35. Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Dax
Emile’s private jet was fueled and in the air less than two hours after I left Echelon Developments.
I would have preferred to take my own, but it hadn’t flown in a while, and I didn’t want to risk any malfunctions.
Not when New York was gonna be at least a five-hour flight, and time was already far from on our side.
I sat across from Emile and Clay as we hashed out the plan for when we landed.
There were still members of the CIPHER team based in New York, but we also pulled a couple from San Francisco to take with us.
We were walking into this situation blindly, and I sure as hell hoped my gut was right about where Deana had taken her.
If not, there was a big possibility I’d lose her forever.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Fury ticked dangerously in my muscles as we strategized our game plan.
Considering what we knew from Wrangler’s website, there’d likely be more women being held than Lucy.
We’d need to get as many of them out of there as safely as possible, but Deana would be a fool to think I wouldn’t come for her.
Either that, or she was grossly overconfident in her ability to conceal the location where so many of those livestreams took place.
Unluckily for her, I knew that building like the back of my own goddamned hand.
I’d spent my childhood memorizing every entrance and exit, where the deliveries came through the back and where the overstock room was nestled in the back.
Breaking into the deli’s old building wouldn’t be a problem, but what happened once we made it inside was a whole different story.
We didn’t know what kind of manpower Deana had on her side but given the fact she had the capacity to operate coast to coast, we couldn’t take any chances. CIPHER’s New York team was already staked out in Brooklyn, keeping track of anyone they saw entering and exiting the building.
An hour before we landed, we got confirmation my instincts had been correct, just like they always were.
The team stationed in Brooklyn contacted us to let us know a couple of brawny men rolled in an oversized ice chest through the delivery door, followed by a person we now knew was Deana Laskin in a cowboy hat.
I’d demolish her and anyone else who stood between me and my girl, and I wouldn’t think twice about it.
I knew I should have felt some kind of remorse for shooting that doorman, but I knew he wasn’t gonna give me the information I needed.
I’d done this too many times, and I wasn’t about to waste precious minutes trying to torture information out of him.
Lucy had already been taken, and he was nothing more than a casualty in what was about to be a very bloody battle.
Both Clay and Emile gave me knowing looks while they sat in the plush leather seats across from me.
They’d petitioned endlessly for my return to CIPHER and I’d refused every time.
This was why; this version of myself was one I’d tried to smother and pack away, deep into the recesses of my mind.
The bloodthirsty demon who fought and killed without mercy.
After Tony was killed and my father took his life, I’d promised myself I would try to be a better man.
I’d tried so fucking hard I’d almost believed my own self-made delusion of a peaceful life.
There was only one thing that would unleash that monster back into my soul and she was trapped in a cage inside the place where that demon had been born.
“We’ll get her back, Dominic.” Emile’s unnecessary attempt at being reassuring did nothing to calm the wrath inside me.
He always talked too much, at least Clay knew when it was time to shut his mouth.
That was why he and I had always made such a great team for field work, while Emile and Tony usually stayed behind and focused on the backend.
That wasn’t to say Emile wasn’t trained and perfectly qualified for a mission like this, because he definitely was. We all were.
I just needed silence, and that’s exactly what I got until the plane touched down in New York City.
I wanted to go straight to Brooklyn to rescue Lucy, but it wasn’t that simple.
We had to get to the armories stationed throughout the city to load up on guns.
We had to debrief CIPHER’s East Coast team on the plan, and we needed to wait until the sun set.
The old deli was in a busy part of town, and there’d be too many passersby in the daylight; they’d inevitably call the cops, which would create a whole other mess for us to deal with.
In the past, we usually had weeks to prepare for a mission like this.
We’d taken down some of the most reprehensible bastards who walked the earth, but the plans were always clear-cut and foolproof.
This time, we’d have to trust that experience and intuition were enough to get us out of there alive.
We had until midnight.