Chapter 24
Hellfire
My head was throbbing in pain. Did I drink too much last night?
It'd been a while since I let Toxic and Butcher talk me into going round for round with them, but fuck did I feel like shit.
Opening my eyes, I groaned and pressed my hands to my temples.
Squeezing, I tried to force the pain out. That just made shit worse.
Flopping to my back, I stared up at the ceiling. Everything came flooding back, following Pixie, getting knocked out. Fuck. I was with The Italians. I vaguely remember them dragging me into a car before passing out again.
"Good, you're awake."
Frowning, I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision.
Why did that voice sound so familiar? My head lolled to the side and I groaned when I saw Butcher sitting there, tied to a chair, grinning at me.
The crazy fucker had a black eye, bruises all over his face, and a busted lip.
But his smile was covering the entirety of his face.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked.
"I'm your rescue party," he told me with a chuckle. "You're welcome."
"Fuck off."
"Don't be like that, Hell. You know you missed me." His grin widened as he stared at me.
Rolling my eyes, I tried to sit up. It took a few tries before I was able to get myself upright. "How long have we been here?"
Butcher shrugged. "I don't know. They knocked me out when they brought me in."
"Wait," I said, shaking my head to clear the fog. "You went missing before I did." I was fully conscious now, the headache wasn’t going anywhere, but the brain fog had lifted.
"Fine," Butcher admitted, "I went looking for The Italians. I wanted to be here." He smiled, “I got them right where I want them.”
"Why the fuck would you want to be here?"
"I got tired of waiting."
"Lock is going to kick your ass," I muttered.
These dumb motherfuckers hadn't tied me up.
That was their first mistake. They assumed I was going to be knocked out for a while.
Their second was bringing Butcher here. They had no idea what they had just allowed into their inner sanctum.
And with both of us here? They were fucked.
"Yeah. I know. Still, this was the easiest way to get access to Amato's mansion."
I eyed him, sitting there bruised and tied up, yet he didn't look worried at all.
It didn't surprise me. We all knew of his exploits with the team he led during his time with the military.
He was still young when they honorably discharged him.
He'd gotten too difficult for them to control.
So they'd set him loose on society. It would have been a fucking disaster if Lockout hadn't found him and taken him in.
At thirty-six he was only a couple years younger than me, but he was more dangerous than a house full of men.
He'd been trained well, and reveled in the violence.
Fuck, we all did. It was why we did this vigilante shit.
We needed an outlet for all the pent up aggression that had been fostered in us from the time we were kids fresh out of high school.
You didn't just set that shit aside because you were no longer in the military.
You tried to ignore it, until it grew too big.
Then it was either get rid of it, or explode.
No one wanted to see what would happen if one of us got to that point, so Lock had figured out ways for us to release the building tension.
Fucking, drinking, fighting, those all helped, but sometimes we just needed to get into a conflict that ended with enough bloodshed to soothe the inner beast.
"I can't believe they didn't tie you up," Butcher said, sounding amused.
"Guess they didn't think I was as crazy as you are."
He snorted. "You're just better at hiding it."
I grinned. He wasn't wrong. I'd learned how to control myself from a young age. My brothers were always busy getting themselves into trouble and I was usually the one to get them out. It wouldn't have helped any of us if I hadn't been in control.
"They were in a hurry," Butcher said. "They're going to regret making that mistake." He shifted on his chair. "Now, can you get me the fuck out of this?"
“What? Can’t get yourself out?”
“Not without breaking my thumb to slip under the ropes. Since you’re here, I’ll keep all my digits intact.”
Going over to his chair, I started working at the knots. I didn't have any of my weapons on me. They hadn't been in too much of a hurry to take my gun or knife. "What's your plan?"
"To kill them all," he replied.
I looked up and found him staring straight ahead with a blank look in his eyes. That was his actual plan. Yeah. He was a crazy fucking bastard, but he was our crazy fucking bastard. I was glad he was on my side. I'd take him over the entire mafia crew that was inside this mansion.
The door opened and we both turned as one of the men came back into the room. His brows rose when he saw me and Butcher free. He held rope in his hands, clearly coming to tie me up. "What-"
"You should probably run," Butcher told him, voice low and deadly.
The man's eyes widened and he turned and ran out the door, slamming it behind him. We both burst into laughter.
"Shit," Butcher said, shaking his head as he stood up. "That was fun."
"Fun?" I asked, incredulous. The chuckle slipped out before I could stop it. "Something tells me you're going to enjoy everything that's about to happen."
"Fuck right, I am." He grinned at me, a feral expression on his face. He cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck in an exaggerated stretch.
I shook my head. "Let's get this shit done."
"Think your huge ass can take out that door?"
Studying it, I shrugged, then took a few steps back to get some momentum. My teeth rattled in my head as I hit the door. A deafening crack filled the room, but the door held.
"Couple more hits should do it," he encouraged.
"You could take a turn," I muttered. Hitting that fucking wood jarred my brain causing pain to fracture through my skull.
"That shit's too thick for me to break through." He made a motion with his hand, then folded his arms over his chest, waiting for me to do the dirty work.
"Dick head." He was right. Two more hits and the wood splintered out into the hallway.
We both froze as footsteps raced toward us. Butcher shoved me behind him as two men came into view. "Fuck!" one of them shouted.
They pulled out guns and one minute I was standing in the hall, the next I was flat on my back inside the room again. Butcher knocked me right off my feet. Sweat broke out on my brow as I heard the gunfire. The first shot was so loud my ears were ringing, muffling the rest.
"Butcher!" I shoved to my feet and stormed into the hallway, ready to kill the mafia fucks who'd dared to shoot at us.
