17. Bastien
17
BASTIEN
“ Fleur !” Sheer panic gripped me by the throat and nearly suffocated me. The line went dead, and instead of wasting a precious second trying to call her again, I pulled up her location—but it was already gone. “This can’t be fucking happening.” I panicked, gripping my hair with both of my hands as I tried to think of my next step.
Luca watched me in silence, speechless for once in his life.
We were at the warehouse, hunkered down with guns and ammo as we made our next plan.
But it looked like all of our plans had been put on hold.
“The SUV behind me…” I looked at Luca, the pieces slowly coming together. I’d been in such a hurry to get her out of there, and I’d assumed the SUV that took Fleur was full of my guys, but now I realized they’d been watching the property, knowing exactly what I would do next, and then pulled in at the perfect opportunity. “I fucking gave her to them!”
Luca didn’t waste time with questions. “I’ll call around. Someone will roll if we offer enough.”
For the first time in my life, I was in shock.
And I felt that feeling that other people had described, my mother, other women I’d slept with—anxiety.
I wanted to rush to Fleur, but I had nowhere to rush off to.
Then one of my guys gave me another dose of bad news. “We’ve got company.”
Luca had the phone pressed to his ear when he walked over to the security system that showed all the cameras on the property. A line of Hummers and SUVs pulled up from the road, all taking various positions as they faced the warehouse where we were positioned.
We were fucking surrounded.
Luca ended his call and made another. “I’m sorry, Bastien.” He abandoned Fleur and called for help. “Jeremy, we need backup. Get your ass here now.” He hung up and made another call. “I’m calling Martin. He’ll send the Foreign Legion under the circumstances?—”
Gunfire erupted, and the bullets struck the walls of the warehouse, most of them bouncing off the steel, but with enough hits, the structural integrity would collapse. I knew he could launch explosives and grenades at us, so this was purely an act of intimidation.
But I didn’t give any orders, incapacitated by Fleur’s capture. It was literally impossible for me to save her. As if my wrists were bound in handcuffs, I just stood there and listened to the bullets rain down on the base.
“Bastien, what do we do?” Someone asked me, and I couldn’t even think of his name.
Luca was still on the phone, his hand covering the other ear so he could hear.
I was stuck in this warehouse, but I’d let all these men die if I could get to Fleur.
“ Bastien .” Luca shoved me in the chest. “We take ’em out, take Ivan alive, and get him to talk. That’s how we find Fleur.”
I nodded absent-mindedly. “You’re right.”
“Martin said he’ll send everything he can, but we have to survive long enough for him to get here.”
I couldn’t let myself wonder where Fleur was or what was happening to her. My mind drifted to the worst-case scenario, unspeakable shit. But I pushed the thought away, because until I was done with this, I couldn’t help Fleur.
I moved to one of the computers, punched in the code, and then the mounted guns slowly rose out of the ground outside the warehouse, automatic targeting locked on. I’d installed them years ago, and not once had I had to use them. It’d been so long, I’d nearly forgotten they were there.
“I forgot about those,” Luca said in awe.
The mounted guns fired their rounds at anything that moved.
“They’ll be distracted,” I said as I left the seat. “At least for a minute or two. Take out as many as we can.” We moved to the front, the wall still intact but the divots from the bullets visible in the steel. We slid open the panels to reveal the slots for the rifles to fire while keeping ourselves protected.
Everyone fired, shooting up the vehicles and the men using them for cover. It was a modern battlefield with hundreds of rounds fired, a graveyard of bullet casings. “Grenades!” We all pulled the pins and then tossed them hard through the holes before we slid the panels closed and ducked down behind the wall.
The explosions were so hot I could feel the warmth through the solid wall. Even with my ears covered, I felt like my eardrums were about to split. When the silence returned, the gunfire didn’t follow it.
Luca looked at the monitor. “We took out a lot of the cars, but there are still men everywhere. Gun mounts are destroyed. We’ll need to hit them a few more times.”
“But now they know it’s coming,” I said. “Continue to fire.”