25. Dawson
Dawson
“Is everyone in position?” I ask Xander as we pull up to Malik’s estate.
It’s not unlike Xander’s compound in a lot of ways.
There are armed guards roaming the property and various buildings for security.
The majority of Malik’s men live here on these lands with him, so getting inside is going to be a hassle. But this is what Xander does.
“Affirmative,” Xander says with a nod as we climb out of the car.
It’s evening, so we have the advantage of darkness to shroud our movements as we approach the gates.
The guard stationed in the booth doesn’t see any of us; he’s far too busy looking at his phone to care.
This is a covert operation, so we have to infiltrate this estate as quietly as we possibly can.
Xander’s son, Quinton, takes the lead as he walks around the station and slides the door open with a hunting knife in hand.
Before the guard can even raise his eyes from the phone to see who’s walking in, the knife is against his throat and blood is pooling in his lap.
He falls limp against the control panel, so Quinton has to move his body to open the gates for all of us.
I’ve never done anything like this before.
I’ve been in fights, and I’ve encountered people like Malik, but I’ve never gotten my hands dirty like this.
We’ve always had people for that. In fact, that’s what the whole deal with Harper was for, to begin with.
My dad needed more people to get their hands dirty for him.
I suppose it’s too bad for him that I’m taking all of that away now.
I won’t leave this compound until Malik and everybody who works for him is dead. I won’t leave until I’ve had my revenge satiated.
“Okay, gates are open, and the back door is unlocked,” Quinton says as he approaches me and his father.
He hands me a paper schedule that shows the names of various guards and their posts for the night.
Walkie-talkie codes and shift changes are all documented in detail.
“Looks like they run a pretty tight ship here.”
“Not nearly good enough,” Xander says under his breath as he scans the document and comes up with a new plan on the spot.
I wait beside them with all of Xander’s men armed and ready to storm toward the house and spill blood.
“Dawson, you and I will enter through the back door and head to Malik’s room.
Quinton, I want you at the front door with the others to create a distraction.
As soon as Malik gets word we’re here, he’s going to try to flee, so we need to get the jump on him. ”
“You don’t think he’d stay to fight?” I ask, knowing how much Malik loves violence.
“Not if it’s a losing battle. He’ll know soon enough that it is,” Xander replies with enough confidence that I don’t question it. Xander is the expert here, and I trust him.
“Let’s do this then,” I say as I turn off the safety on my gun and unhook the straps for the knives around my waist. Being armed as I am now is an odd feeling, but I have to remind myself of what it’s for. This is for Harper. I’m not going to let Malik hurt her while she’s here.
I knew about this plan all along, and I should have done something to stop this before it came to this. I was just foolish and na?ve, hoping I could save her. I should have known it wouldn’t be easy.
All of us follow Xander’s orders and maneuver our way around the estate. Xander and I go around the back, careful to avoid any guards that we might come across. One of them is stationed by the back door with a handgun out of its holster, pointed lazily at the ground.
Xander nods at me, and I aim my gun, elongated thanks to the noise suppresser, and pull the trigger. The gun makes a faint popping sound, but there is no echo, or alarm bells ringing for any of the other guards in the estate. The one by the back door collapses to the ground without any struggle.
We look around cautiously to make sure nobody else saw as we creep along the back of the house toward the door. I move the guard’s body out of the way so nobody else inside can see it before we’re ready. When that’s done, we push the door open and step inside the estate.
It’s big enough that I imagine a map would be very helpful for finding our way around.
Xander and I look for a stairwell, assuming Malik will be in his bedroom, which is most likely on the second floor.
As we’re looking, we hear a loud bang from the front of the house and footsteps scurrying from every direction.
The two of us kneel down behind a kitchen island while we hear the commotion of all the guards getting into position as our men descend upon the estate with weapons in hand.
We rush toward the staircase in the heart of the living room, pushing past all the guards trying to stop us. I shoot my gun to tear through some of them as I dodge out of the way to keep moving without hesitation.
Xander gets caught up in a squabble with one burly guard, and I move to help him, but Xander shakes his head. “You have to go!”
I don’t hesitate to turn around and run to the stairs again. Xander knows as well as I do what the mission is here. Of course, I want to kill Malik with every fiber of my being. But we’re here to save Harper. I have to find her and make sure she’s okay.
I climb the stairs as quickly as I can and begin kicking every door I come across down with my gun raised like this is some kind of SWAT raid. I search every room on the second floor, even looking in all the closets and under beds for any sign of Harper or Malik, but there is none.
The commotion downstairs settles down during my search, and by the time I’m done, the battle is won, and Xander stands victorious in the center.
“She’s not up there,” I call to them as I hurry down, immediately beginning my search of the first floor.
Everyone helps me look for Harper and Malik, but there’s no sign of them. The only sign of life in the entire estate is a maid who is hiding in a storage closet with her hands covering her ears. She’s crying and begging us not to hurt her, and all of us promise her we won’t.
