfire was coming from, I stepped into the doorway again, aiming directly at the man standing in front of the filing cabinet.
The head was the ultimate target, as no one ever crawled away with their brains blown out.
I emptied a magazine, and spun back behind the wall, turning the light in the office off, and plunging it into darkness.
“There’s more in the back of the complex,” Lewis said in my earpiece.
I motioned Stefan to go and help Lewis deal with the situation at the back of the premises.
“I don’t like this,” Jake said, dodging away from the gunfire coming from our office. “Why this location, and why this many men?”
It was a good question that I had every intention of putting to one of the remaining men in this room.
Gunfire sounded in the distance, the scent of spent ammunition in the air.
I needed one of these assholes alive to question, and that wasn’t going to happen if we continued to eliminate them one at a time with bullets.
“Cover me,” I said to Jake, crouching low, and using his gunfire to creep into the room. The darkness was my friend since I had glasses that allowed me to see. The other men didn’t seem to have our technology since they entered the building with torches.
The two men in the office were returning fire at Jake, allowing me to move closer to them.
I slipped the dagger from inside my jacket, cautiously moving forward until I was beside the man I had killed a few moments ago.
The men were on the other side of the desk, and I managed to manoeuvre myself past the body and to the side of the desk, which made me within striking distance of them.
I touched the device in my ear twice, letting Jake know I was ready to move.
He started firing into the room again from the doorway, drawing the attention of the two men.
The knee was a non-essential organ that caused horrendous pain but didn’t kill you.
I spun around, stabbing my blade hard and deep into the side of the knee of the man closest to me.
His gun dropped to the floor as he howled in pain.
Jake continued to shoot from the doorway, and I took the moment of confusion to shoot the other man in the legs, bringing him to the floor.
“Jake!” I called kicking the gun on the floor away from the man I stabbed in the knee.
The lights went on in the room, and I touched the side of my glasses to compensate for the blinding light. The second man was trying to struggle something from inside his jacket. Jake’s foot landed on his chest.
“I wouldn’t if I was you,” Jake commented dryly. “I’m more than happy to send you to the afterlife, but we have a few questions first.”
“Fuck you! I’m not saying a fucking word.”
“That’s six technically,” I replied, resting my ass on the desk to stare down at them. “There is no need for bad manners. First, you break into my premises and cause damage, and then you bleed all over my floor, and then decide to be rude on top of it all.”
“You shot me!” he screamed. “That’s why I’m bleeding.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “You’re in my property, only your master knows you’re here, so technically I can do whatever I want with you.”
He looked at his companion, and I saw the moment they realised the danger they were in. I had no problem torturing them for information, and sending their remains to whoever had sanctioned this nonsense.
Jake slammed his heel into a gun wound on asshole two’s leg, and he flinched back. “You have two choices. Tell us what we want to know, and there may be a chance of survival, or you die a long and protracted death.”
“There are ways to ensure someone remains alive while we skin them, and then take them apart a piece at a time,” I added. “Either way, everyone breaks.”
I had no problem being proved wrong, but I had never seen anyone withstand being in one of our dungeons.
The reason no one ever released information on what happened there was because Jake and I were the ones who got our hands dirty.
Neither of us had any intention on revealing our secrets since we were family, and that meant more than wealth or power.
Jake knelt down to stare at the two men. “I can confirm that everyone breaks when enough pressure is applied.” He pursed his lips together for a moment. “The key is to find the pain level that tips the person over the edge.”
He calmly stood and shot the man closest to him in the foot.
“Non-fatal,” I said. “But there are so many nerve endings and tiny bones in your feet that it is agonising.”
Asshole two screamed, trying to reach his latest injury.
Jake looked at me, his jaw tight. “Why have criminals become so soft?” he asked. “They used to defy us, and refuse to acknowledge the pain they were in. Now, they’re crying and whinging with a tiny bullet wound.”
I shook my head, looking down at asshole one who I’d stabbed in the knee. “It’s disappointing,” I replied. “Take their guns away and they’re fucking useless.” I kicked his leg, and he cursed, trying to grab his knee again.
“Phones,” Jake demanded, holding his hand out.
Asshole two tried to resist until he had a gun put to the side of his head.
The will to want to live was greater than the preservation of self-respect.
It was disgusting – a man should prefer to die than crawl around the floor and cower in submission.
Jake swiftly changed the biometrics and password on the phones before sliding them into his pocket.
“Who sent you?” I asked, the sporadic sound of gunfire sounding in the background again.
Asshole one shook his head. “Don’t know. It was booked online and a payment sent through a secure server. Now let us go.” He tried to push himself up and I kicked him again.
“What was your mission here tonight?” I asked.
