by Keta Kendric
“I’m going with you,” Aaron and D announced simultaneously like they were operating on the same frequency.
“I guess that leaves me here with the dead,” Rob stated, sounding disappointed that he’d miss out on more action.
“All clear out here, guys,” came Marcus’ voice followed by Scott’s, assuring us that backup hadn’t shown up.
It appeared that these assholes believed they’d gotten away scot-free.
After a minute of us searching, we found the door that dropped down into the basement area of the building.
Aaron and I pointed weapons into the darkness below as D slung the thick metal door open. A gust of cold air flew from the darkness and washed over us. My night goggles adjusted to the thicker darkness that enveloped a steep set of stairs that descended into nothingness. A chilling gust of wind flew past us, alerting us that there was movement somewhere in the darkness. The sound of approaching footsteps didn’t stop me from stepping down.
The approaching man triggered a motion-light that lit the stairwell. The sudden light blinded me before I slung my goggles off my face, but not before I sent hot slugs towards the man’s head and heart.
Eleven.
It hadn’t occurred right away that Aaron had sent slugs of his own into the unlucky bastard. We paused all movement, listening for more to approach. When no sound met us, we proceeded down.
The stairs led to a sharp right turn into a dim, cement entryway that presented two huge metal doors.
“It’s operated by key-card,” D announced. “I’ll see if I can find one on the stiff you two pumped full of holes.”
Aaron and I waited at the door, guns at the ready as D turned and searched the man for the access card that would get us through the doors. We had no idea what waited for us on the other side of those doors, but we were ready to face it. This place was heavily secured and guarded. Were we at one of DG6’s safe houses?
D returned with his weapon ready and aimed in one hand as he waved the card in front of the doors with the other. One of the doors popped open about a foot wide, making light spill into the dim space we stood in. The strong odor of chemicals greeted us, seeping through the crack.
The sound of machinery being operated threw me off. What in the hell was this place?
I eased the door open with the toe of my boot and stepped through. Aaron followed, aiming in the opposite direction as me. D let us move a good distance in before he approached the door.
There were industrial-sized mixing instruments. Glass and rubber tubing ran like veins around the area. Boxes of supplies were stacked floor to ceiling. My attention was drawn to the large barrels of volatile chemicals and propane tanks that lined the walls and hinted that this was one of DG6’s dope making facilities.
“Who the fuck are you?” came a voice, followed by an eruption of hot slugs. We dived for cover as more voices sounded and more bullets chased us. I knew enough about drug labs to know that shooting inside one could kill us all.
I’d taken cover behind the engine area of a large metal device. Aaron dived behind a wall of thick wooden crates that I was willing to bet was a stack of their finished product. D dived back out of the door into the hall. Quick glances and the fact that bullets were flying from at least three different directions let me know that there were at least three men in this area.
Although it was only minutes, we traded fire for what seemed like an hour. I didn’t have time to play shootout when someone could have been hurting or getting away with Regina again.
My desperate eyes searched for any advantage I could get over these assholes. When my gaze fell on the big green oxygen canister a few feet away from one of the assholes shooting at us, I took aim and fired at it.
One clean shot was all it took. The loud explosion rocked the building around us and sent the man’s body parts in about five different directions.
Ten.
A few areas flickered with fire, but the smoke the explosion left behind aided me in seeking out the others. The silent tap of a weapon on the other side of the room let me know that Aaron had killed another.
Nine.
The thump of Nine’s body hitting the floor sounded as I chased the fleeting footsteps of the other guy.
I didn’t notice the set up until it was too late. A hard and heavy object came down over my head, disorienting me. The object collided with my hand next, and my gun clinked to the floor. A foot came at me, but I stopped it from striking the side of my head. Although my vision was blurred from the hit on my head, it didn’t stop me from fighting back.
