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Yeah, that definitely posed a problem, didn’t it? Still, they didn’t know that.
Maybe they did, though.
A storm of doubts and conflicting thoughts swirled through my mind, making me resentful and dizzy at the same time. The beer wasn’t helping either, to tell the truth. And it was getting late. So late that I’d be working my next shift with little to no sleep if I didn’t get my ass in gear.
Mercenaries.
The word seemed so strange, so unrealistic. Yet at the same time, it was oddly romantic. Outside of the occasional action movie, I never imagined people like this actually existed. In a war zone maybe, but not here in the real world.
And yet here they were, right here in the heart of a major city. Strong. Trained. Capable. Quite possibly the only answer to my very complicated problem.
Damn.
But it all meant nothing if they weren’t willing to help.
Seven
CODY
They came in through the front, like rank amateurs. They moved like amateurs too, but that part was to be expected.
Even worse, they could barely wait for her to fall asleep. Ten minutes after the light in the window blinked out, and with the light of a television still flickering on the far wall, they made their move. They converged loudly, clumsily, not caring if the entire neighborhood heard.
ButIheard. And it was an easy thing to move behind them.
It was obvious they weren’t used to being challenged, and that probably made them even more dangerous. These were bullies more than men. Cronies who relied on brute force rather than skill or finesse, and who were so overconfident to the point of recklessness it was outright insulting.
Especially when their target was a defenseless, sleeping woman.
I took out the lookout first, slipping in from behind and sinking my rear-naked choke so deep, so fast, he didn’t have time to let out a gurgle. His body dropped limply as he went to sleep, and I dragged him the extra few feet into the darkness cast by the building’s awning before moving inside.
The Lozanos.
Of all the filth that operated from the shadows of this scum-ridden city, it was the one group we hadn’t touched. And that’s because touching one meant touching all of them. Getting not just your fingers dirty but your entire hand, your arm, your whole fucking body.
The Lozano crime family wasn’t exactly subtle, nor were they very smart. But they had numbers. They had balls. The members of the family usually kept themselves well-insulated from the people they employed, and those people were willing to do reckless, stupid things like the one they were trying to pull now.
I entered the hallway with my M9 cocked, ready, and held overhead. I approached the first opening on the left, paused, then acted in one fluid motion.
“Unff…”
The man spinning back in after clearing the kitchen didn’t see me until the last second. By the time he did I’d brought my pistol down with a sickening crunch of cartilage and bone. The blow carried enough force to drive what was left of his nose halfway down toward his newly-cracked jaw, and he crumpled to the floor like a bushel of rotten oranges.
“Christophe?”
The next voice was low, almost a hiss. It came from the opening in the opposite wall.
“What the hell are you—”
The rest of the man’s sentence was obliterated by all the air in his lungs leaving at once. I grabbed his head and drove my knee full-blast into his solar-plexus, knocking the wind from him for what I knew would be close to a full minute.
“Stay down,” I ordered.
The man struggling to breathe was also trying desperately to figure out who I was. He sprawled backward onto the floor of the living area, reaching for the gun at his hip that was no longer there.
“This,” I smirked, holding up his revolver and shaking it in his direction, “is way too big for you.”
The Colt Python he’d chosen had a six instead of a four-inch barrel, and was too clunky and slow to be of any quick use for him. Then again, guys like this always picked the bigger guns. They went with the .45 or the .357, or even the Desert Eagle, since the model showed up so gloriously in movies these days. But hey, the Desert Eagle was at least useful. The hand-cannon I was holding now was better-suited for showing off and bullying women. And while I could probably knock out a donkey with it, when it actually came down to—
