36
The riffle was one easily disassembled and stored in a case not much bigger than a briefcase. It was light and sturdy, but powerful. Under the cover of darkness, she’d found a spot and had assembled the weapon to ready herself to make the kill shot.
All the information about her target had been stored on a burner phone included in the backpack with the weapon. After memorizing everything, she’d destroyed the phone and SIM card. The second phone provided would be used to send the text when the job was done.
She planned to include a few more words with her message that time. Only a few that would convey that she was done and out of that life. It wouldn’t be easy to part ways with her employer, but she would do her best to be lost to them within a matter of hours after the job was over. Then again, Kings may let her walk away. He’d always taken a shine to her from the first time she’d met him when he tried to recruit her. One could only hope.
A Spanish warlord exiled from his country lest he want to face overwhelming charges against him was her target. He’d found refuge in South America and had rebuilt his empire from scratch. He posed a huge threat to America with his political views like well-known dislike for the sitting president and his access to bring drugs and weapons into the country. Or so she’d been told. She’d long since discovered her information could be false. She’d killed from afar based on a picture. Never did she do a search to match up the intel with what could be found on the web. That made her less of a threat, she hoped, and might make her exit from the job easier. One last shot.
Her breathing slowed unnaturally as the cars pulled into the lot. She would need calm and a steady hand to make the shot from where she was. Covered from head to toe in black with her hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck and covered with a sky cap, she was a little warmer than normal. She blocked everything out accept keeping an eye out for her target. She would have less than a minute once the shot was taken to disassemble her gun and get the hell out of Dodge. The timing was less than optimal. If she didn’t kill the man with her first shot, it was likely she’d be caught. Which was why she had the capsule in her mouth as a failsafe if she was captured. She didn’t have a death wish. But the torture she would endure would be worse than taking a dirt nap.
Practice skill at meditation had her hands steady as she waited for the people to exit the vehicles. Time was counted by the beating of her heart. She wouldn’t have blinked except it became impossible not to as time passed.
It was a rumble from the south that drew closer that made her sick to her stomach. It shouldn’t be happening. Was the worst-case scenario in her mind coming true?
A steady stream of motorcycles pulled into the lot opposite the cars. She watched in horror as her father, brother, and Ender were among the men getting off the bikes. How could they be involved with such a man? Was her employer pulling her leg and making her a killer for hire? Or was she still a patriot to her country and her father wasn’t the man she thought him to be?
Her heart raced, making it hard for her to keep up with how much time had passed. The door on the limo opened, but how could she make the shot. If this was a business meeting of some sort, if she killed the man in charge, they would immediately assume her father’s club was responsible.
She pulled her eye away from the scope. It was bad business, but she had a choice to make and apparently she’d chosen. No matter what was going on, she couldn’t condemn her father or Ender and even her brother to death. No doubt once her shot was made, weapons would come out of hidden pockets and bullets would fly.
She cursed silently for a few seconds before getting her breathing under control and looking through the lens once more. She found her target in the center of a ring of armed men talking to her father.
Although she didn’t plan on killing the man, she had unwittingly become backup for the club. If anything went amiss, she would protect the club.
The men’s mouths moved, but she wasn’t an expert at reading lips, especially when one of the men probably had a strong accent. Instead, she watched their eyes for any hint there would be trouble.
It wasn’t long before both men parted on what had to be equitable terms. Her father circled a finger in the air and the riders got back on their bikes. Not long after they’d left the lot, they could be heard heading away.
She had a choice. Vélez sent a lookout to watch her dad’s crew exit. But the rest of the men made their way inside the building. She didn’t know if she could wait. The time to strike would be now. Even in the unlikelihood she was caught, her dad would have plausible deniability that he hadn’t been the one to do the deed.
With her shot lined up, she exhaled during the next second and squeezed the trigger. With a silencer screwed on, the noise was minimal. But something like a ringing phone in her target’s pocket almost ruined everything. The spray of blood, however, was unmistakable. With no more time, she hit send on the phone and began to break down her weapon, still crouched low to the ground.
Shouts rang out from the men below. She was certain someone would be sent in her direction to investigate. Time was running out. She’d just slapped the case closed when she was knocked to the ground. She hadn’t heard the man come up. Had he been stationed nearby all along? She hadn’t spied anyone during her prep time. Her assailant had to have been fast. Someone on the ground must have had military background to deduce so quickly where the shot had come from.
Unfortunately for her, during the surprise attack, the capsule that could save her from painful torture flew from her mouth from the force of the blow to her face. It would leave a bruise.
Spanish words flew from her attacker’s month as he ripped the cap from her head and took a handful of her hair. With Piper’s coloring, she was naturally tan enough to pass for a fairer Spanish woman, Italian even, and with the right makeup, garb, and contacts possibly a middle eastern woman. She’d been taught Italian and brushed up her Spanish in the armed forces. So she knew the guy had shouted to his compadres he got him. Him?