I blocked a superman-punch and sent my knuckles into the man’s chin. He shook off my hit and came back with more kicks. I could have gone hand to hand with this dick all night, but I had more important shit to do. I left my face open to his fist on purpose, hoping he’d make the mistake of falling into my deadly clutches.
As his hard fist knocked my head back with a sharp punch, I allowed him to believe he had the upper hand. His fatal mistake was rearing back to come at me with another punch. In my hunched position, I rushed him, colliding into him hard enough to send us against the wall.
After a straining battle for dominance, I maneuvered my body around his so that I could take his back. Once I had his back, his ass was as good as gone. With my right arm around his neck like a vise, I gripped my left arm to force his head down to cut off his air supply.
Within seconds his body went limp in my arms, but I didn’t want him all the way out. He groaned and attempted to break away from me as I lowered him onto the floor, sitting him in front of me.
My lips dipped to his ear, and I whispered to him, “You’re lucky I’m in a rush, motherfucker,” right before the loud snap of his neck vibrated against my arms. I tossed his body aside. His wide eyes peered at me as his head sat unnaturally facing the back of his body.
Eight.
Another double tap sounded in my ear—either Aaron or D taking out another.
Seven.
If D’s count had been right, there should have been five of them left plus Regina. I continued to move down the hall as I talked. “D, how many heat signatures are you picking up?”
“Six and you are the closest to them,” he informed.
“Wait for me, Ansel,” came Aaron’s voice. He knew good and well that if it were Megan down here, his ass wouldn’t wait for me.
Peeling wooden tables came into view as I approached an area surrounded by cement walls that had started to crack and crumble. The sound of her voice invigorated my body with a searing passion that settled into my bones and eased my mind before it came to rest in my chest.
“You can rape and kill me, but you are going to die much worse than me,” came Regina’s voice. As quickly as her voice had calmed me, the words she’d spoken had flipped me into a state of controlled madness.
I proceeded with caution, easing ahead in silence. When I turned into the open entryway of the break room, and my gaze landed on him, my breath hitched, and my face drew into a tight frown of confusion.
50
Ansel
“What the fuck?” Came my voiceless question. Sorio? What was up with motherfuckers coming back from the dead?
Sorio stood behind Regina, along with four others who’d gathered in the break room, two on either side of them. The men had their weapons drawn and aimed at my head.
I couldn’t care less about the weapons aimed at me, but the one aimed at Regina’s head by a man that my cousin had killed nearly a month ago was another story. That slimy bastard either had a twin or had hired a look-alike decoy.
The threats of imminent death didn’t stop me from aiming my gun at Sorio’s head. If not for the fact that he had his hand around Regina’s neck with the firm press of his gun to the side of her head, he’d already be dead.
Sound eluded my ears as I counted the seconds. Each second gave me an opportunity to access the group’s every move. Two of the men had too much finger on the trigger. Their first shots would probably
miss me. One hadn’t even chambered a round. One looked too scared to even pull the trigger. Sorio was the only threat I considered.
Although it took seconds to assess the situation, the charged atmosphere made it feel like hours. Since I was wearing body armor, my chances of surviving was a hell of a lot better than any of theirs.
My military training had ensured that I was a good shot, and I’d never been hesitant to shoot. I’d never given a second thought to playing Russian roulette with my life, but I wasn’t willing to risk Regina’s. An inch could mean her death. A rash decision to kill Sorio could also lead his men to focus on Regina instead of me.
“Can you count? You’re outnumbered five to one,” one of the men shouted.
Not anymore.
My peripheral caught a glimpse of Aaron making his approach, crawling towards me. I stood in the doorway to the outside of the break room. D came into view in the distance, making his way down the hallway.
Aaron noticed my stance and knew to stay hidden. He crawled to the edge of the doorway where I was standing and used the face of his watch to get a snapshot of what I aimed at. The air around me froze, and the slightest movements caught my eyes. My anxious finger sat against the trigger as my gaze studied every aspect of the scene before me.
