But I’m playing nice. And I’m waiting with the now dumbstruck and silent John.
Time stretches on until another thug I’ve not seen before comes out.
“Why should the boss see you? He’s doing some important shit right now,” he says bluntly.
“Tell him Mark sent me. Macario. I’ve got a package he’s been missing, and I want to deliver it,” I tell him. My buddies name seems to do the trick and the thug heads back inside.
The other man is staring hard at me, trying to make me cower, but it won’t work. I might not walk out of here, but I’m doing the only thing I can to save the only people I care about, so it’s worth it. I would trade my life for Alice’s without a second thought.
Moments tick by slowly, and John starts to fidget again, breaking down once more, though he knows well enough to hide it a bit better this time. He knows any ounce of weakness he shows in front of these guys will be later used against him. I can’t bring myself to pity him, but I wouldn’t want to be in his position.
Finally, when it seems like we’ve been waiting for hours, the man returns and ushers us on in.
We head down a hall until we come to a door, where a big bruiser of a guy pats me down and confiscates my gun.
“You’ll get it back after,” he tells me.
I don’t say anything. I know it’s time to just play it cool and quiet. The faster this is over with, the faster I can get back to my place. I know Alice must be worried about where I’ve gone, but I didn’t want to screw things up between us again. I just want to make this exchange and then be done with it. I wanted to be able to tell her she’s safe.
I’ll figure out what to do after this is all over. I’ll find some way to make a straight living, something that’ll give Alice and Cierra a decent life. A happy life.
I try not to smile at the idea of us all being a family as I head on inside with John in tow, finding myself in a very packed, unfriendly looking office. Behind the oversized desk made of marble sits a big guy in a black suit with two guards at his sides. Apparently these guys like working in twos.
“Well, I certainly did not expect Macario to hand over a present like this. I figured we were in competition here,” he says from behind his shaded glasses, a grin on his face. It looks poisonous, even if he is playing at being pleasant.
I can’t wait to get out of this life.
“This is me paying my respects,” I lie. “I’ll see to it that Mark’s happy. I just want everyone happy.”
With that, I push John towards one of the thugs, and he takes the deadbeat off my hands. He’s not my problem anymore.
“So that’s that then?” the mobster behind the desk asks me, not used to any generosity in our line of business.
“That’s that,” I say firmly. “Hopefully that eases any tension between our two organizations,” I say. I might as well make it seem as if that’s the reason for my ‘gift’.
Silence reigns over the room for a while before he nods to his thugs and the tension eases. Just a bit. The air is still thick enough to cut with a knife, though, and I’m careful not to betray any emotions, any thoughts. I’d be foolish to underestimate the power in this room.
“Then thank you. And perhaps I’ll even forgive the little shootout at one of our stores I hear Macario’s operation might be behind,” he says, and though it was not only Macario’s operation behind it, it was me who did the shooting, I remain unfazed. I can’t let a flicker of anything show or he has me.
All the same, he studies me a while before waving me off. I don’t sigh in relief, but I feel it, deep in my gut. This is finally over.
“Run along then, give Macario my thanks,” he says, looking to John with a sadistic smile.
I turn and head out without waiting another moment. I don’t want to know what they plan to do with the jerk, but even he probably doesn’t deserve it. I can’t let myself feel pity, though. He was more than willing to put Alice and Cierra’s life in danger just to save his own skin.
I step out of the room but behind me I hear words that make my blood boil.
“Nice of you to finally join us John,” says the boss, “and here I was thinking I’d have to torture your whereabouts out of that pretty woman of yours out back.”
Alice!
The door shuts behind me and without thinking, I act.
My fist is in the one guard’s throat, doubling him over in pain as he struggles to breathe with a caved in larynx. The other guard has time to slug me, at least knowing better than to try and grab for his gun.
It’s a brutal punch from a big guy, but I take it and roll with it. Instead of crumpling I quickly rebound and kick him in the side then grab the back of his head. I slam his face down onto my knee, breaking his nose and maybe killing him. I can’t stop to check. There’s no time for anything but getting back into the office. Prepared.
I grab my gun from the first guy I took down and then crack him over the back of the head with it.
I open the door to the office once more, but already, it’s emptied. They’ve gone through the back exit, and I quickly follow through, coming to the shadowy den of the gang’s operations.
It’s a big open room with curtains separating the walkway I’m on from the warehouse floor below. Down below, I see the mob boss, John, several goons and most importantly: Alice. The beautiful woman of my dreams, helplessly tied to a chair.
“The woman comes with me!” I shout out, and that startles the other gangsters who look up at me. That door to the office must’ve had soundproofing, because they have no idea I very noisily already took down two of their own.
Even more importantly, they have no idea the hellfire that’s going to rain down upon them if they don’t give me my woman back.
There’s three of them, and they have the advantage of knowing this place better than I do. But I still have years of experience. Military, and prison. Combined, that experience makes me more lethal than even they know.
