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An old farmhouse appeared out of the gloom, its porch lights like a beacon in the night. Ryder stopped and dropped to his haunches, the rest of us following his lead.
Valentina dropped the bag, Gunner right there to shine a flashlight on it. Well, I’ll be damned. The girl started piecing together a sniper rifle.
It seemed everyone else was as transfixed as I was, standing around watching while her nimble fingers worked. After she was done, she handed it up to Gunner and got to work on the other one. Gunner must now carry two in his bag. Wasn’t that something? Valentina and Gunner had his and hers sniper rifles. I bet Ryder just loved that shit.
Gunner turned his light off, casting us once again into darkness. Once my eyes adjusted, I could make out one of her heels on the ground. The two of them must work as a sniper team because we were now missing a shadow.
Hell, she might have even been the one to lay down cover fire at the warehouse for me to get inside. The rest of the men sure seemed to trust her looking down the scope of a sniper rifle, but the jury was still out for me. Not that I expected her to trust me any more than I trusted her. To her, I was probably just the asshole who left everyone high and dry.
Ryder’s hushed whisper came from beside Valentina. “We’re going to split up into teams of two or three and surround the house. Take out any men you find outside quietly so we can make it inside the house without a problem.”
Shadows started moving away, and I hissed, “Delilah and Stel, you’re with me.”
There was no way I’d let anyone else watch my girl’s back, and I knew Delilah would stay glued to Stel until we found Mateo. If he was even here. I wasn’t foolish enough to think we’d be able to kill them all, but after tonight they would no longer pose an immediate threat to Stel or the club.
Stel’s vanilla scent teased my nostrils a second before I felt her heat at my back. Her presence calmed me almost as much as a cigarette as I moved away from Valentina. Being that Delilah still wasn’t much of a fighter, and only a marginal shot, it would be best if I could keep her out of the fray as much as possible.
If I went around to the front and let the boys take point, then we could slip in the door behind them and search for Mateo. The sooner we got him, the better. Delilah might only be a shell of her former self, but she’d become determined to have her vengeance at any cost. And while I understood where she was coming from, I refused to let her drag Stel to the grave with her.
A few men with automatic weapons in their hands stood next to the front porch smoking. I motioned to the girls to stop. We’d wait here, a safe distance away, and let the guys take care of them.
The screen door swung open, and a man stepped onto the porch. He hissed something at the other two in Spanish, and they walked around back. Once they were out of sight, he raised a phone to his ear. He switched to English, but we were far enough away that I could only catch a few words.
As he spoke, he stepped beneath the porch light. The shaft of light illuminated his features, and I recognized him from the photo on Stel’s laptop. I looked over at Delilah in time to see the shadow of the gun she held in her hand.
Placing my hand over the top of hers, I whispered, “Wait. You’ll never be able to hit him from here and we’ll lose the element of surprise.”
She didn’t move, or give any sign that she’d heard me, so I pressed my hand down on hers, forcing her hand back to her side.
Stel whispered, “Your time will come,” as Mateo hung up and went back inside the house. To be on the safe side, I kept my hand over Delilah’s.
The outlines of men moving low and close to the house were now visible, and I knew the cavalry had worked their way around to the front. And not a moment too soon. If I hadn’t stopped Delilah, she would have alerted them to our presence.With that warning, and enough ammo, they might have been able to fend us off.
Carefully avoiding the porch light, one of the guys went for the screen door, opening it wide and waiting a second before they waved. Shadows started filing into the house, one by one, and I motioned for the girls to follow me across the lawn. We ran, single file, Stel’s scent reassuring me she was on my heels.
When we reached the porch, the same guy still stood by the railing, holding the screen door open for us. As I looked up at him, the porch light cast a shadowy outline of spiky hair. We rushed the rest of the way up the steps, and slipped past Colt, the screen door softly clicking closed behind us.
There was no movement inside the dimly lit foyer or on the stairs. From deeper within the first floor of the house, I heard a TV blaring and then male laughter. Above us, a man walked along the landing and we waited for him to disappear behind the wall before we moved.
Beside the first doorway, we flattened ourselves against the wall. When I peeked around the corner, there was nothing but crates stacked half haphazardly all over the room.
The TV’s volume became almost deafening as we moved past an empty bathroom that looked and smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in a few years. Jesus, what the hell did these guys eat?
Light from a TV poured out of the next room, and I stood beside the doorway listening. There didn’t appear to be any movement or laughter coming from inside, so I chanced a look. A man that was almost as wide as he was tall sat in a recliner, the flickering light casting garish shadows over the blood pouring from his neck onto his white shirt. The guys must have already cleared this room.
Farther down the hallway I heard the crack of a pool cue hitting balls. The doorway was wide and based on the marks on the doorjamb there had been a door here at one point. Men laughed inside the room and then someone set a gaming controller or remote down on a table.
A man coughed three times, and then the room grew quiet. That couldn’t be good. Fuck. I looked back at Stel, and she nodded, gun in hand. Colt moved up to block Delilah and nodded that he was also ready.
Something hit the floor, and by the sound of the thud, it was heavy. I snuck a quick glance around the corner, taking stock of the Mexican standoff happening on the other side of the wall. The situation wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t anything Colt, Stel, and I couldn’t handle.
“Hunter can’t risk killing any more of their men because there are two guns being pointed at Ryder. I need you guys”—I looked between Stel and Colt—“to cover me so I can save Ryder’s ass.” My gaze swung to Delilah as I whisper hissed, “Mateo isn’t in there, so I need you stay put and keep your head down until one of us comes back for you.”
She shook her head and then slid down to the floor, covering her head with her hands.
I whispered, “One, two, three,” then made my move.
Not surprisingly, Hunter was the first to notice me. That crazy fucker had his knife to the throat of a man almost twice his size, his light eyes watching as I moved behind the green couch. It looked like they stole the damn thing from their great grandma. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be pissed about a few bullet holes.
