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Fortunately, I had made a contingency plan for the event that things went just as sideways as they have. I didn’t believe that the plan could fail like this at the time that I was putting it together, but only because I’ve always found myself three steps ahead of my opponents. I had hired Vitale when he was in his twenties. I thought I knew him inside and out. That was the only way I could have trusted him the way I did.
And, of course, my ego got in the way. Now Iris might be hurt or on her way to an early death, and Vitale will continue to manipulate, use, and discard these women under my name.
“Everything is ready to go, sir. I made sure that everyone had the weapons you’d assigned to them, and now all we need is the go-ahead from you,” Leonardo says as he stands in the doorway of my office.
It’s incredibly painful to pull myself away from the monitor where I can hear Iris’s wire, even if it’s been stripped from her by now. I’m shocked that it hasn’t been cut, but I’ll take it as an advantage for now.
Hearing her weeping has been the hardest thing about this. She sounds muffled by something, but it’s evident that she’s under significant stress. I haven’t heard anything that makes me think that she’s been injured yet, at least not with any lasting damage.
Mentally and emotionally, I’m not so sure.
I don’t even think there’s anything I can do for her to bring her back from this. I’m positive that an apology won’t cut it. For now, I need to focus on saving her ass so that I even get the opportunity to fuck up an apology. This situation is so unique that it’s difficult to compartmentalize what’s important to stress about and what isn’t.
We load up the armored trucks, just like we’d planned and prepared for. If there’s anything I can trust my men to do right the first time, it’s assemble to fight my enemies when I need them to save my ass. I’ll be leading the fleet, of course, but I’d be shot dead in three seconds if I were to show up by myself. If I can’t make it up to Iris, maybe I can make it up to my men if we make it out alive.
The feeling of the gigantic tires humming along the pavement adds an unnerving drone to the silence inside. Nobody ever talks during the drives for these missions, and sometimes I wish they would. Talk to each other about your girlfriend that you hate or how shitty your fantasy football league is. I don’t care. Just give me some indication that you’re confident and unafraid.
In cases like these, that might be too much to ask.
Returning to this warehouse in the middle of nowhere brings back a slew of memories from a time that I’d put behind me long ago. I moved my inventory to a different location for multiple reasons, but one of them was the fact that I was being staked out by the feds. I knew they were spying on me, but they couldn’t catch me in the act. I noticed that they were trying to fuck me the second I saw an undercover cop car drive past me as I drove home one night.
The fact that Vitale was ballsy enough to start operating out of this place is both impressive and daunting. He truly doesn’t fear anyone, not even me. He even killed my favorite stripper to prove it. He believes that he’s above the law, answers to nobody, and has free rein to terrorize anyone he encounters.
If I had seen this happening more closely, I might have been able to stop it before it happened.
For now, all I can do is try to keep it from getting worse.
As we continue onward, I watch the sun disappear behind the horizon, turning its back on the worst of humanity when they come out to play. I can’t say I blame it. If I had the choice, I would run away too.
Seeing the lights from the warehouse from a half-mile away feels insulting somehow. Is he trying to get caught now? Is he trying to prove to me that he’s untouchable? He might not have gotten caught yet, but if I don’t kill him, the feds will be right back on his doorstep in a matter of days.
Perhaps he isn’t planning to stay that long.
While his choice to rub this in my face is childish, he seems to be timing everything perfectly enough to make a point while avoiding the consequences. All he’s done now is indicate to me that he’s a flight risk, which means I’ll be fighting even harder to bring him down.
We shut off the lights to the trucks as we creep them down a dirt path that leads to the warehouse. It’s pitch black out here at night, and the only sound in the air is the chatter of nocturnal animals. It’s eerie to me, both as someone who has lived in the woods and someone who hasn’t.
The part of these missions that always stresses me out the most is getting everyone out of the trucks without making noise. If we get caught by someone he’s positioned as a stakeout, we’re fucked. Once we’ve avoided issues with that, our success rate skyrockets.
Everybody moves out as quietly as they can, watching me with laser focus as I lead them toward the side door with my weapon ready.
They all know what Iris looks like, that she’s the priority, but any other girls we find out here will be taken with us as well. We’ll have more than enough space to accommodate a large group of them, but I hope to god that there’s nobody else here. I’d hate for anyone else to be experiencing this unique little hell that Iris has slipped into.
As soon as I turn the doorknob, I’m firing into the first hallway. I know they’re keeping her in the basement, which means that I run no risk of hitting her with a stray bullet or a crossfire. The only people I’ll be hitting will be people who don’t deserve to see the sun ever again.
It’s not hard to allay my guilt with these types. Perhaps I’m playing god, but sometimes he does a shitty job at picking people's fate.
We storm the building, one bad footstep away from tramping each other. This moment always feels surreal during raids – everybody here knows they might not make it on the other side of this fire fight. But we’ve united against a common enemy, and no force in the world is stronger than righteous anger.
We’ve already hit two men, one of them actively dying on the floor behind me as the other crawls to the door for one last chance to escape. If I see Amy, I’ll shoot her right between her fucking eyes. I don’t care if she’s an influential figure in the city, and I don’t care if there’s an investigation opened for her death. If anyone had the thought to go through her past, they’d thank me for killing her.
My boots are heavy as they slap the concrete floor, aiming my gun straight ahead as another one of Vitale’s goons freezes in my crosshairs. He’s an easy shot, but I see a flash of pure cosmic terror in his eyes that tells me that he’s been ready to go for too long now. Living this life must have shown him how irredeemable humanity truly is.
He falls to his knees the moment my bullet connects with his chest, racing death to see how much quicker his passing can be.
The last two men have their hands up now, as if they expect me to show them a shred of mercy. I wonder how much mercy they showed to the girls they were caught beating on camera, or maybe the younger ones who come from overseas expecting a real job. I feel no remorse as I pull the trigger again, releasing an onslaught of bullets as the shells clatter against the floor.
Before we move on to the basement, I find myself admiring the bullet holes in these men’s clothes as blood begins to pour out of them. The power behind such a small projectile has never ceased to amaze me, and right now is no exception. However, admiring my work is a ritual I picked up when I was a teen.
