Chapter 5 — Diesel #2
An hour passes. Then another. The sun comes up full outside the windows and the waiting room gets brighter but the fluorescent lights don't turn off, just keep humming their constant noise that gets inside your head.
A few other people drift in, an older couple holding hands and not talking, a woman in scrubs who looks like she just finished a shift and is here for someone she knows.
At eight-fifty a surgeon comes through the double doors. Woman, maybe forty-five, still in scrubs with a surgical cap and mask pulled down around her neck. She looks tired in the way of someone who's been standing for hours.
"You're here for Raymond Torres?" she asks.
"Yeah."
"I'm Dr. Patel. I just finished his surgery.
" She sits in the chair across from me instead of standing, which I read immediately as bad news delivered with an attempt at compassion.
"He's stable now but it was touch and go for a while.
He came in with severe head trauma, multiple facial fractures, three broken ribs, and internal bleeding from a ruptured spleen.
We've repaired what we could, stabilized the bleeding, set the fractures. He's going to survive."
The relief hits first, sharp and immediate, like someone released pressure I didn't know I was holding. He's alive.
"But," she continues, and the word hangs there heavy.
"The head trauma was significant. We won't know the full extent of any cognitive impairment until he wakes up and we can do assessments.
His right orbital bone is fractured badly enough that there may be permanent vision issues in that eye.
The ribs are going to take months to heal fully and he's going to be in considerable pain during that time.
This wasn't just an assault. This was someone trying to send a message by making sure the damage was visible and lasting. "
She's right. That's exactly what this was.
"Can I see him?" I ask.
"He's in recovery now. Won't be conscious for several hours. But once he's moved to ICU you can sit with him. Give it maybe another thirty, forty minutes."
She stands and I stand too. "Thank you," I say, and I mean it even though gratitude feels inadequate for keeping Ray alive.
She nods and heads back through the double doors and I'm alone again with the humming lights and the silent TV and the knowledge that Ray's alive but broken, and Dutch is somewhere out there thinking he got away with it.
My phone rings. Cain.
I answer. "Yeah."
"We found Dutch," he says without preamble.
"Marrow warehouse outside county line, same one we've been watching for two months.
He's there with two prospects. They're moving product, probably trying to distribute before we can respond to Ray's beating.
They don't know we've already confirmed it was Dutch who did it. "
"How do you know it was him?"
"Witness. Woman who lives across from Ray saw two men. One matched Dutch's description—six-three, scar across his throat, massive. The other was younger, maybe early twenties. They used a bat. She called 911 but didn't want to give her name because she's afraid of retaliation."
The image forms immediately. Dutch with a bat. Ray's driveway. Blood everywhere.
The rage that I've been controlling since the hospital floods back, hotter now, more focused.
"When do we move?" I ask.
"Twenty-two hundred tonight. Gives us time to prep, makes sure Dutch is still there, lets us move in dark. Strike team is you, me, Tate, Clint, Holt, Knox. Two vehicles. Hard and fast. Dutch is primary target but we take the prospects if they don't run. Product gets burned. Building gets burned."
"I want Dutch."
"You'll get him. But you extract intel first. We need to know what else Crane's planning before you finish him."
"And after?"
"After that he's yours."
The line goes quiet for a second and then Cain says, "How's Ray?"
"Alive. Stable. But he's got head trauma and facial fractures and broken ribs and internal bleeding. Doctor says he'll survive but the damage is permanent."
"Fuck."
"Yeah."
"We're going to make this right," Cain says. "Dutch doesn't walk away from this. Neither do the prospects who were with him. This gets handled tonight."
"I'll be back by fourteen hundred for planning."
I end the call and a nurse comes through the double doors, younger than Dr. Patel, scrubs that are too big for her.
"Mr. Torres has been moved to ICU," she says. "Room 314. You can sit with him now but he's not going to wake up for a while. The anesthesia needs time to wear off and we've got him on pain management that'll keep him pretty out of it even when he does start to surface."
I follow her through a maze of corridors to ICU and room 314 is at the end, door open, lights dim. Ray's in the bed hooked up to machines that beep and hiss and show numbers I don't understand but can read as serious based on how many of them there are.
