Not for reverence.
Not even for my brother.
I am heresolelyfor my wife.
“Left or right, Smith?” I ask after breaking through the paned glass door of Rico’s building.
I’m pissed I need to get orders from him, he’s usually on the ball, but I guess his delay is understandable. We’ve never played in this playground before. It’s all new.
“Left. Three doors down. Security pad code is 3281.”
The eerie silence that usually encroaches every takeover bid overtakes Smith’s breaths battering my ears when I creep down a hallway lined with bodies. I don’t need to check if the first three victims are breathing. It’s clear they died a quick, painless death. The fourth man isn’t so lucky. He’s gripping his shirt like his hands can fix the bullet wounds in his chest.
I try to walk past him. I try to ignore the plea in his eyes, but something stops me. I want to say it’s because I’m a good man, but we both know that is a lie. There’s something more at play here. I just have no fucking clue what it is.
“Redirect first responders to the back entrance.”
While Smith mimics the voice of an officer in need of emergency assistance, I fist the man’s collar and drag him toward the exit I just snuck through seconds ago. I prop him up against the back door so he can’t be missed by the medics when they arrive before returning to the door locked by an electronic pad.
Just as I lower the handle, Hunter says, “Guard isn’t on payroll…” I stop his reply by popping a bullet between the eyes of the man manning the desk before jackknifing to an African American man seated in the chair next to him. I lower my gun from the man’s head to his chest when it dawns on me that he’s taped to the chair. I also recognize him. He is Nikolai’s advisor—the same man who mocked me when I assured him my claims of a takeover weren’t fraudulent.
“Go,” Roman begs when I ripped the duct tape from his mouth. “I’ll take care of everything down here.”
I thrust a gun into his chest with more force than needed before snarling, “Your men are still minutes out.”
He absorbs the disappointment in my tone without the slightest bit of disdain crossing his features. He knows he fucked up, so he isn’t going to argue about it.
Not having the time nor the care to ensure he knows the full extent of my annoyance, I move through the building in the direction opposite several residents are fleeing from. Roman pulled the fire alarm, not only giving me the perfect cover to climb a flight of stairs unnoticed, but it will also stop the pesky FBI from getting my face on camera.
Pop, pop.Another two men of the unnamed crew feel the burn of my bullets.
When one of the man’s brain explodes onto a door hanging by its hinges, a weird noise sounds out of the earpiece lodged in my ear. It seems as if Hunter is swishing his tongue around his mouth, unaccustomed to the gore that comes from this life.
I’m not surprised. Isaac plays the role of a mob boss well, but he’s far from being one. He just stood up to the plate at the right time. It amassed him a favor only someone as smart as him could turn into a multiple billion-dollar empire.
It’s rare for me to admit I admire someone. I don’t face the same issues with Isaac. Just like the digits in my bank account, he is responsible for every one of them in his. There’s just one noticeable difference. His businesses are legitimate. Mine are not.
I get my head back into game mode when Smith’s voice crackles out of my earpiece. “Thirty p…erps… o… roof…”
“Smith?” I count to three before calling his name again. “Smith.”
When nothing but deadly silence sounds from my earpiece for the next several seconds, I curse under my breath, armor up, then race onto the battlefield as if my pregnant wife’s only shield of defense is a dining room table upended on its side.
After charging into the cozy, yet understated apartment, I take a few moments to survey the scene. Considering they’re outnumbered twenty to one, Nikolai and Rico have remarkably maintained control. That might have something to do with the machine gun Rico is yielding like a real-life motherfucking gangster. He slices the swell of insurgents in half in one fell swoop and will be set to deplete the restifthe assailant sneaking up on him doesn’t end his campaign.
Since I have the means to ensure that doesn’t occur, I put actions into play. The man creeping his way falls back with a thud when I take him down with a direct kill shot between the brows.
The light in his eyes has only just been snuffed when Smith’s frantic voice breaks through the shrill of my pulse in my ears. “Get. Out. Now!”
I lock my eyes with Nikolai. The sheer warning in them should tell him everything he needs to know, but in case it doesn’t, I add words into the mix. “They’re swarming you from all angles. You need to get into the open before they kill you all.”
A grunt leaves my lips when my conversation with Nikolai is interrupted by a perp with a machete. He charges at me with his hands held high in the air, leaving his chest exposed to the brutality I was raised by.
I jab my knife into his chest before dragging it down, smiling when shock darts through his eyes a mere second before he falls to his knees. He’s stunned I didn’t shoot him. I don’t have the heart to tell him his life wasn’t worth the cost of a bullet.
When a second man comes at me, I swoop down low, slice the tendons on the back of his knees, then pop back up before he knows what hit him.
I’m just as astounded as him when Nikolai shouts, “Take them,” a mere second before he thrusts Justine to my side of the room. Just like me, he’d rather side with his enemy than see his woman get hurt.