Sorio sneered at me and sniffed at Regina’s hair. “You’re going to be scooping this bitch’s brains up off this floor,” he stated matter-of-factly. He was too arrogant to allow his men to shoot me right away. He wanted me to see Regina suffer or die first. It would be his fatal fucking mistake.
At the sight of Regina’s face, my anger boiled lava hot, threatened to spill over and turn everything to ash. The puffy dark pink area of her right cheek and drops of blood at the corner of her mouth revealed that she had been smacked. The obvious sign of a footprint stood out on the side of the yellow shirt—my T-shirt—that she wore.
The smirk on Sorio’s face heightened my irritation, causing my rage to explode inside of me as I fought to contain it. My death-filled gaze crept up from Regina and met his.
“You’re going to pray for mercy and call on the devil for help by the time I’m done with you,” I promised him. My voice dripped with enough murderous intent to lift his eyebrows.
When a red dot flashed on Sorio’s forehead, I almost smiled, despite the fury rolling through me. When a second dot appeared on the head of one of the four aiming at me, a smile surfaced, drenched in sin. These bastards had no idea how deep in hell they already were.
Aaron and D weren’t going to shoot unless I gave them the word. However, if Sorio’s finger flexed on his trigger, none of us would hesitate to blow his brains out.
“What the fuck are you smiling at? I’m going to kill your little slut,” he taunted as his tongue licked up the side of her cheek. “She’s a hard-headed bitch that doesn’t know how to listen. But, I’ve taught her all kinds of lessons.” His gun slid up and down the side of Regina’s head.
“Sorio, all you have to do is say the word,” the man closest to him and Regina, spat.
I glared into the man’s eyes and tilted my head once in his direction. The faint, Tap! Tap! of D’s gun sounded from wherever he’d posted up. The boldest of Sorio’s bunch lost his brains and a piece of his heart as his limp body followed the bloody pieces to the floor.
Six.
Another was foolish enough to tighten his grip on the weapon as the others were smart enough to drop theirs and raise their hands in surrender. They’d acknowledged how knee-deep in shit they were.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sorio questioned as he tightened his grip on Regina and yelled at his gutless men.
He’d been so busy talking shit that he’d missed the fact that my backup had arrived.
“There’s a red dot in my chest,” one of the men confirmed in Spanish. “Me too,” trembled from the other’s lips. The last one aiming a gun at me glanced down in time to notice that either D or Aaron had put a dot in his chest. His weapon hit the floor with a loud clink as he raised his hands in defeat.
Sorio’s anger surged as his pointed gaze raked over his surrendering men. The annoying sound of his voice was ignored as he cursed the men, threatening to kill them, like he had a chance in hell of living.
My gaze locked with Regina, but my eye spotted what Sorio had failed to see in her for years. I didn’t see innocent Regina. It was my fucking badass Gina staring back at me. Not one tear stood in her eyes. Even with a gun aimed at her head, her worse nightmare at her back, and her body tensed in fear, the light in her gaze sparked when our eyes met.
One wrong move, any small twitch of Sorio’s hand could end her. I scanned everything in the break room, checking for a way to get Regina away from that asshole without her getting hurt.
Eyeing Regina with stern intensity, I could have sworn she attempted to tell me something with her eyes. Was she signaling me? I glanced down when she sent her wide gaze downward.
While Sorio continued to bark words at his men, Regina turned her arm towards me, revealing the object she held. Her modest nature was a mask she’d worn well. She was more resourceful than she’d given herself credit for and was most certainly not a damsel in distress.
My attention on Regina and lack of acknowledgment at Sorio’s demanding words angered him further. His words were a jumble of mixed English and Spanish. His stupidity didn’t deserve a wasted breath let alone my attention. He sounded like a fucking broken record. With his face pinched in fury, his grip on Regina tightened, and he forced his gun deeper into the side of her head.
“What the hell is she doing?” came Aaron’s voice low in my ear. “Is that a—”
D’s question was cut off by Sorio’s outburst.