So far he hadn’t paid enough attention to know he had a woman. That might work to her advantage. She was kicked in the ribs when she tried and failed to break free. She had to escape. No telling what would happen if she was caught and found out to be a woman.
For a minute, as her bell rang in her head, she thought of Ender. Could he have wanted more from her? There was a second before she left him when she thought she caught something in his expression that suggested his predatory nature was aimed at her.
Stumbling forward with a gun at her temple and a hand wrapped around the base of her skull directing her head to the ground, she managed to move forward. She doubted she’d ever find out the answer to her Ender question. Her dad was long gone. She had listened to their bikes fade in the distance before she’d taken the shot. She’d sent the message to Kings that the job was done.
No one would be looking for her. Her dad would assume she was headed back to New York and Kings would assume the same. By the time anyone realized something different, it would be too late for her.
Just as she started to get her head back in the game, a blow hit her temple and blackness surrounded her.
37
Even though it was right there in front of his eyes, he couldn’t quite believe it. If she’d… Why? Shouts could be heard in the distance. The guys had gone further on, but they would be back soon. Sure enough, within minutes, Rocky and some of the other guys, Dog, Hawk, Bingo, and Spider jogged around the corner toward him.
“Problem?” Rocky asked.
Ender reluctantly pointed at the object in the corner. Curses came from his brothers behind him. If she’d done what he thought she did, she would have had an exit strategy.
“Where is she?” Rocky had noticed the hidden bike and come to the same conclusions he had.
They both understood what seeing it there meant.
“She should be back by now,” Ender muttered.
Rocky remembered how he felt when he first f
ound out what his daughter might do for a living. He’d made the trip to New York and confronted the man she was supposedly in love with. Brian had been capable of taking care of his daughter, a man’s man. However, he’d also been bitter and a little jealous that she’d been asked to join the covert organization. She’d gotten him in and he’d refused.
The man, however, had been impressed by Rocky, maybe even wanted to be him. When Rocky offered to bring him in, he’d turned that down too. Rocky couldn’t offer his future son-in-law a presidency of a chapter. That was earned and voted on by the chapter members. Brian hadn’t wanted to work his way to the top having done that to some extent in the military. So he’d found a weaker club and made his move. Rocky had warned the man against joining that crew. They were shadier than the black ops operation that was trying to recruit Piper.
Ultimately, it had gotten him killed. Rocky wasn’t sure how he should feel about it. He knew Piper resented him thinking he’d done the deed or somehow encouraged Brian in that behavior. Instead of coming to him for assistance when Brian was gone, Piper had done what he’d expected. She’d taken the job with the paramilitary group in order to take care of herself. Their worlds hadn’t collided until this moment.
“Fuck,” Rocky shouted.
Ender shook his head and repeated himself as if that would make her appear. “She should have been here by now.”
“So, we go get her,” Rocky declared.
He shook his head. “You can’t go in. If you’re caught, we’re all dead. You need plausible deniability.”
The brothers all agreed.
“I’ll go in alone,” Ender said.
“She’s my daughter,” Rocky groused.
“Dad, you can’t. You know this. I’ll go.”
Rocky opened his mouth, but Spider stopped him.
“She’s my sister.”
Ender shouldn’t have been shocked as shit, but he was. Never had either of her brothers claimed her.
“Take our bikes around the bend. If they find this one, maybe they’ll think she’s alone,” Ender barked to the guys behind him.
“Won’t it make it worse for us when they see the bike? They’ll think it’s us for sure,” Dog chimed in.
“Maybe, but when they find out she’s a woman, they might think her rouge.” Or worse, Ender thought. They might put it together who she worked for. That would get her good and dead. “You guys need to get going. They probably have a scout watching at the mouth of the road to see if we truly left.”
Rocky reluctantly nodded. Ender understood the man wanted to order some of the other men to go in guns blazing. However, they would be outnumbered and no doubt there would be casualties. As much as she was family to Rocky, she had basically announced her separation to the club earlier. Rocky had no choice but to show loyalty to the brotherhood. Ender and Spider would be on their own to save Piper and it was for the best.
Ender gave Rocky his wallet. If he was caught, he didn’t want the enemy to come looking for him. He didn’t hand over anything else. Because of the nature of the meeting, he’d carried a burner phone and not his personal one. Spider followed suit. Then the guys rolled his bike away, not wanting to make any sounds.
Deftly, he moved in the opposite direction around the curve headed back toward the compound. He spotted a path up the embankment she no doubt took and hunched over as he climbed it to not make himself an easier target if he encountered someone above.
At the top, he had to dive for cover when a spotlight from below shinned in the direction of the flattened hilltop. Spider shimmied his way over. Ender signaled for him to be quiet. There was movement ahead. A beam of light played over the ground. He had to hope that whoever it was had already looked in the area they currently occupied or they were fucked.
A stream of heavily accented Spanish yelled down to where he saw a prone form being dragged into the building.
Fuck, they had her.
“He said he found no one,” Spider whispered.
