One of his employees’ wife was abducted and killed in the compound a few weeks ago. It’s taken weeks to get the intel we need and we’re all chomping at the bit to put an end to this once and for all.
“What’s the rule?” Rocker asks into his mic. His question meant for the men overseeing the mission from New Mexico. Silence fills the airwaves as we wait, anticipation growing, fingers getting trigger happy on our weapons.
“Let God sort them out,” Kincaid says.
This isn’t a new command. It’s one we hear regularly from Kincaid. Men like the ones we’re going to face today don’t change. Keeping them in prison is almost always impossible.
Corrupt police allow it to happen. Everyone has a price, including the men who would be responsible for jailing the men we take into custody.
What Kincaid means by let God sort them out is that we’re meant to put them in their graves.
An excited hum fills the room, each man creating a tally in their minds on how many they plan to take down.
I have made more arrangements for bad men to meet God, working for Cerberus, than I ever had the opportunity to do working for The United States Marine Corps.
My first mission, I was terrified, but they’ve gotten easier with each one. I know not to have an overinflated sense of ability, but I’m confident in my team, enough to know that when the smoke settles, Cerberus will be the only one standing.
Chapter 2
Aro
I’d like to blame every ounce of my irritation on our current situation, but I woke up this morning with my skin itchy. We all have bad days, but mine are normally few and far between.
With each mission I go on, the anger inside of me grows exponentially. It’s as if we’re swatting at mosquitoes in the swamp. We may take down a dozen, but there are a million more larvae waiting to be hatched.
We have a purpose and we serve it well, but it’s impossible to eradicate all these evil fucks from the world.
My mouth is dry, my breathing more erratic than normal as we’re given the command to enter.
I’m on the same team as Griffin, Tug, Apollo, and Harley. With Hound as our leader, we always make entry first. I’m sandwiched with Griffin at my front and Spade at my back.
I trust these men implicitly, but there’s also a hunger burning inside of me that I can’t put to rest. There’s an insistence to kill every man in this compound with my own hands.
I know I should clear my head and focus. I shouldn’t be thinking about the drone images we have of the mass graves behind the compound, but I can’t let it go. Knowing that they’re so callous in what they’re doing, they don’t even bother to fill the holes with dirt until they’re completely full of murdered women.
Each life they’ve taken is one more family destroyed. Although I know we can’t put an end to all of it, we will put an end to every man inside this house.
We stay low, one hand on the back of the man in front of us, the other hand with index fingers hovering near the trigger. I’ve done this hundreds of times, both with Cerberus and in the Marine Corps. It would be muscle memory if it weren’t for the emotions I’m struggling with.
I know it’s hard for many of the women we rescue to return to a normal life after being submitted to such pain, and hatred, and degradation, but these men don’t give those women a choice.
I try to shove away reasoning any attempt to understand why people like this exist. Pure evil is all I can come up with. It takes a sick fuck to begin with, to abduct a woman, but to want to rape that woman and kill her as the finale… I can’t even wrap my head around that.
Maybe I’m not meant to understand them. Maybe who I am and who they are are so vastly different, there’s no way to bridge the understanding.
The devastation I felt looking at the images we were provided fill my vision. It’s as if I’m standing in the backyard, looking down at their destruction instead of walking into the compound.
No man inside deserves to live, regardless of their involvement. They’re complicit by being inside. I don’t care if they’re here as the traffickers or the clients looking for a woman to murder.
Shots ring out, startling me. I don’t know if the bullets flying are from us meeting their targets or aimed at Cerberus. The fact that they’re all guilty and putting up such a fight enrages me even more. I break away from Griffin, eyeing a man in the corner, and I unload.
I see the next man lift his rifle and aim, but I’m confident enough in my team to know I have time to reload. I fumble with the clip, something that doesn’t happen often, but I’m struck with confusion, a solid lack of understanding as I fall to the ground.