Tywin reached and took my hand, breaking into the empty stare I had cast through the windshield. I loved the way he always made sure I knew he was right there with me despite the chaos swirling in our world.
“It’s going to be okay. Whatever’s going on with Mecca and with you, we are going to straighten it out.”
I nodded. I was unsure of a lot of things in my life, except that Tywin and his cousins would stop at nothing to protect the women in their lives.
About twenty minutes later, we arrived at Arjen and Mecca’s house and though it was smaller in size than Tywin’s family home, the Vallin men sure knew how to live well. This estate was as impressive and about as secure.
I stayed out of the way and hung back in the shadows, but the men didn’t hide anything from me. I had followed Tywin down to Arjen’s basement and was forced to swallow a big lump of “oh shit”when I saw that it was a fully stocked armory with an impressive array of weapons. Machine guns, no problem. Handheld grenades, why not? Flame thrower, of course. A grenade launcher, yes indeed. It was one of the most well-stocked and well-kept weapons arsenals I’d ever seen.
There was also another area that was closed off with construction tape. What were the bars for? Was his expansion project going to be a prison cell?
The men’s shouts and various conversations along with multiple screens of information and surveillance footage they were going over drew my attention. The space we were in was the size of a small studio apartment and jammed inside were seven burly men running around like programmed ants. Add to that, computer and surveillance equipment and every type of information linkup you could wire into one space, and you had a fully functional operations cell.
The men didn’t flat out tell me no when I asked to join them on the mission they were putting together to bring Mecca back. It was more of an implied rejection since everyone involved in getting her back was a part of the syndicate. Tywin didn’t hesitate to reiterate what Lady A had told me, that I needed to stay out of sight.
It was hard to think of Mecca and Desiree as being members of the syndicate, but they were. I, on the other hand, was an outsider. Tywin was the one person who knew there was possibly something in my past that made me their organization’s enemy, but he had never allowed the possibility to deter his will to fight for me.
They were planning a full-on military-style rescue mission. If what Arjen suspected was correct, Mecca was about to or had already initiated a war with the Cardenas Cartel and the Vallin men were about to break their syndicate rules and supply her an army.
They had coordinated a team, including the group at Arjen’s house and many more that were meeting them at a rendezvous location. After hearing the grid coordinates to the location, I memorized them to later text them to Lady A.
Once it was all said and done, I was placed under the protection of two guards that had specific instructions to meet with another guard at Khane and Desiree’s house. I recalled Tywin telling me that other than his family home, Khane’s place was one of the most secure.
He led me to the back of a black Range Rover and opened the door. I reached up to climb in, but this was Tywin, he didn’t let me climb nothing but him. He took me by the waist and lifted me into the back of the SUV and strapped me in before shaking my seatbelt to make sure I was secure.
“Be careful out there and please bring my girl back,” I told him as I fought but failed to keep my voice from cracking.
“We will. These guys are going to take care of you until I get back.”
I nodded and like the first time he had kissed me, a well-timed kiss found its way onto my lips before he ducked out of the SUV and walked off.
Why did I get the strange sense that an important piece of my life had just walked away?