His face is destroyed.
That's the only word for it. Both eyes swollen shut, blackened, the right one worse than the left where the orbital fracture is.
His nose is clearly broken, pushed to one side, taped but still misshapen.
His jaw is wrong, the left side swollen and discolored where the fracture runs along the bone.
Cuts and abrasions across his forehead and cheeks, some stitched, some just cleaned and bandaged. His lips are split and swollen.
This is what Dutch did to him.
This is what my decision bought.
I sit in the chair beside the bed and I look at what Ray's become because I made Sienna visible, because I wanted to provoke Crane, because I thought the strategic value was worth the risk.
I was wrong.
This isn't worth it. Ray in this bed isn't worth any strategic advantage we gained from those photos.
I sit there for an hour watching him breathe through the oxygen mask, watching the machines track his vitals, and the whole time I'm thinking about tonight. About the warehouse. About Dutch.
About what I'm going to do when I find him.
At noon I head back to the clubhouse because sitting here isn't helping Ray and I need to be part of the planning. The yard is active when I pull in, brothers prepping bikes even though we're taking trucks tonight, the physical work a way to burn off the tension that's running through everyone.
Inside, Clint and Tate are at the main table with maps spread out and Cain's laptop open. Holt's near the window and Knox is leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
"How's Ray?" Clint asks when I walk in.
"Face is destroyed. Orbital fracture, broken jaw, broken nose, cuts and bruising everywhere. Ribs are broken, spleen was ruptured. He's alive but he's going to be in pain for months and the doctor says there might be permanent damage to his vision and his cognitive function."
The room goes quiet. Everyone processing what that means, what Dutch did, what we're going to do about it.
"Then we make sure the message we send back is clear," Clint says. "Dutch doesn't just get beaten. He gets removed. Permanently. Along with anyone who was with him."
He turns to the map and I move closer to see what they've planned. The warehouse is marked in red, access roads highlighted in yellow, known camera positions noted in blue. Cain's network is thorough.
"Two prospects confirmed inside as of two hours ago," Cain says. "Dutch arrived around nine this morning and hasn't left. They're moving product but they're not rushing, which means they think they have time before we respond. They're wrong."
"What's the approach?" I ask.
Tate points to the map. "Two vehicles. Clint, you, and me in the first truck coming from the east access road here.
Cain, Holt, Knox in the second coming from the west. We box them in, cut off escape routes.
Warehouse has two exits, front door and a bay door on the south side.
Cain's team takes the front, we take the bay.
They come out or we go in, but either way they don't leave. "
"Intel says they're armed," Cain adds. "Handguns for sure, maybe shotguns. We go in expecting resistance."
"Good," I say. "I want them to resist."
Clint looks at me and I can see him reading the rage that's still burning, still demanding release.
"You get Dutch, but you control it. You don't go rogue, you don't take unnecessary risks, and you extract intel about what Crane's planning before you finish him.
We need to know if there's more coming."
"I'll get intel."
"And after?"
"After that he doesn't get back up."
We spend the next hour going through tactical details, coordinating timing, making sure everyone knows their role. It's clean, efficient, the kind of operation we've run enough times that the choreography is familiar.
By thirteen-thirty we're done planning and the rest is just waiting for twenty-two hundred to arrive.
I head outside needing air and find Sienna standing near the fence line at the edge of the yard, arms crossed, looking out toward the road like she's watching for something. The sun is high and brutal, August heat that sits heavy, and her dark hair is down past her shoulders catching the light.
She turns when she hears my boots on gravel and I see her take me in, see her eyes track my face and read exactly what's happening.
"Ray?" she asks.
"Alive. ICU. Critical. Face is destroyed, ribs broken, internal bleeding. He'll survive but he's going to carry the damage permanently."
I watch her process that, watch the guilt settle in her expression the same way it's settled in mine.
"This is my fault," she says quietly. "If I hadn't come here—"
"Don't." The word comes out harder than I intended. "Don't do that. This is on Dutch and it's on Crane and it's on me for making the arrangement public. But it's not on you. You didn't put Ray in that hospital. Dutch did."
"Dutch did it because my father sent him. And my father sent him because of the photos. Because I'm here with you."