Quiet Chaos : The Chaos Series- Book #2

by Keta Kendric

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  Three consecutive shots struck the windshield, leaving ugly black streaks where each connected but didn’t penetrate the SUV’s glass. I yanked the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes, turning the passenger’s side to face where the shots had come from. The hood was now turned towards the beginning of the wooded area and the rising mountain peaks.

  The fuck?

  Who the fuck was shooting at me? Thankfully, all my husband’s vehicles were battle-ready, or I would be dead since the bullets were aimed directly for my head.

  The guard following me had taken shots as well, his SUV swerving in the same manner as mine. He was out of his door in seconds, ducking and firing towards the shooter.

  Tap! Tap! Tap!

  Three more shots struck the passenger side window, the intensity of the impact hitting so hard, the vehicle vibrated.

  I flung my door open, and just as I eased my legs out, more shots connected with the passenger side of the window. With the new positioning of the vehicle and where the bullets were striking mine and the guards vehicle, it indicated that there was more than one shooter. My phone buzzed on the passenger side floor where it had fallen when I swerved.

  Staying low, I popped the center console open and took out two extra clips. It was vital to my survival that I figured out where to aim and shoot. The good news about the whole situation was there appeared to be only two shooters, which meant we weren’t outnumbered.

  The guard was firing at the one positioned to the northeast while I took up a crouch behind the car door and fired at the one to the north of us. They had taken up positions in the low-lying area of the mountains. My phone continued to blow up, and I knew it was my husband.

  At the sight of movement, I let off a three-round burst, HB rocking in my hand with each shot like a hungry beast. The sounds of the blasts echoed off the mountains to my left.

  The guard behind me was trading fire, round for round, with the adversary. There was a loaded automatic weapon under the hidden floor in the back of the vehicle, but I was too busy at the moment to retrieve it.

  A blast slammed angrily at the window of the door I was crouched behind. I ducked as the impact of each round sent the door ramming against me so that I was forced to lean into it to keep it open and covering me. The son of a bitch must have been moving so he could get a better vantage point on me.

  I maintained my position perched behind the door, struggling to get a visual on the shooter. The bullets connected with deadly force in a continuous rhythm, indicating that the shooter was using an automatic weapon. The slight movement of the strike pattern told me he had changed positions.

  I owed a rifle, but I’d rarely had to use it and therefore kept it in storage because street fighting rarely called for anything bigger than a handgun. It appeared being a Vallin meant no weapons were off-limits.

  A few seconds pause had me lifting my weapon, exposing my hand to test my opportunity to fire back. I raised enough to aim and let off a few rounds in his direction and caught more movement. They were flanking us, moving closer until they trapped us.

  The guard must have come to the same conclusion because he exposed himself for a few seconds, leaving his perch from the back end of his vehicle. He crossed the highway and took up a spot behind a hilly berm that provided cover and camouflage.

  The attempt I made to escape my trap was stopped when a barrage of bullets nearly took my head off. The quick dive to the ground I had taken away my chances to return fire. The man was closer than I thought, and he had repositioned himself, so that any move I made left me open to gunfire.

  I eased my body under the vehicle, thankful that I had swerved close enough to the mountainous edge to keep his bullets from reaching me. The gravel from the road raked across my back as I slid, feeling like a bed of ragged fingernails marring my skin.

  Now under the car, the tight space made it difficult to move, but I crawled towards the back, kicking off my heels in the process. I was reluctant to expose myself since I wasn’t sure where my adversary was located at the moment. However, one good shot at the gas tank, and I would end up with one hot death.

  The guard and the shooter he was up against continued to trade fire, leaving me to deal with mine. I eased out into the unknown, aware that these guys weren’t there to take me, but to make sure I was dead. When I wasn’t immediately hit with a bullet or fired at, I stood my ass up and took off running to take up the position at the side of the guard’s vehicle.

  No sooner than I rose to get a glimpse at my fate did a bullet whizz past my head from my rear. Either there was another guy, or the asshole I was trading fire with flanked around my position to take me out from the back.

  Since they obviously wanted me dead and no fire came from the front anymore, I was dealing with the same determined asshole. I eased back from the target zone, attempting to find a good spot, but found that there weren’t any. I needed to get away from this fucking vehicle, or I was assuredly going to die.

  The swish didn’t sound until the impact struck the metal of the vehicle right next to my head. The mother fucker had me pinned down. The thump of boots hitting the hard pavement sounded before I spotted movement.

  I didn’t hesitate releasing round after round, one hitting him center mass in his chest. His body armor kept him coming. He even had on a protective helmet that made him a fast-moving bullet-proof shadow.

  Fuck!

  The empty magazine dropped, and I reloaded, jerking my extra clip from my waistband. The few seconds it had taken me to trade out my magazine had given the asshole a chance to creep up on me.

  The barrel of his weapon was less than four feet from my face. At that range, from an automatic weapon, my head would crack open like a ripe cantaloupe. I didn’t drop my pistol because I was willing to take this dark fucker to hell with me.

  Arjen’s face appeared and eased the dark edge of my impending death while I stared into the black metal hole that held my fate.

