My cell works anywhere, but I don’t have access to a state-of-the-art weaponry room in any old town. This compound isn’t called The Artillery for no reason. Every weapon combination you can think of is here, and I’ve used them all at one stage in my life.
“Oh… umm, that’s okay. I can call a taxi?” Justine suggests like it’s perfectly normal to find your way home after a failed hookup.
Under different circumstances, I would organize her a ride with one of my crew, but since the rumblings of battle are vibrating under my feet, I jerk up my chin like a soft cock for the second time tonight. “I’ll organize a cab while walking you out.”
Relief crosses Justine’s features. It’s quickly chased by worry. Instead of her heart rate pelting my hand as it did during our walk to my room, mine thuds against her back when I guide her out of my room. My heart rate is so sky-high, I feel seconds from coronary failure.
Partway to the front entrance, my cell phone rings again. I’m so eager to dig it out of my pocket, I almost drop it. I inwardly curse, annoyed by both my fumbling hands and discovering how badly I work under pressure. I didn’t need to fetch a cab for Justine. Her brother is being held up by the goons at the gate. The numerous texts they sent me requesting permission for Maddox to enter the compound assures me of this, much less the quickest peek of his Pontiac parked at the side gate.
Maddox can drive Justine home, allowing me to shift my guilt to a person it shouldn’t have left for even a minute.
After sliding my finger across the screen of my phone, I squash it to my ear. “Are you in?” When Smith whistles out an agreeing noise, I cup the speaker of my phone, then lock my eyes with Justine’s. “Will you be all right from here?”
We’re mere feet from the gate. Even a recently bled virgin would make it out of a house full of vampires unscathed in the distance she has left to travel.
Justine’s chin barely dips an inch when I spin on my heels and race away from her as if she has cooties. It’s a jerk-hat move, but as I’ve said before, Fien comes before anyone.
“Where is she?”
I stop dead in my tracks when Smith replies, “She’s been under our nose the entire fucking time. She’s in Ravenshoe.”
Chapter Seven
Dimitri
As I race for the weaponry room to stock up on supplies, Smith advises why he had trouble tracking Fien’s location. “You know the hold Isaac Holt has on Ravenshoe. His security personnel was never going to let me in without groveling.” He scrubs at his hairless chin while disclosing, “I’m down a dozen favors, and he wouldn’t even let me piggyback his trace. Fucker.”
I’m not surprised. Isaac and I have met before. Let’s just say things aren’t amicable between us, so I don’t see him letting his hacker work for me even if I offered to pay. “Did you ask him to cancel the flight?”
My jaw tightens when Smith’s hum this time around isn’t agreeing. “Tried. The airstrip is privately owned. Hunter agreed to throw up some server blockers to delay their departure. It’ll give us thirty, forty minutes tops.”
Thirty minutes works. I can get to Ravenshoe easily within thirty minutes. “Clover—”
“On his way with Preacher. He’s taking the tank.”
Smith’s reply frustrates me to no end. “We can’t go in heavy. Fien could get hurt.” While weaponing up with my arsenal of choice, I take a moment to deliberate. “Tell Clover to wait. He’s not to make a move until I’ve arrived.”
I inwardly curse again, panicked I’m doing the wrong thing but also aware of how Clover works. He’s a killing machine who craves a massacre no matter the cost. His passion for a bloodbath could get Fien killed. I’d rather lose sight of her for another year than lose her altogether.
“Monitor the situation with Hunter, if circumstances change, patch it through to the Range Rover feed. I’ll take Rocco with me.”
Confident he’ll follow my orders to the T, I disconnect our call, stuff a second colt down the back of my trousers, then hotfoot it in the direction I last saw Rocco. He was the one getting frisky in the hallway when I guided Justine down it.
Rocco drives like a madman, has done two stints in prison, and has a murder count nearly as high as mine, and it was all achieved before his twenty-fifth birthday. His impressive stats aren’t the reason I’m pulling him into this, though. It’s because he achieved all of the above while under my watch.
I needed someone deep in the prison system for future plans. Dirty guards are always handy to have up your sleeve, but they’ve got nothing on true gangbangers. Despite what the warden tells you, he isn’t in charge of anything that happens in the yard. He doesn’t even have a hold on the cells. They’ve always been run by the Cartel.
The sweet smell of sweat-slicked skin streams into my nose when I enter the hallway where my room is located. Rocco is still going at it. I’m not surprised. He only has one whore on the go. He usually has two or three. “I need to get to Ravenshoe in under thirty minutes. We’ll take the Range Rover most of the way.”
To the disgrace of the brunette he’s balls deep inside of, Rocco immediately withdraws, yanks his jeans up his stout thighs, then tucks away his cock. After winking at his whining counterpart to ensure her he’ll be back to finish what he started later, he follows me toward a hidden bunker at the side of the compound.
My brutal speed slows a few seconds later when the quickest flash of galaxy black paint gleaming in the moonlight captures my attention. Maddox’s pride and joy is still parked by the side gate. He’s seated behind the steering wheel.
What the fuck?I thought he would have been long gone by now.
My brain is still striving to work out two plus two when India arrives out of nowhere. Her visits have been few and far between the past three months. I don’t know if my almost choking scared her away or the fact Miceli likes smacking his girl around while she gives him head. She would have needed more than a stick of concealer by the time Miceli was done with her.
I shouldn’t relish the thought, however I do.