Good thing one of them could speak the language. He hadn’t thought about it when he took the suicide mission. His mind had only been on ensuring her safety. Getting her back was his number one goal no matter the cost.
He hoped that seeing her lifeless body being dragged inside hadn’t meant she was dead at their hands or her own. Being a former marine and with his father’s doomsday mentality, he was well versed in what it meant to be captured. She would be trained that it was better to die on your own terms.
The good thing was that they’d taken her inside. Something told him if she were dead, they would have left her outside with someone with a shovel.
“What do you want to do?” Spider asked quietly after the man with the flashlight disappeared down a different path in front of them that led to the parking lot.
He thought about it and explained his hasty plan.
38
Consciousness came back in a blur. Luckily, her training kicked in. Slowly, she willed herself to remain still and continue to breathe evenly. No way was she ready to alert them she was awake. She needed time to assess how bad her situation was.
First, with her arms above her head, she didn’t need to pull at bonds to know she hung from something above. She couldn’t risk looking. Her arms ached with the weight of her body pulling her down. As far as she could tell, she was still fully dressed. Though, her concealable lightweight Kevlar vest that she’d worn over her shirt on the off chance she got shot at was open. They’d probably done that for a few reasons, one of it was to confirm she was female. Not good.
The words came in snatches as she fought against the tug toward darkness. She had to stay awake or risk them doing other things to her vulnerable body.
Phrases like No seas gilipollas and Joder, ¿por qué no te callas? were tossed between several male voices. She understood enough Spanish to loosely translate it to, Don’t be a dumbass and Fuck, why don’t you shut up?
“Look who’s awake,” a male voice not two feet away said.
Inwardly she berated herself. Somehow she’d given herself away. A hand stroked down her face, coaxing her eyes open. But the hand didn’t stop there. It trailed a line down her neck and between her breasts. When the asshole coped a feel, she spat in the man’s face.
“Me cago en tu puta madre,” she raged, basically saying fuck you, motherfucker.
He stepped back and laughed. The men around him hesitated before joining in with half-laughs. She assumed then that the man before her had leader status. His smile froze on his face a second before it grew claws in the worst way. A strike so fast careened across her face she hadn’t known what hit her at first. Only that she tasted blood.
“Ah, this one bites.”
His followers laughed while greedily looking her over. There were four of them in the room. With her eyes open, she calculated her odds at being fucked. Hands bound with metal around her wrists, hung on something above her head, she couldn’t easily get away. Testing her chains while they watched would only prove futile. If she got out, they would only bind her tighter. She had to bide her time and hope they would leave her alone for a few minutes at some point soon.
“Tell me, did Rocky send you?”
She couldn’t hesitate with an answer. If she wasn’t quick, they’d assume she was testing out lies in her head to see what worked.
“No conozco ningún Rocky,” which translated to not knowing any such person.
She hoped her accent was spot-on. If they believed her to be Spanish, they may forget Rocky and think she was sent by one of their enemies.
The leader tossed his hands up. Troubling for her, he continued to speak in English. That most likely meant he wasn’t buying her act.
His slingshot of a hand was around her throat in seconds with firm pressure.
“I won’t ask again. Who sent you?”
He was close enough that she tilted her head back and gave a maniacal laugh before launching her head forward so hard against his she nearly knocked herself out in the
process.
Blood dripped from his nose. Temporarily he’d removed his grip from her neck in order to quizzically test the liquid streaming down his face.
“This coño has cojones, no?”
His back was slightly turned toward his audience when he spoke. But she knew that his wrath was coming. In a way, that was good. His ire was preferred over his or his men’s interest in her body.
The punch that landed wasn’t tempered. Birds circled her head along with ringing bells in her ears. He hadn’t held back when he threw it. She prayed she didn’t have a concussion as she needed all her wits to make it out alive. She willed the adrenaline that coursed through her blood would last long enough for her to get away.
She spit blood, then said, “Eres un maldito idiota,” basically telling him he was a fucking idiot.
“Puta, I will enjoy breaking you. And after I’ve had my fill and gotten whatever use out of you, I will leave you for my men.”
This time he’d spoken the words in Spanish as if to make himself clear. A tremble began in her lip, so she bit it. The idea of getting gang raped wasn’t worth the job she’d performed. Cut off the head and another had grown in its place. Or for all she knew, he had been the leader all along and the other man had only been a front to fool his enemies.
A loud thud caused all noise to evaporate in the room. The men’s ears perked up. The leader silently signaled with fingers pointing, and directions were given in a well-orchestrated manner. Soon it was just her and the main man left. He wasn’t paying much attention to her at the moment. He’d moved to the window to lift a corner of a blacked out curtain to peek outside.
Similar thuds could be heard and she counted them. One, two, three. By her count that meant there were three or four men still left standing if they’d all been outside during the meet.
Then the sounds of a pop, pop, pop fired off. The leader pulled out what appeared to be a Browning pistol from a shoulder holster and aimed it at the door.
Ride or Die (Devil's Edge MC #1) Page 19