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Ajax groaned. “What did you say?”
“I said we’re torching your body shop. You’re done.”
“No, no.” Ajax struggled to push himself up on his hands and knees. “You can’t.”
“Too late, fucker. Already happening.”
“No, no, my sister’s there. Mandy’s in the office.”
That snapped Mamba right out of his haze. “What the fuck did you say?”
“Mandy, she’s locked in the office.”
“Why the fuck would she be locked—”
“Call Rattler and Boa,” Cobra yelled and fished his phone out of his pocket.
Mamba grabbed Ajax’s t-shirt, twisted the material, and lifted him off the ground. “You better fuckin’ hope nothing happens to her.”
He frantically swiped at Mandy’s number, and the phone in Ajax’s pocket buzzed. Mamba glared down at him. “What the fuck did you do?”
“I took her phone to text you”—he spat blood—“so you’d think it was her.”
“You locked her in your office without a phone? I swear to fuck—”
“C’mon,” Cobra tagged his shoulder. “They’re not answering. Probably have their phones off.”
“We gotta get over there.”
By this time, a considerable crowd streamed out of the building, some complaining about the fight’s delay and others to see what was going on, but Mamba had only one thing on his mind—rescuing Mandy.
They fought through the crowd, hopped on their bikes, and barreled out of the parking lot. The ten-minute ride twisted Mamba’s gut. The anxiety tightened his chest to the point of pain.
Mamba had never felt so helpless and desperate in his life. The thought of Mandy trapped in a burning building brought him to his knees faster than any blow to the head.
The flames shot overhead as the blaring sirens of fire trucks and cop cars turned down the street. The guys pulled their bikes to the curb, and Mamba barely got the kickstand down before he hopped off and jogged up the sidewalk. The heat increased as he got closer to the body shop, and so did the heavy smell of gasoline and burning rubber. All deadly noxious fumes if inhaled too long—and highly explosive.
Cops jumped out of their cars as fire trucks lined the street. He barged past them and stopped short when something exploded and blew out the front window.
For once, he wished Boa and Python weren’t so good at their jobs.
“Stay back,” the cops ordered, but Mamba moved along the side of the building, looking for a way in as smoke billowed out of the partially caved-in roof. More sirens wailed in the background, but Mamba blocked it all out and concentrated on getting to Mandy.
“Is this your shop, sir?” Mamba spun around to face a firefighter as big as him in full gear.
“There’s a girl trapped inside. In the office, maybe in the back.”
“All right, you need to stay here and let us take care of it.” He waved over the other firemen and relayed the information.
They headed for the back of the building with Mamba at their heels. One of them pried the back door open, flipped down their face masks, and trooped in. The thick, acrid smoke surrounded them, but the flames hadn’t yet reached that area of the building.
Thank fuck, there was still a chance.
Mamba coughed and choked as the smoke wafted around him, bargaining with everything he had that they’d find her in time.
“You can’t come any further, sir,” a fireman’s distorted voice said through the mask. He put his gloved hand on Mamba’s chest, pushed him back out the door, then disappeared into the dense cloud.
Mamba choked and sucked in the clear air. As much as he wanted to charge in there, he’d be useless without an oxygen mask, so he waited by the doorway’s edge, straining to see through the billowing gray fumes. He was having trouble breathing, and he wasn’t even in the thick of it, so what chance— Fuck no, he wouldn’t go there. He couldn’t.
