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She held the phone out so we could watch as an unmarked black sedan rolled slowly into the driveway, windows tinted dark. There wasn’t even brand badging on the sedan, which immediately raised red flags in my head.
“Do you recognize that car?” I asked her.
“No,” she breathed, looking at me with wide, scared eyes.
“Go upstairs and stay there until I tell you to come down, alright? I’m going to go talk to whoever this is.”
I had a bad feeling about all of this. The timing felt too coincidental. Two break-in attempts that failed; the next natural escalation would be forcing entry. Maybe they hoped Rachel would be out of the house, or maybe it wasn’t anything sinister at all, just a neighbor or a lost driver. Whatever or whoever it was, I certainly wasn’t sending Rachel to talk to them first. Unlike that fucking sheriff that let her enter a potentially dangerous room before he did.
Rachel, though, looked like she didn’t want to go. She had her hands clasped in front of her, but her chin tilted up stubbornly. “I want to come with you.”
“Absolutely not,” I groused. “Upstairs. I’m your security, remember?”
She wanted to argue. I could see it in her face, but thankfully she did as she was told. When she was halfway up the stairs, she looked back down, expression unsure.
“Be careful,” she told me, before turning away and disappearing to the second floor.
With the woman secured, I rolled my neck a few times back and forth to stretch, opened the front door, and walked out into the Texas sun.
The car had pulled up as close to the front door as possible, all the windows still rolled up completely. It looked so out of place on this secluded lot, sleek and sterile, and the closer I get to it, the more on edge I grew.
Hands at my sides so whoever is in the car could see I wasn’t holding anything, I approached, smiling to look a little less intimidating. I knew what I looked like; big, tall, and rough around the edges. Nellie had once told me it looked like I ate glass shards for breakfast.
When I was a few feet away, the window closest to me rolled silently down, and I got my first look at the occupants.
They were an ominous group in black suit jackets over white oxfords, all four of them wearing sunglasses that obscured their identity. The one I was closest to looked at me, while the other three stared straight ahead.
“Who are you?” he asked in a monotone.
“Gunner Stone, Stone Security.” I make a show of looking the car over. “What are you gentlemen doing here this afternoon? We weren’t expecting any visitors.”
I couldn’t see where he was looking because of his glasses, but I noticed the slight upward tilt of his head. I followed his gaze and saw Rachel standing at one of the windows, watching us. Damn her! So much for keeping her presence a secret.
I lowered my voice. “I’ll ask again, since you seem not to have heard me. What are you gentlemen doing here?”
The man turned to look at the car’s other occupants, and they all seemed to share a quick nod. After that, things moved so quickly that I could barely keep up.
Before I could take another breath, the man in the car raised a pistol and fired twice: bang! bang! right into my chest. The bullets hit me like a freight train, and I stumbled back, hearing Rachel’s scream of horror even through the glass windows.
If they took me out so fast with no questioning, that meant I was an obstacle in their way. The true prize washer.
It hurt. Fuck, did it hurt! But I managed to keep my footing as the men flowed out of the car and passed me like a well-oiled machine. They were clearly a group that had worked together before. When I was sure they had left me for dead, I pulled out my own 9mm and blasted a single hole in the back of one man’s knees. He went down like a marionette with the strings cut, and as he fell, all hell broke loose.
It was three to one, but they thought I was hit. The Kevlar vest beneath my shirt told another story, and all they’d left me with were bruises. They all came at me with a fierce finality that showed they were putting their all into this one attack.
If he’s shot, how long can he last?They must have been thinking. These morons didn’t even stop to check, and now, with one of their own bleeding out on the ground, I was sure they planned on beating the shit out of me to the point my own mother wouldn’t be able to identify my body. They just didn’t know what they’re gotten themselves into.
The three still standing pulled their handguns, but I rushed forward, fucking their aim up and forcing them to lower the weapons. The first guy I swung on was clearly a fighter, so the plan was to take out the most worrisome beast first, and hope the others followed suit.
He dodged my haymaker, but not the upper cut into his abdomen, fist still close around my own gun. I sensed another one behind me, and timed it just right to put my elbow into his nose, breaking it instantly. While the guy I’d knocked the breath out of tried to recover, and the poor bastard with the broken nose tried to stem the bleeding, the single uninjured man tried to help the one with the bullet hole in the knee to the car.
“You two can go, or I can shoot your knees out too, and your buddy can help you next,” I snarled at the men that were hunched over, one with blood still pouring from his face.
One of the two, the one I had given the uppercut to the diaphragm, made a half-assed effort to take me to the ground, but I met him halfway, fist connecting with a meaty thud on his jaw. Teeth skittered against the pavement, but the last punch pushed them over the edge, and everyone scampered back to the car in various states of injury.
The uninjured man slammed his body into the driver's seat, closing the door behind him, but right before he peeled out, he held up his left hand, palm towards me, and fingers spread. His entire palm was tattooed jet black, and while I already had suspicions about who these thugs were, the tattoo confirmed it.
The Dark Hand Syndicate had found Rachel.
