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It was a breeze getting this close thanks to the two semi-trucks providing excellent cover as we approached from the south west side.
She sinks back down in the next second beneath our cover again and whispers to me, “Cristian’s intel is confirmed. Six men inside. They’re getting tired though. Three of them are sitting down and chilling. One’s fired up a smoke. The other two are leaning idly against the first interior wall, one on either side.”
“All right. Let’s do this like we did the Jasper mission.”
Her eyes light up in remembrance. “The Kyle Jasper takedown. Damn, that was satisfying,” she says, looking all blissed-out at the memory. I’m right there with her on that. Quick, efficient, and brutal. Definitely our thing. We did a bunch of things like that during the time we were together, helping each other out knocking down our respective enemies and targets. Jasper was a drug runner for Skinner way back when. He had to be taken out on the downlow so it didn’t come back on the club at the time. And Char helped me stage it that way when we obliterated him and his operation in one night.
“Don’t move in until my signal, Cal. I’ll use the same one as I did during that old mission. Swear it to me.”
Clenching the fist of my free hand, my knuckles turn white at the pressure I’m putting into it, as I fight to push down my possessive and overprotective tendencies when it comes to her.
I know this is what’s gotta happen, the best option. And if I can’t let her go in right now and handle her shit, we ain’t gonna be able to work together when all this is over.
I manage a nod, telling her, “You know what you’re doing. I’m good with it.”
Good with itis a bit of an overstatement. But it’s gotta happen. It’s the best play here. Besides, Charlotte Brant is a goddamn badass sent straight from hell, a seasoned professional. She’s got this.
“All right.” She gives my hand a squeeze, then snaps into action, sneaking over the platform with her fluid and silent movements, keeping low until she makes it to the closest wall inside and flattens her back against it.
I shift position, easing onto the platform so I’m able to take aim at any one of the six Gatekeepers within, to watch her back fully.
In the next beat, she fires off two rapid-fire shots, one at the guys positioned either side of the door leading into the loading dock. She’s rocking a silencer like me, which is gonna keep the guys inside the main part of the warehouse from being alerted by our shots, but it don’t have the ability to make a gun completely soundless, so in real close quarters like right now, these fuckers are gonna hear it. As the bullets tear through their throats, the whizzing’s distinctive and it gets the other four guys’ attention. Their bodies dropping next with two hefty thuds directs their attention long enough for Char to sprint through the room. With a roll, she makes it to the nearest point of cover, behind a steel pillar, just before shots ring out from the four remaining targets.
And then I hear her whistle.
I burst from my position, bolting over to the door. Flattening my back against it, I take a beat until there’s a brief break in their fire, then I whirl around and fire off a shot at the one moving closer to Char’s cover.
He drops like a ragdoll as my bullet drives through his temple.
It gives Char the in she needs to get off a shot at another one.
Two more shots from me at the remaining guys is all it takes to end it and put them down.
Char walks to me and we do one of our old slap-shakes. “Nice work. Very in sync.”
“Always were,” I say as I follow her over to the door that leads deeper into the warehouse.
Char taps her earpiece as we reach the door, communicating to the team, “Targets down in loading dock. Preparing to enter the inner sanctum now.”
“Copy that,” Cavalno’s voice sounds down the line.
I pull the access card from the inside pocket of my leather jacket that Cavalno’s plant had copied for us. I swipe it through the card reader. The red blinking light instantly switches to green, the lock clanging as it unlocks and the door edges open with an aggravating grate.
As I pocket the card and ready my gun again, Char very carefully peers around the door, doing recon on what we’re about to walk into.
“All clear,” she whispers back in the next second.
She bolts through without another word. I can feel her urgency to get this over and done with, to take that motherfucker and his stain of an organization down. I just hope she can keep that at bay, because urgency leads to rashness and that leads to mistakes, something we really can’t afford. Just like Cavalno emphasized, this takedown has gotta happen tonight, it’s gotta end tonight.
I’m right at her back, following her into the corridor in the next split second, the two of us working in tandem to do a sweep of the immediate area.
There are rows and rows of pallet racks extending the length of the warehouse, hefty packing crates stacked on them housing a shitload of weapons.
One distinct voice echoes through the heart of the warehouse.
Matthew fucking Priest.
Sounds like he’s well into his annual meeting speech. I pick up a few things here and there about Hounds of Fury and Julian King, but I tune out in the next moment. Ain’t here to listen. We’re here to focus and take him down.
