AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Years of training kicked in, and I was up, changed, and sliding my boots on my feet in under two minutes. Downstairs, I found my team rushing around, everyone focused on their own tasks.
Tyler finished gathering what looked to be our entire armory and met us in the conference room just as Betty hit the button to kill the alarm. Everyone stood in a line and stared at me, but no one said a word. My stomach filled with lead.
Tyler cleared her throat. “We need to go help Redemption.” She set her hand on the gun holstered at her hip. “They were hit by Hell’s Spawn during a transport and…” She looked down for a moment, then back up at me. “Peyton, I don’t know how to say this, but they grabbed Boomerang and Midas.”
My knees buckled, but I grabbed the back of the chair in front of me and forced myself to stay standing. Taking a deep breath, I shoved my panic aside. I wouldn’t lose my brother and cousin. Not when we still had so much shit to settle. “Okay. Fill me in while I’m packing.”
Betty gave me the rundown from the start of the run to the ambush. “Reaper was the one they left behind with the message,” she said when she was done.
He must have been going out of his mind with worry and guilt. I could only assume, because that was how I’d feel if it were me. Knowing Reaper, he would either shut down or go rogue. Neither outcome would help the situation.
I zipped up the bag containing all the gadgets we’d need, and Izzy showed me a satellite picture of an abandoned mansion nestled in the hills off a long country road. She swiped her finger across the screen and brought up the blueprints, which I committed to memory.
As I strapped on a vest I asked, “Why did they call us? This is club business.” I’d been out of the loop, but things couldn’t have changed so much that Redemption was willing to bring in outside help, especially not to deal with a rival MC. Not that I cared much about MC politics at the moment. I was getting my brother and cousin back, and I didn’t care who I had to shoot to make it happen.
“Corven specifically asked for me. He and his guys called several times last week, but I haven’t been returning their calls. I wasn’t interested in working with them, and there was nothing they could have offered to change my mind. Guess they thought this was the best way to get ahold of me.” Betty jerked her head toward the door. “Rolling out in two.”
* * *
We found Uncle Wolf, High, Reaper, and ten other guys waiting for us at the rendezvous point. While the rest of the team went to swap intel with them, I launched my drone and snapped aerial shots of the run-down property. The acres surrounding the dilapidated mansion were overgrown, which made for good cover but meant it would be impossible to move quickly. Time was a luxury we were running short on.
I flicked on the infrared reader, and the screen lit up.
“Damn, the place is crawling with them,” Izzy muttered, looking down at her own screen.
“Did they bring their entire chapter?” Jessen asked.
“Probably.” Tyler’s expression was serene, the way it only got when she was on a mission.
“We surround them, use the tranquilizers to knock them out, and proceed to the house,” Betty pointed to the back door area and the balcony. “Here and here.”
Izzy muttered numbers under her breath, then looked up. “Can you get closer so we can get a count on the second floor? I can’t get a solid read.”
I dropped the drone closer to the house. “Looks like seven. Three sitting down, four standing and moving.” I focused on the three figures, as though the heat blobs could show me that Midas, Boomerang, and Spade were alive.
“I don’t fucking care. Why the fuck are we waiting?” Reaper yelled from the other side of the road. High and Joker were in front of him, talking in low voices that did nothing to calm their brother down.
He’d been pacing back and forth along the edge of the road like a caged animal since we got here. I wanted to tell him to get his shit together. He was riling everyone up, and if he didn’t shut up soon, someone would end up making a fatal mistake.
Tyler was already palming her gun, and I nudged her, shaking my head. She rolled her eyes but removed her hand from her weapon.
“How many on the perimeter?” Adrienne asked, bringing my attention back to the task at hand.
“Two on each side of the house. Left, right, and back. We dispatch those as quietly as possible, then converge on the first floor,” I said, rotating the view on everyone’s screen. “From there, we wait until we get the go-ahead to breach the targets’ location on the second floor. The goal is to shock and injure but let them live.”
“What the fuck? Let them live?” Paul Bunyan asked.
Before I could answer, Tyler stalked toward him and the two brothers next to him. “Leaving them alive is more efficient in the long run.” She gave a feral smile. “And more fun. They have to walk around every day knowing that the only reason they’re still breathing is becauseyoudidn’t think they were worth killing. They get to live with the knowledge that they owe their lives to you.”
“Living men come back for revenge,” he retorted, and he wasn’t wrong. Under normal circumstances, anyway.
“Sure, if they were only dealing with you guys. They made a mistake bringing our team into this.” Tyler spun on her heel and walked over to the van, grabbing her extra ammo and dart guns.
I took a step back from the team, needing a moment to breathe and get my head right. Between knowing that anything could happen to two of the most important men in my life and the group of amped-up men at my back, I was having a hard time concentrating.
Reaper’s face caught my eye. For the briefest moment, his angry mask slipped and gave me a glimpse of the fear and guilt underneath. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him he had nothing to feel guilty about. But I wasn’t ready for that level of intimacy with him. Instead, I shot him a look that said he needed to calm down.He gave me a tiny nod, then went over to his bike and waited.
Chris materialized next to me. “What was that?” she whispered.