Butcher was standing over one of the men, his boot on the man's chest as he fired into him again and again. The second man was lying face down a few feet away, blood pooling around him.
"You're hit," I told him, voice shaking.
He looked at me with a blank expression. "I'm fine." He winked at me. “Barely a flesh wound.” He turned back to the guy he was shooting and emptied the magazine into him.
"Butcher," I said, trying to get his attention. When he finally looked up, I raised a brow. "Next time, keep some of the fucking ammo."
He reached down and pulled another pistol from a holster under the man's suit coat. "There's plenty." He tossed it to me.
Catching it, I checked the magazine and saw he was right. There was plenty of ammo for us to use. He was already pulling more magazines off the dead bodies. We'd need them if we were going to get out of here alive.
Shouts came from down the hallway and I met his crazed eyes. "We better find a place with more cover or we're going to be full of holes by the time this is over."
"I know where we can go," Butcher growled. "Follow me."
I trailed behind him, watching our backs as he led us through a maze of hallways. We took a few turns and then stopped at an open door. "In here," he whispered.
Stepping into the room, I waited until he was inside before shutting the door. I looked around and saw a chair sitting in the middle of the room, blood surrounding it. "That yours?" I asked.
"They thought they could torture information about the club out of me." He gave me an insidious grin. "They're amateurs when it comes to torture." He chuckled, “They smeared more blood than they actually bled out of me. Look at this mess. One of them actually ran out and puked. Pussies.”
He would know. His squad had done their fair amount of torturing people. I listened at the door, waiting for the footsteps to go pounding by. "They're gone. Do you know how many men Amato has?"
"Fuck ton," he said with a shrug. "Let's start narrowing them down. We should manage to kill quite a few before the others get here."
"How do you know they're coming?" I asked. Patting my pockets, I checked for my phone. It was gone. I swore under my breath.
Butcher didn't answer, he just opened the door, sticking his head out to make sure the coast was clear. "This way."
I followed behind him as he led us down another hallway. We stopped as we heard voices coming from up ahead.
"Where the fuck did they go?"
"We need to double back. Check all the rooms."
I knelt down on one knee, preparing for them to come into view by making myself a smaller target. Butcher was on the wall opposite me, his gun raised. "Soon as this starts, they're going to come in from every direction," I warned.
"Don't get shot," he told me.
There wasn't time for any more conversation because the two men rounded the corner and saw us.
They both started firing at the same time.
Butcher took a step forward and fired at one while I aimed at the second.
He was dead before he hit the ground. The other man was still shooting as Butcher emptied his magazine into him.
The hallway was filled with smoke from all the gunpowder being discharged. I coughed as I tried to see through it. "We need to move," I said, voice hoarse.
Butcher grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall. "This way."
He stopped at an open door and shoved me in front of him. I froze as soon as I stepped inside. A man stood there, a gun pointed at my head. I heard Butcher's gun click behind me as he tried to fire it. It was empty. "Drop it," the man ordered.
I didn't have time to think about what I was doing, I just reacted.
Grabbing the barrel of the gun, I pushed it up and to the side as he squeezed the trigger.
My ears rang from the shot sounding so close to my head.
I jerked the gun out of his grasp and turned it on him.
I only fired twice. At point blank range, that was all I needed to kill him.
Butcher was staring at me with narrowed eyes when I looked over at him. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I breathed. "Nice move." He'd taught it to me.
Considering my main job in the Army had been to reload the ammo on helicopters, I hadn't found myself in nearly as many skirmishes as some of the guys.
Butcher had taught me a lot throughout the years and I was grateful for it.
He'd helped turn me into a killing machine.
It didn't bother me to take a life. Not when they were my enemy anyway.
I'd done far more killing for my club and for this city than I had in the military.
"Let's go." I searched the body in front of me and found more ammo. "Quit going through it so fucking fast."
He chuckled as he followed me back into the hall, his gun raised as he covered our backs. We ran down another hallway, then another, before we came to a door. "This is it," he told me.
I nodded and kicked the door in. It slammed against the wall and we both stepped inside.
The man sitting at the table looked up, eyes wide with surprise.
He reached for the gun on the table, but Butcher was faster.
He was next to the man in a flash and I watched as the man gurgled his last breath around Butcher's protruding knife.
"Where the fuck did you get that?" I asked.
"One of the first guys had it on him."
This time as we moved back into the hall we were met with an onslaught of bullets. "Fuck!" I jerked back into the doorway, taking cover.
"We're pinned down," Butcher said, voice grim.
"There's no other way out of here."
He nodded. "I'll cover you. Run back the way we came and see if you can find a way to get behind them."
This was by far the biggest house I'd ever seen.
It had hallways for days and so many damn rooms I doubted we'd be able to check them all.
It was obvious that Amato's grandfather had built it with the intention of housing the majority of his men here.
It was a good way to keep his family safe.
It was too bad for us, because we were probably going to get lost in this monstrosity.
"On three," Butcher said. He counted off, then raised his gun over the doorframe and fired while I bolted down the hall.
I ran until I found an alcove to duck into and took a second to catch my breath. My heart was pounding in my ears as I tried to figure out what direction I should go. The sound of running feet made me tense. I waited until the person was close enough, then reached out and grabbed them.
The guy who'd been running toward me yelped as I yanked him into the alcove with me.
I didn't want to use my gun and alert the others to my location, so I wrapped my arm around his neck and began to squeeze.
He clawed at my arm, but his feet were dangling off the ground, so he couldn't get any leverage.
His struggles slowed, then stopped altogether. His body went limp in my arms and I lowered him to the ground silently. Searching his body, I found a handgun and tucked it into my waistband. It never hurt to have an extra in a situation like this.