God save anyone who does her wrong when she reaches her prime.
Although the drone of a single police siren has been temporarily diverted, no amount of manipulation can alter the buzz of half a dozen. They’re even howling above our heads, the big guns brought in for the sake of one of their own.
While a police helicopter circles above us, Rocco slides into the driver’s seat of my car before firing up the ignition. I don’t put up a protest. Not only does he drive faster and better than me, the change-up will give me time to peruse the image Lucy showed me.
“Can you see this?” I raise my voice to ensure Smith can hear me over the ruckus attempting to follow us out of Alice’s gated community.
“Spikes on entry ramp 43, take Makers,” Smith advises Rocco before shifting his focus to me. “I’m stripping Lucy’s ‘find my phone’ app to trace the location the photo was taken from, but it would be quicker if you zoomed in.”
My tailor-made pants slide across the leather interior of my car when Rocco takes Makers like a bat out of hell. We get airborne for a second, which increases the width of Rocco’s grin.
Once our tires grip the asphalt, I get back to business. “On what?”
“Right on Lark.” Smith’s fingers tap out a million words a minute before he responds, “Top left. It appears to be some type of emblem. I’m certain I’ve seen it before.”
As Rocco loses the last police cruiser tailing us by plowing through an intersection at a speed well above the designated signage, I double tap on the screen of Lucy’s iPad. I don’t need to angle it to ensure Smith gets a clear view of the poster in the camera hidden in my rearview mirror. I already know who it belongs to. It’s a poster-size flyer of the ones I handed out the night of Ophelia’s accident. The flyers Ophelia designed knowing our father would be more arrogant in front of an audience. He isn’t one of those men who rain sunshine down on his family in front of others to portray the ideal husband and father. He preferred degrading us. Blood or not, if he could stand on you to make himself feel an inch taller, he would.
He still does.
With my jaw tight with annoyance, my voice is huskier than normal. “Have Clover meet us at the tunnel. We need to weapon-up before moving in.” While Smith hums out an agreeing noise, I switch my eyes to Rocco. “We need to dump and burn.”
He flashes me a cocky wink. “Already reported her as stolen.” When I give him a look as if to ask when he had time to do that, he rubs his hands together like we’re not sailing down the road at a speed well above the designated limit. “We all have our secrets, D. Even me.”
If it were any day but today, I’d torture his secrets out of him. Since it isn’t, they’ll have to stay on the backburner. I want to finish my day strong, not burden it down with more stress.
5
Dimitri
With the eyes of a dozen bloodthirsty men on me, I say, “The warehouse we’re about to storm was once a Petretti stronghold. It isn’t anymore. We would be fools to walk in blind.”
Even while juggling a laptop like a circus clown, Smith jumps into the conversation with no hesitation in his voice. “We heat-scanned the warehouse. Readings are coming back with the imagery of a single occupant. Height, weight, and core body temperature reveals the target is most likely female—”
“Or he’ll be wishing he was by the time we’re done with him,” Rocco interrupts, laughing. Humor is his go-to when he’s feeling overwhelmed.
“She is also breathing.”
I’m reasonably sure Smith’s pause is to give me time to absorb the good in what he’s saying, that Roxanne is alive and well. It’s appreciated, but it doesn’t lessen my itch to kill. I’m fired up and ready to go, only delayed by making sure the men about to follow me to battle know what they’re fighting for.
They won’t come out of today with a legacy. They will only be awarded my respect.
To some, that’s as worthless as a piece of paper.
To me, it’s the most valuable thing I own.
Smith’s next set of words gobble up the last of the laughter from Rocco’s witty comment. “The fact only one occupant has been noted should concern you. This is most likely an ambush.”
He brings up imagery of the terrain surrounding the warehouse. Because it’s an old industrial area that pumped out as much steel as drugs in the seventies, it is swamped by similar-sized buildings.
“As per Dimitri’s request…” don’t misconstrue Rocco’s nicely worded statement, he’s beyond pissed about my ‘request,’ “… while he enters the main warehouse from the front entrancelike a sitting fucking duck…” he murmurs his last five words, “… we are to search the buildings on each side of it.”
Eager to get back to the operation I’m helming, I add, “Smith has deployed drones. They will jam all signals, including ours. This isn’t a seek-orders mission. If you must kill or be killed, always choose the former. If we can’t get information out of them, we will find a way of getting it out of their corpse.”
Needing to get things moving since we lost hours waiting for Smith to work his magic, I throw open the door of the van we’re camped out in before making my way to the road’s edge. Since we’re back a good distance from the warehouse holding one occupant, I have to shield my eyes from the low-hanging sun to take it in.
I want to say my stare-down weakens the knot in my stomach, but that would be a lie. Smith wasn’t deceitful when he said this is an ambush. My enemies are waiting for me to fall, but since I refuse to continue taking it up the ass as I have the past two years, I’m rewriting the rules. It could get myself killed, but just like I’ll never be a hero, I won’t die a coward either.
“Let’s go. The sooner we know who’s in that warehouse, the better it will be for all involved.” You didn’t misread my tone. I’m doubtful the person holed up in the warehouse for the past two hours is Roxanne. An explosive personality like hers is felt for miles. Not even the slightest tickle is felt under my toes. My intuition is telling me I will get answers today. They just won’t be answers to the questions I want answered.
