Chapter 35
Quill
“No fucking way. No fucking way are we getting out of this alive. There’s just no fucking way.”
By now, I fully regret sharing my doubts with Josh. The words he speaks in a low, barely audible voice as he follows me through a number of different storage spaces, are doing nothing to appease my own nerves.
This is all fucked. I would never have gone on this type of mission back when I was working for Tragen. A contract is for a single man. I wasn’t trained for this.
Wiping out two entire criminal organizations in one go. The whole thing is fucking insane. Logan can’t possibly expect us to get out alive. At most, he’s hoping we’ll manage to sneak the bomb in, and then we’ll blow up with all of them.
There’s no fucking way, either, that the five men I spotted from the Moretti camp heading into the building twenty minutes ago are the only members of that gang. Does that mean there are more lurking inside? How many more?
We’ve seen neither Moretti’s men nor Coltello’s since entering.
I haven’t heard any gunfire yet, which means the two groups haven’t found each other either.
It unsettles me not to have eyes on our enemies.
The first thing I usually do when killing a contract is to stake them out.
Know where they are at all times. There’s nothing more important than that.
Right now, it’s like I’m walking blindly.
“Why can’t we just leave the bomb and get the hell out?” whispers Josh, shivering violently.
“It’s not powerful enough to destroy the entire building. We have to find them first, and leave it nearby.”
I’m sweating bullets. I’m lugging an AK-47 in one arm, the bomb in the other. I didn’t even suggest Josh take one of them. He’s so nervous he probably would have let them drop and blown us up before we’d even entered the building.
I glance at the timer I activated. Twenty minutes to go. I’d hesitated to start it already, but if we’re attacked before we can leave, at least, the countdown will have begun. It drastically reduces the chances of them getting out alive.
Not that I’m planning on getting attacked. Logan may view this as a suicide mission, but I’m determined it won’t be. I’m equally determined to follow through on his plan. Josh’s logic has convinced me. He may not give a shit about us, but as long as he cares about Piper, I’ll go along with him.
“Fuck,” hisses Josh suddenly. Then he points mutely to something on his left.
I creep back the few steps that separate me from him. Following his gaze, I can just make out a ray of light a few rooms down. There’s a presence over there, and whoever it is is being just as quiet as we are. Though I have no idea why.
Why would Coltello’s men be quiet? Do they know Moretti’s men are already in the building? Or do these men belong to the Moretti faction?
Regardless, we’ve found some of the men we’re supposed to kill, and I guess that’s enough.
I’m not going to wait around for perfect conditions.
I gesture for Josh to follow. Peeking through the crack in the hinge of the door, I have positive confirmation that the room there is occupied.
There’s no way to tell which group the small group of men belong to, but at least we’ll be bombing someone.
I crouch down, sliding the bomb toward the wall noiselessly, and set it up. Maybe we’ll get out of this without a fight, after all. I hadn’t expected it to be so easy. I let myself breathe a sigh of relief.
Then I feel Josh’s leg nudge me, barely perceptibly. He’s sidled up to me, only now, he’s facing the opposite direction. Fuck.
I don’t need to turn around to know just how screwed we are. I don’t need to hear the whispered order to put my hands up, one of them still holding limply to the AK-47.
No use resisting. We’ve been found.
The only thing I can hope for is that the men behind us have just as good a reason for hiding as we do.
Inching back up, I train my eyes toward the barrel of the gun pointed straight at me. Then to the man who’s pointing it.
He’s surrounded by four others. They outnumber us, and yet they look just as stressed out as we do.
We’re clearly in the worst position. Sandwiched between them and the group behind us.
And yet, every single one of us is trying to be as quiet as possible.
It suddenly occurs to me that both these groups must have at least some intelligence on the fact that there’s going to be bloodshed tonight.
This is a fucking ambush on all sides. With each group believing they’ve outsmarted the other.
The men in front of us are clearly waiting for backup. And so is the group hiding out in the room behind us.
Fuck. Me. Backup.
The significance of that erupts in my brain. The men in the warehouse right now represent only a few members of the Moretti and Coltello groups. We went through all this trouble to kill what probably amounts to a tiny portion of the threat to Piper.
We’re too fucking early.
I can feel Josh silently decomposing beside me. But my mind is sharp. I thrive on danger. It helps me think.
The men in front of us don’t want to shoot. They’ve spotted the bomb, and their minds are clearly working hard. If they fire their guns, it will alert their enemies to their presence. And they’ve probably received strict orders.
Breach the warehouse. Wait for backup.
Surprise is on my side. Surprise, and a much deeper resolve. Because they’re doing this for the pay. I’m doing this for my wife.
Before they’ve even had time to register my intention, I kick Josh hard in the shins.
He topples over, and I whip down the AK-47, then let it explode on them, wiping the entire group out in a matter of moments.
One of them manages to shoot at my leg, but it’s nothing.
Nothing that would prevent me from murdering them all in cold blood.
The group behind me doesn’t even have time to react before I barge in and wipe out that faction too.
At least Logan left me an AK-47. It’s much more potent than their one-shot guns.
Though they do manage to lodge another bullet in the same fucking leg.
That’s their one pathetic attempt to save themselves.
I hobble to each of them, shooting them individually for good measure.
I don’t stop until I’m sure that every single one of the pieces of shit are dead.
When I stop at last, I notice Josh in the corner, retching his guts out. The pain in my leg goes from being a pinprick, forgotten in the adrenaline of the moment, to a crushing burn that brings me to my knees.
“Fuck,” I groan. “Fuck.”
My pain seems to initially calm Josh down from his freak-out. He stares at me, then at the bomb, then back at me.
“Fuck!” he cries out, echoing my word. “It’s gonna explode! Five fucking minutes! You’ve got to turn it off, man!”
“You’re the genius,” I grunt, the overwhelming pain making me hiss. “You fucking turn it off.”
“I don’t know how. I don’t know how!”
The poor kid looks like he’s about to pass out from fear. Meanwhile, I’m about to pass out too, from the mangled state of my leg.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I growl. “Fuck off, Josh. Now.”
He shakes his head furiously and runs over to me, dodging the dead bodies that litter the room.
Then he grabs me by the shoulder, pulling me up with difficulty.
This is stupid. This is useless. Josh is nowhere near as heavy as me.
I’m over six feet tall, made of solid muscle.
He can’t be bigger than 5’7, and he’s a skinny kid with baby fat on his cheeks.
Somehow, though, adrenaline allows him to half carry me through the passages and rooms that border the large, empty space of the main part of the warehouse. It’s slow, though. So fucking slow. There’s just no way we’re getting out in time.
“We don’t have to get out,” he gasps, as though reading my thoughts. “We just need to get far enough from the bomb. You told me it wasn’t powerful enough for the whole building, didn’t you?”
I groan with the difficulty of speaking. “I don’t think… I don’t think we’re out of its range yet. But you… you can… you can save yourself, Josh…”
I’m losing consciousness fast, my mind dizzy. But I don’t think I’ve lost that much blood yet. When I look down, I feel sick to my stomach at seeing bone peek out of my wound. It’s the pain, not the bleeding, that makes me feel like I’m going to pass out. I can’t even power through it for Piper.
I’m fucking weak.
By the time we spot the door in the distance, I know it’s too late. Five minutes have passed.
I just have time to register the very surprising sight, through the open door, of what can only be described as a… battlefield, before I feel myself being propelled in the air by a powerful explosion.