  The blast of the gun sounded. Odd. I should have been dead or dying and not hearing anything. When a harsh jerk twisted the man’s body, I didn’t hesitate to let loose more rounds, concentrating on his head and neck areas.

  He wobbled towards me like he was drunk with his gun hanging limp in his hand. The silence that followed his fall was as loud as the sound system inside my car, pushing out the base and thumping out a rhythmic drumbeat against my body.

  I turned past the back end of the vehicle to see the guard who still had his weapon aimed in our direction from his position behind the berm. He had saved my life.

  The movement behind him drew my attention. Too charged to speak or warn him, I commenced to shooting at the emerging figure at his back. Despite my bullets connecting with the target, his armor kept him in play and the guard took a shot that sent him slamming into the hill he had taken cover behind. He had taken his attention from his target to help me, and the man had snuck up behind him.

  I ran towards the shooter, putting myself in the open to take his ass out. The six shots I let loose pounded into his chest and against the helmet he wore.

  The body armor kept him alive, but the punch of the bullets put him on his ass, and he was unable to return fire. The guard lay slumped against the hill so that I was unable to see his face, but noticed his body shaking uncontrolled.

  Fuck!

  The asshole that shot my guard lifted his gun to shoot at me, but a clean shot from HB took most of his fucking hand off, disarming him. He was wearing a helmet like the other prick, so the headshot hadn’t landed clean and appeared to have rearranged something upstairs.

  I turned the guard over, releasing a loud heave from the effort. The first sight of the damage he endured caused my heart to fight gravity and drop. A neck shot had blood pouring from him like a spigot was tapped into the side of his neck.

  His blood flowed thick and warm between my fingers. Based on the amount of blood spilled on the ground and painting his shirt, I already knew he wa
s nearly gone. His stressed gaze was pinned to mine as his chest rose high and sank low in quick desperate jerks as he wheezed for air. I gripped his hand and held on tight, hoping it helped in some way.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. If you have a family, we will make sure they are taken care of.” It was the only peace I had to offer him.

  His glazed eyes grew wide as the last breath he’d ever take was released as a ragged moan. His eyes lowered but didn’t close all the way, staring at my face but looking at nothing. He was gone, and I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t pray often, but this was as good a time as any to send one up.

  “Lord. I don’t know this man’s life, but I pray that you see fit to make room for him in your heavenly home, to give him respite as he makes his transition. Amen.” His limp hand fell away from mine when I let go.

  The asshole who had shot him was struggling to flip himself over so he could stand up or crawl, I suppose. The moment of peace I had summoned for the guard had dissolved.

  I allowed myself to descend into the quiet where chaos kissed my mind, and noise no longer existed. After I approached the shooter, I stood over him before I jerked the helmet off his head, nearly breaking his neck in the process. One of my bullets had caught him in the top of the head, leaving a piece of his scalp missing but he still appeared to be functioning enough to communicate.

  “Who the fuck sent you to kill me?”

  His lips quivered as he gawked and attempted to reach across his quivering body for his gun with his good hand. I shot him in the hand he had left, enjoying the pain playing out in his horror-filled eyes. I fed on the stress creasing his face, and the vibrating cries that exited his wide mouth.

  He refused to abandon his quest to pick up his rifle. However, it didn’t matter what he was attempting to pick up because his hands looked like shredded cabbage in tomato sauce.

  I tucked HB into the back of my waistband before I stood atop his busted up hand. The unnatural feel of his blood and mangled flesh and bone under my bare feet sent an odd shiver through me. The scream he released lit up the mountains and sent the sound waves bouncing back in our direction and hitting my body. I picked up his rifle, flipped it in my hand, and sent the butt of the weapon slamming against his cheek.

  “Who sent you to kill me?”

  His breaths blew so hard, that the tooth I knocked loose flew out of his mouth with a thick wad of spit and blood, landing on his chin. I lifted the weapon and slammed it down harder against his head a second time. The lick sent him into a series of frantic cries as he twisted and turned his body to stave off the pain.

  “I’m shattering your jaw with the next blow. Tell me who the fuck sent you!” My voice roared loud enough to shake the space around me.

  “Ca-ca-denas,” he spit out over a chorus of harsh breaths.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  This was the second man with the darkness of death hovering above them that had fingered the Cardenas Cartel. It was funny that I was on my way to their location for a meeting Corvel was tightlipped on disclosing the subject of. He knew that I was on the way and would have known to send these men to ambush me. What the hell was going on?

  “Who really sent you motherfucker!”

  I sent the butt of the weapon into his cheek, so hard, it sank into the side of his face.

  “Who sent you!”

  I didn’t want to believe that the cartel wanted me dead. If so, they were worse than the old-timers from the syndicate, not giving me a chance to prove my worth.

  “Sons of a fucking bitches!”

  Unwilling to believe what I had heard, I sent the gun into his face again and again, not stopping until his face was a bloody hole of seeping blood and broken bones. I flipped the gun in my hand, aimed and let off two rounds in his smashed-in face.

