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“Yard. Clear,” Vic said.
I gestured to the door with a chin nod and Deck positioned himself on the one side. Vic stayed where he was, watching for any incoming or overhead assault.
I kicked open the door and the wood splintered.
Deck and I stood clear of it for a five count and when there was no sound, I entered first, Deck covering me.
“Jesus,” Deck muttered.
Some of the kids were terrified, thin as fuck, filthy, pale and I guessed from ten to fourteen years old. Other kids had no reaction to our appearance at all—numb. I knew the feeling. No longer caring. Time and fear no longer existent.
“Package located.” Deck glanced over his shoulder at Vic who jogged toward us.
“Target has landed,” Tyler’s voice said over the headset. “Repeat, target has landed. Shitload of firepower.”
I looked at the kids. “Move away from the door. Against the wall.” I gestured with my hands, uncertain if they all understood English. But the farm hadn’t been strictly about combat and pain and torture, we’d had intense schooling. We had to be able to communicate and intermingle with some of the most powerful men in the world, criminal or otherwise.
A couple of the older kids moved first then the others followed.
“Any more of you here?” Deck asked.
A young boy, probably the smallest, stepped forward. He didn’t look Colombian and had blond hair and bright blue eyes. He also looked unafraid of us. “In the pit. Trick.”
“Trick?”
The kid nodded and pointed to one of the pits on the left side of the yard. “Trick is bad all the time. He’s always in the pit.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. Because I knew what it was like and depending on what time of year, the pit was hot, cramped and suffocating. If you panicked, it only made it worse because you couldn’t breathe, and screaming got you more days in the pit.
Deck was already moving to the pit the kid indicated. My head snapped up. Footsteps. Lots of them and they were running. I pushed the kids back away from the door. “Get back and stay down.”
We planned on having time to get the kids out before Moreno showed, if he showed, but he was here within minutes. No way could he be here within minutes of us taking the place.
Someone told him we were coming.
“Tyler, target confirmed?” Deck asked.
There was radio silence.
“Fuck. Tyler.”
Nothing.
“Vic,” Deck said.
“On it.” Vic was out the door and gone.
“Deck. We do this. Now.” He looked at me, paused, and then nodded.
Moreno was the target and he’d come here with a shitload of firepower. Firepower that Deck and I couldn’t handle on our own and with kids potentially getting hurt in a shit storm of gunfire. We needed a controlled take down.
Deck ran to the wall, grabbed one of the ladders and lowered it into the pit closest to him. He gave me an abrupt nod and then disappeared inside.
I stood in the middle of the yard when Moreno’s men barged in. I’d never surrendered before, but as I stood in the yard where I’d spent two years of my life, I realized I had surrendered—to Vault.
I tossed my knife to the right of me then held up my hands. Two guys covered the door while five took the perimeter of the yard and three surrounded one man—Moreno.
They walked toward me then stopped five feet away, guns aimed at my chest.
Moreno was tall and probably why he didn’t look overweight, but he had a belly that hung over the belt on his pants. His hair was greased back and curled slightly at the curve of his neck. He also had a sharp, long nose with a notch in the center, and cruel, beady brown eyes.
His face was weathered from too much sun and made him appear older than his fifty-five years. He wore black pants and a white, cotton button-down that had the first three buttons undone and revealed his two gold necklaces, one with a cross and the other with an oversized emerald.
“Moreno.” I lowered my hands and one of the men gestured with his gun and I put them up again.
I’d recognized the necklaces from when I was a kid. This was the man who’d stared down at me in the pit. The man who had stood with the other Vault members and watched my father tortured then killed by my mother. Who’d watched my sister beaten.
I practiced for years and years to conceal my anger and numb myself, but fuck, I wanted to kill the bastard. I wanted him to die the way my father did. I wanted to cut that smirk off his face and have him beg me to let him live.
I clenched my jaw and forced a smile. “How have you been? Been a while, Moreno.”
“Yes. Since your sister’s little… mishap.” He clucked his tongue. “Such disloyalty you and your sister have shown to those who have raised you. Given you everything.”