“There were two teams. I have no idea about the other mission, just that we were to ransack the office.” He glared at me in defiance, and a shimmer of respect initiated inside me.
“Just to ransack?” Jake queried. “Not look for anything, or steal anything?”
“No,” asshole two answered, trying to hold the wound on his knee. “There’s nothing here anyway.” He pointed toward the filing cabinet with blank pages in it.
“We know that,” I replied. “But whoever sent you doesn’t. I don’t believe you were sent here just to make a mess and leave.”
“Fuck off,” asshole two snapped. “I didn’t sign up for this. We’re not hardened criminals, we specialise in finding a way into locked buildings.” He rubbed his face, leaving a trail of blood down his face.
I glanced at Jake, and the expression on his face said he didn’t believe them anymore than I did. He shot asshole two in his other foot.
“Try again,” Jake said. “I suggest you make it a little more believable this time.”
Even with the wounds on his legs and feet, he tried to lunge forward, pulling a weapon from his belt.
He was fast, but Jake was faster, his gun already in his hand.
Asshole two didn’t even get his weapon raised before Jake’s bullet ripped through his wrist and hit asshole one who was still lying on the ground.
“I’ve had enough of this shit,” I said, my hand slicing through the air. “Package them up and send them in to be questioned. They’ve had enough of my time tonight.”
“Did you leave your pretty wife all alone?” Asshole one asked, his lips twisting in a disgusting grin.
If he hoped he would bait me into ending his suffering, he was wrong.
I knelt down to stare directly at him. “My wife is never without my protection,” I replied, twisting my blade in his knee before dragging it from his leg and wiping the blood on his top.
“However, now that you dared to mention her, I will ensure that you suffer every second until you finally discover if there really is a God.”
Jake zip-tied Asshole two’s ankles and then wrists together before moving to Asshole one to secure him. “You made a grave mistake mentioning Maximus’ wife,” Jake chuckled, tightening the zip-tie at his wrists. “There are many ways to die, and you just chose the worst.”
“I’m going to check if Lewis and Stefan need help,” I said, moving to the room door. “Check what these two were up to.”
I stalked from the room, cold anger clawing inside me since they mentioned Olivia. No one needed to tell me she was a weakness, I was already fighting against the urge to take my phone out and check the cameras at home.
Lewis had one of our burglars on his knees, his gun pointed to his head.
“Problem?” I asked, moving down the corridor to them.
“These dicks were trying to plant drugs,” Lewis replied. “No doubt there would have been an anonymous call to the police tomorrow.”
I was a criminal, and had no problem taking a life or fucking with people, but drugs were a no-go area. It wrecked people’s lives and those around them. One of my friends from high school fucked up his life and destroyed his family through drugs, so it was a line I refused to cross.
“Where?” I demanded, and Lewis nodded over toward the rear storage area.
Stefan stood in the middle of the room, three men dead on the floor. Blocks of cocaine sat on the desk, and an open case was beside it.
“Looks like we have someone trying to set us up,” I said.
“That someone spent a lot of money to give us a bad day,” Stefan replied. “There’s a few hundred grand worth there.”
“Get rid of it,” I snapped. “You know how I feel about this shit.”
Stefan nodded once. “We all feel that way since Paul. I’ll toss it in our incinerator when we get back.” He started packing it back in the suitcase. “My guess is that whoever sent this knows your feelings about drugs.”
“It’s probably why they picked it.” My mind wandered around all the other families to determine who had the balls to pull this stunt off.
There weren’t many since they knew what I would do to them.
It was no secret how I dealt with a problem, and it normally ended with a body bag and a trip to the incinerator.
“We need to clear this mess up,” I said. “No one knows we had intercepted them tonight, so we’ll let them think they finished the job.
Stefan pulled his phone out, and started to type. “How many bodies in the office?”
“Two and two being recovered,” I replied.
He nodded and continued to type, obviously contacting our clean-up crew. “I’ll make sure there is no sign of them ever being here.”
“No doubt we’ll get a visitation tomorrow,” I said. “Make sure we have office staff here to welcome them.”
Normally, there was no staff here since we rarely used this building for anything other than for a mail drop. I spun on my heel and left the room, patrolling around the inside of the building to ensure there was no one else hiding.
Jake found me as I was forwarding through the security footage before I wiped it. I counted them in, watching what they had with them, and mentally cataloguing what I’d seen in the rooms.
“We’re missing another small case,” I said to Jake. “We need to find it.”
“I’ll check the motion detectors to see where they have been,” he replied, moving to the monitor.
Someone had just shit on my doorstep, and I refused to let that go unpunished. When I discovered who had cut my honeymoon short, and threatened my future, I would happily put a bullet in their head and slit their throat.