“He shouldn’t be back here! Fire!” shouts the boss, and all hope of a peaceful mediation are gone. But then, I never really expected that was going to be how this went down.
The goons go for their guns, but I’m quicker. I blow one guy’s head off before either can even open fire. John panics and tries to run, and the second goon runs after him, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back to the ground.
The distraction, though, gives me the second I need, and I end that man’s life as well.
Which leaves the boss between Alice and me.
He grabs her shoulder, tugging her in her chair and making the wood scream against the floor. She cries out around her gag, and I shoot him in the shoulder, which sends him sprawling back, losing his grip on her.
We might actually make it out of this alive, I tell myself.
But the thought comes a moment too soon, because I fail to see the goons coming into the office I just left, and there’s no time to take them out first.
Chapter 15
Alice
For the second time in as many days, I witness horrific violence like I’ve never known in all my life. The loud boom of Viktor’s gun echoes around me as I see the first man’s head erupt into a mist of blood. I shut my eyes after that to avoid seeing John shot by one of the thugs, my mouth gagged and muffling my screams of terror.
I don’t see the slimy guy behind me but I hear him hit the ground after another shot from Viktor.
My hero stands up on the walkway above, and though my heart is beating like crazy I manage to convince myself for a moment that everything will be alright.
It doesn’t last.
A shot rings out and Viktor hits the floor, sprawling back. I can’t see if he’s okay. His legs are over the walkway above, but his torso is sprawled face down through the door into the next room. More shots ring out but I feel my hair yanked back.
The chair I’m tied to topples back with a loud crash and I nearly bash my skull on the cement flooring. But the pain doesn’t stop there. I watch as the an
gry boss clutches his bleeding shoulder with one hand and yanks on my hair with the other.
He yells at me in some foreign language I don’t understand before pulling a knife from inside his coat, the steel glinting in the light. And I give up. For just a second I surrender to despair.
Until I remember Cierra. She’s being held in a closet just nearby, and if I die, there’s no knowing what will become of her. So dying is not an option.
I roll away before he stabs at me with the knife, and while I’m no fighter like Viktor, I’ve got enough strength and limberness in my legs to sprint to my feet in no time. I’m still tied to the chair, but I use it like a weapon and a shield.
I turn my back on the mobster and use it like a buffer between his knife and me, but I know that’s not enough. No, I don’t know it, I feel it. Everything that’s happening now is instinct, and I lunged at him — backward — using the chair as a weapon.
Slamming into the guy with the chair legs, I crash him into some old metal bin behind him, but I don’t relent. I keep pushing against him, one of the chair legs jabbing close to his wounded shoulder, making him cry out in pain.
He starts to recoup, but I pull away just enough to slam back into him again and make him cry out once more.
“You won’t hurt my daughter!” I scream at him through my gag, but it comes out as muffled cries as I lose control of myself in all of this. I try to assault him with the chair again but be bats me away this time and I nearly lose my balance.
This wooden bulk tied to my wrists is proving a big pain, and this time I crash it against the cement floor, breaking the chair, then smash it against the wall again to bash it apart. I find strength I never knew I had as I think about protecting Cierra.
Two planks of wood are still strapped to my forearms as the mob boss struggles for his knife on the floor, but I assault him, beating him with the two wooden stakes I have as makeshift weapons.
He might be the boss of some big criminal syndicate, but he’s just a piece of shit to me, and right now I’m making him pay for taking me and my girl. I don’t intend to stop until he’s of no danger to Cierra and me again. I’ll do this for her. Because I have to.
My fury blinds me to the sound of the thud behind me though, and only when I hear the tell-tale sound of a gun cocking do I freeze up and stop.
Can a mother’s rage withstand bullets? I ask myself.
The answer doesn’t matter, because I’ll try anyhow.
Chapter 16
Viktor
Thank God for the marines, because training has me hit the floor before any of these thugs can fire off a shot at me. I do the barbed-wire-crawl from basic and take cover behind the big outlandish desk the mob boss used, letting it shield me from any shots.
I stay low at first, letting them waste bullets as I formulate a plan.
There’s a letter opener sticking out of a desk drawer and I take it up in hand. But one of the thugs is coming around the side of the desk, I can tell by the sliver of shadow between the floor and the base of the marble desk.
Picking up the bosses leather chair, I hurl it over the top of the desk and it distracts them. It buys me the time I need to dart around the corner and stab the letter opener into the man’s inner thigh, making him cry out and fall back as blood gushes out.
His buddy is so frantic that he foolishly shoots his injured friend as he falls back, and I spring up to put two bullets into him: One in the center of his chest, the other into his eye.
But it doesn’t end there.
There’s another man that rushes in immediately and I put him down too, advancing on the entrance to the office as I fire. I’m running out of bullets, and every single one counts now. Any wasted bullet might be the one I need to put down the kingpin of this operation.
I need to shut that door and bar it so that no one else can get through, but once I reach it, another thug is in my face. We’re too close for guns, and I head-butt him, breaking his nose and knocking him back into the guy behind him.