“Just tell us where Malik is,” I urge her, resting my hands on her shoulders while I stare in her eyes, showing her the desperation I feel. “He should have a blonde girl with him. Where is she?”
She shakes under my grasp and takes a raspy breath as she looks over my shoulder at the danger possibly awaiting her should she not comply. “I overheard two of his men talking about taking someone to a brothel he owns. She must be there.”
I let her go and back away, feeling how my heart drops to my stomach. The thought of her being in some dingy, disgusting brothel with different men ogling her and reaching out to touch her makes my skin burn. Harper is mine, and nobody else gets to have her. I have to stop this.
We get the name of the brothel and general instructions of how to get there from the maid and leave as quickly as we can. A massacre is left behind us, but I don’t care.
Xander drives me and Quinton to the brothel as I stare out the window and think about what I’m going to have to do when I get there. If Malik is there with more of his men, we’ll just kill them. Just like we did everyone stationed at his house.
“Don’t worry, we’re going to find her,” Xander offers as we keep driving.
I believe him. No doubt we’re going to find her. The real question is, what kind of condition is she going to be in? The thought of finding her hurt or worse has my stomach twist.
It doesn’t take long before we’re pulling up outside of the brothel disguised as a nightclub. The maid told us there is a code word we have to use to get into the basement where the women work. The bouncer at the door tries to stop us, but we walk in regardless.
There was an option to be covert about this and give the person at the brothel door the code word, but instead I knee him in the groin and shove him to the ground, pointing a gun at his head. Nobody else in the nightclub seems to notice when I pull the trigger, and he goes limp on the stairs.
We walk into the brothel, and I immediately start searching for Harper amongst the women working.
Various different men are all drinking and looking at the women they’re going to pay for the evening.
Cigar smoke fills the room and only adds to the disgusting atmosphere as we walk through the crowd of people.
Everybody seems to turn their attention toward us when we approach.
A group of armed men will do that to a crowd.
People run and hide in the corners, locking themselves away in rooms. I’m about to yell out to the crowd to ask if anybody has seen Harper when I hear a shriek coming from one of the rooms and run toward it.
I kick the door down to see exactly what I was expecting.
Harper is lying on a bed with a man on top of her, trying to hold her arms above her head.
He’s clearly drunk and out of it, looking down at her body without a care for what she’s feeling.
He tears his eyes away from her and looks at me with his eyebrows wrinkled.
“Who the fuck are—” he starts before I raise my gun and shoot him in the head. With his eyes wide open, he crumbles to the ground, hitting the floor with a thud.
Harper screams again, the shrill sound echoes through the room. She looks up from the dead body toward the door and sees me standing here with the gun that just killed her would-be customer.
“Dawson…” she sobs, as I take in her beaten face.
I don’t waste a moment walking over to her and scooping her up in my arms. She doesn’t fight me as I carry her out of the brothel. Instead, she shakes and cries as she hangs on to me.
There are enough cars that I’m not worried about Xander and Quinton getting home, so I set her down in the car we drove in and immediately take off. I have to get her as far away from here as I can.
It takes a few minutes for her to settle down and wipe the tears from her eyes as she takes some deep breaths and tries to calm herself. I reach a hand out to grab hers, hoping I can let her know it’ll be okay. But she pulls away from me and leans against the door while glaring at me.
“You knew about this. This whole time, you knew.” The betrayal in her voice is hard to stomach.
I look away from the road briefly to see the hurt in her eyes, and I feel terrible.
She’s never looked at me like this, and I wish I could go back in time and change everything to make sure it never happened.
I did feel somewhat of a rush after everything happened, and seeing her now makes that feeling go away. But I understand why she’s acting like this.
“You have to believe me when I say I’ve tried everything to stop this,” I say, hoping I can sway her back into trusting me. “You have no idea what I just went through to save you. There’s a house filled with dead people right now because of it.”
“Is Malik one of them?” For the first time since rescuing her, there is hope in her voice. The bruises on her face must be from him. When I find him, I’m going to make sure he knows exactly what she went through because I won’t hold back.
“No, he must have escaped somewhere,” I reply, wishing I could say something different.
Harper looks away from me and stares blankly out the window.
“Well, it’s not over, is it?” Her voice is flat, and the hope is gone.
She’s right, and I hate knowing that. I hate that Malik got away and very well might escape justice for this. I hate that she’s going to have to live in fear. And I hate that she thinks I had a bigger part in this, that I was as guilty of signing her away as my dad.
I watch from the corner of my eye as she retreats into her shell, making herself small as she tries to come to terms with everything that’s happened to her today. I ask her questions, and she doesn’t answer. She won’t speak to me.
All I can think about is how I’m going to make this right again—if something like that might even be possible now.