“Take your shot, motherfucker!” Sorio cursed, lobbing his taunting dare at me. “See if you can take me before I take this bitch out.”
Regina gripped the syringe in her hand and positioned it so that her thumb and forefinger removed the cap. All eyes remained on me. My gaze was locked on Regina. As Sorio slung his heated words and continued to jerk her around with the tight grip he had around her neck, he wasn’t paying attention to her careful movements.
She eased her hand up and away from his thigh and slammed it back down, using her thumb to shove the clear concoction into him. Sorio had been so busy running his mouth that he didn’t even notice anything amiss until Regina retracted the empty needle and let it fall to the floor. His men were focused on me, not seeing what was happening right next to them.
“What...the…fuck?” Sorio questioned, his words spaced and slurred as his body wobbled. His grip loosened as his gun-hand shook like the gun was too heavy for him to carry. When the gun’s aim fell from her temple, Regina used the opportunity to knock it out of his rubbery hand, the way that I’d taught her.
She lunged the top half of her body forward and snapped back, sending the back of her head into his face. Sorio attempted to swipe at his busted nose, but his rubbery arm missed his face. Regina ran towards me.
The other men stared in big-eyed open-mouth awe, hands raised above their heads. With no gun and no Regina, Aaron and D could have killed Sorio, but they didn’t. They knew me well enough to know that I would make him suffer. That was if whatever Regina had given him didn’t kill him first.
Regina slung her body into mine as I held her tight against me with my free arm. My lips met the top of her hair as I kept my gaze aimed on Sorio. He staggered, unable to stay upright as his wide, watery gaze fell on the discarded syringe. As he fell into the wall, death inched across his gaze and was aimed at Regina’s back locked tight against me.
Aaron walked in and stood next to us, his gun aimed at the stunned men. “What in the fuck did she give him?” Aaron inquired as he observed the blubbering mess Sorio had become.
“I don’t know, but he’d better hope it kills him,” I spat through gritted teeth as D approached and stood on the opposite side of me. D had a gun in each hand, aimed at the men. They stood, glaring back and forth between u
s and their woozy boss who was slumped against the wall, drool spilling over his lips.
Regina unclamped herself from my body. “It’s not going to kill him. It’s only going to knock him out.”
My mind called up the story she’d revealed about her plot to kill Sorio. My mission now was to ensure that her vision for how she wanted to kill him came true.
Sorio’s body slid down the wall to the floor as his heavy breathing filled the room. He fought the drug but was no match for it as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. When his tongue peeked from the corner of his mouth, he was as good as out.
“So, let me guess, that motherfucker had a twin?” Aaron asked as he glanced at Regina.
She nodded. “He is the real Sorio. The one you killed in Ansel’s garage was his twin, Mateo. According to him, no one but his father knew he had a twin. Since Megan killed his father and Sorio killed his own mother, I don’t think anyone else knew he was a twin.”
I drew Regina back into my chest, folding her tight against me as I rejoiced in the fact that she was safe. I leaned back enough to place a soft kiss on her lips. Easing back more, she lifted her head so that her gaze met mine.
“I told you that I would kill anyone that put their hands on you.”
Reluctantly, I turned Regina loose and stepped away from the group. Sorio’s presence brought about a familiar urge to release my demon who begged to come out and play. My weapon was aimed at the man furthest from Sorio’s crumpled body. The man shook his head as water filled his eyes. He knew he was about to die.
“On your fucking knees,” I barked. When he caught death in my gaze, he knew enough to do as I’d ordered.
He fell to his knees as I stood behind him, gun aimed at the back of his head. My gaze panned up to Regina’s, who’d taken a firm grip of Aaron’s arm.
“Did this asshole touch you?” I asked through a haze of anger and gritted teeth. “Did he put a finger on any part of your body? Did he breathe the same air as you?” I questioned, my gaze locked on hers, demanding an answer.