I fire three shots in quick succession, putting both of them down. But more will be barging in before long so I slam the door and lock it. I grab the thug’s gun that fell to the floor when he died, and check for rounds. It’s still full.
I can’t put my trust in that lock, so I get behind the desk and put all my strength into moving it towards the front entrance. It has to be eight hundred pounds, but I push and grunt, feeling my muscles strain as I shove it slowly towards the door, barring it off.
There’s no more time to spare. I can hear sounds of a struggle, and I rush back out into the warehouse area to rescue Alice… only to find she doesn’t need my rescuing at all.
I spring over the railing and land down below, cocking my gun as I check the area. Alice startles and turns, ready to fight me too. She’s tenacious, standing bloodied over the body of the man I just made the trade with.
“Whoa! It’s me,” I tell her, hands up until she calms down and I check the place out. There’s three corpses, the boss brutally done in by what looks to be the remains of Alice’s chair. I swell with pride at her ingenuity, but I don’t let it get me fat headed. I have to make sure this room is secure.
John is suspiciously absent, a trail of blood leading the way towards a side exit. He must’ve made his escape during the firefight.
“We need to get out of here. Where’s Cierra?” I ask.
“In there!” Alice says, pointing manically to a barred metal door in the warehouse.
I rush over, not wanting to waste a moment in saving my daughter. I remove the heavy crate blocking the door, then try the knob. It’s locked but I kick it open as we shout for Cierra to step back.
It takes a few tries, but I bash open the door, breaking the lock as we shed light on the barren little room that was once a janitorial closet. Cierra is crouched in the corner, afraid, but I rush in and grab her up, handing her over to Alice.
“Mommy’s here, little one,” she says, her voice so soft yet filled with emotion. She looks like she’s just stepped through hell, and come out the other side. I wish I could take the time to join in on their embrace, but there’s no telling how many other mobsters are going to be after us.
Alice clutches Cierra against her chest, doing her best to shield her eyes from the bloody carnage all around us. Now that the immediate danger has passed, though, Alice looks to me for what to do next. I can see how lost and out of her element she is in all this, and the terror that burns in her eyes.
“Follow me,” I say, wasting no time. I don’t want to give them a moment to doubt. Nor a second to break down that barrier I’d put up against the door.
Alice covers Cierra’s eyes as we push through the mess of the warehouse. I go to the back door, where John had made his getaway. He’d bashed open a door and ran out into the sunlight of day, which was lucky for us. It saved us precious moments on our escape.
I make sure to check the area before we scurry outside. We arrive just in time to watch John pull out of the parking lot, not stopping to save any of us. That man is no hero, but at least he will likely be spared a gruesome murder.
Leading the way around the side of the building, I check around the corner. There, one of the thugs stands watch, and I waste no time: I put him down like a dog. Moral qualms be damned; my girl and daughter were on the line. Any man who poses a threat to us will meet the same fate.
The three of us rush ahead to my car, which is right where I left it. The only difference is that the doors are left open, probably from the gangsters searching it. But that just makes it easier for us as we pile on in, me keeping a watch over my two girls.
They both take the back, and Alice is already telling Cierra to keep low. She’s a smart woman, and she clutches Cierra as she buckles them in. Alice catches my eyes in the rear view mirror, and nods. She’s ready to get out of this, and so am I.
Some of the thugs are already rushing out to stop us, and I pull us out into the road, horns honking as I try to make a fast getaway. Th
ey rush for their cars, and I steer my vehicle through the lanes of traffic to put as much distance between us all as I can.
I switch my sights from the road ahead to the rear view mirror. I see the gangsters trying to weave through traffic behind us to catch up, their glitzy, expensive cars glinting in the hot Vegas sun.
Cierra squeals, but Alice comforts her as I run a red light and take us through some more of the thick traffic. I don’t want us to get stuck out here when traffic gets bad. It would inevitably lead to a shootout in the middle of the day. So many witnesses, so many potential fatalities. I can’t let that happen.
So we careen between cars, and all my training from overseas is put to use as I take us through the dangerous streets. Horns honk around us as I check back behind us, the thugs fall further and further behind. They can’t catch up. One of them even crashes his car, his vehicle flipping as traffic comes to a crazy halt behind us.
I cringe to think of the innocent, uninvolved people that might be hurt, but that’s on the thugs chasing us. Their leader is dead, their gang is over, and their persistence will accomplish nothing. There will be no reward.
Even if they killed me and my two girls, it’s over for them.
Mark and his crew will sweep in and claim their territory regardless of whether I survive this mission. It’s a done deal.
And that’s something I’m going to have to live with. But these dominos all started falling before I realized what I actually had to lose, and now that this is done, I have to make sure I’m out. Really out.
I need to be there to see my little girl’s every momentous occasion. I need to see her go to her first day of school. I need to be at every one of her performances, big and small. I need to be there for her in the night when she’s sick, and when she’s graduating high school...
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