  Without so much as a backward glance, I trekked back across the street. Thankfully, in the minutes that we were shooting and killing each other, no other vehicles had driven up. The incident, while happening, had appeared to last a lifetime, but was actually less than ten minutes.

  It was a blessing and a curse that some roadways were so isolated, that a shoot-out had gone full throttle without so much as a peep from a passerby.

  First, I tossed the body in the back of the guard’s vehicle before I hopped in and pulled it off to the side of the road. Then, I dragged my heels from under my vehicle, hopped back in, and picked up my ringing phone.

  “Husband,” I said, my voice still filled with the anger raging through me.

  “I’m about ten minutes away. Are you okay?” he asked. His words were rushed, and his tone heavy with concern.

  “I’m okay, but my guard, and the two that were sent to kill me are dead.”

  “I’m on my way. Please wait there if you’re not in immediate danger.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Arjen. I have to figure out who the hell wants me dead, and I’m going to get an answer from somebody today.”

  I wasn’t upset. I was full-on raging, so strong that Arjen’s words went in but I wasn’t transmitting or applying common sense.

  “Please, Mecca. I will go with you to wherever you think you need to go. We are going to find out who’s targeting you, I promise.”

  Since I was driving, the signal had his voice waving like he was talking while running.

  “I’ll see you tonight. I love you, Arjen.”

  I clicked off, realizing I had just told him that I loved him for the first time. I reached under the seat and felt around until I found the tracker, tossed it out the window and stomped on the gas.

  It killed me to see that guard die because he was protecting me. Did the cartel, the very ones I’ve been involved with for over a decade, want me dead?

  35

  Mecca

  Corvel obviously trusted me a hell of a lot more than he trusted my uncle. His men didn’t do their usual vehicle check, and they had left me with HB. They cast hard stares at my vehicle, but none had commented on the damaged hull from the fresh bullet strikes.

  The crease in my forehead deepened as my gaze shot around in every direction. Why weren’t they questioning me? Why was HB still tucked tight against that spot that Arjen liked putting his hand? What did it mean? Had they left me with my gun so they would have an excuse to kill me?

  The lingering stares and roving eye movements when they thought I wasn’t looking weren’t missed. Neither was the brush of their hands over the areas that housed their weapons.

  The lack of breathable oxygen in the air was tangible. Was I paranoid because of the shoot-out, or were they acting strangely?

  Once the guards waved me through the gate, I drove into Corvel’s compound with the weight of the world riding my shoulders. I called the place a compound because the main house was the size of three houses merged into one.

  Grey brick and beige stucco with a large fountain sat in the center of the driveway. A large pool house around the back and two other buildings sat in the distance, one resembling a garage and the other a small cottage with the same color theme as the house.

  The only portion of the place that had a fence was the front. The sides and the back of the property were left open to the vast hilly view surrounding it. The front gate structure that spanned the length of the front of the property, was a command and control point, and added a certain royal element to the place.

  The lawn was always landscaped to perfection, like the inside of the house and its owner. I had never seen Corvel in anything other than a suit or fancy expensive button-ups with slacks. He was who inspired me to take pride in the way I dressed when I first met him at fourteen.

  The first few times I had visited with Raymond were learning experiences where I had paid attention to everything. The way he carried himself. The way he spoke. His sense of pride in what he did. He owned every aspect of his life and it was the same impression I had gotten from Silvia Cardenas, although I had never met her in person.

  My stride was me
asured, and my steps cautious, as I crossed the threshold of the front door and entered the house. Unlike my last visit, when it was me and Corvel, this time two guards stood inside of the door. A quick scan showed their black holsters displayed over crisp button-ups with their weapons visible.

  Why did Corvel feel the need for inside security? The further I stepped into the room, the more the creepy sense that I was in the middle of another setup pricked at the back of my neck.

  “Hello, Mrs. Vallin. It’s always good to see you,” Corvel greeted, as he stood at his bar and poured himself a drink.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he asked me, glancing across his shoulder. He always asked, and I always said no.

  “No, thank you.”

  I kept moving and glancing back at the guards who stood tense but quiet. Once I had stepped to within a few feet of the couch, I stilled, eyeing Corvel’s every move.

  He was as relaxed as he always was, and his smile never wavered, but the sick sense that something was amiss wouldn’t let up. There was a telling note of something in his eyes that reached out and touched me.

  Before arriving here, I had made use of the small package of baby wipes in the glovebox to make myself somewhat presentable. I had also dusted myself off as best I could, but the moment Corvel got a good look at me, he scanned my appearance with a slow roving eye, but didn’t comment.

  “Have a seat, please,” he said, aiming his head at the couch.

  The choppy steps I took hinted at my state of mind as I rounded the couch and took the seat, uncomfortable with the men hovering at my back.

  “Sir, you informed me that you wanted to have this meeting to update me on matters that could affect our arrangement. Will you tell me what those matters are?”

  He sipped from his drink, his eyes straight ahead, looking at me but seeing through me as he gathered his thoughts.

  “Yes, but now that you’re here, I’m thinking we should have scheduled this for a later date.”