James relays the question, and Phoenix grunts an affirmative. “It’s six miles away. The law enforcement here is just the local sheriff and three deputies, and they’re in the center of town. You should be able to get to the landing strip before anything’s reported.”
I meet James’ gaze and nod. We’ve had way worse odds. The only thing we need to worry about is Kane’s condition and if moving him is going to make it worse. But I can taste more blood at the sides of my tongue, and I’m ready to watch the men who dared to touch our god—dared to hurt him—topple.
My only regret is that I won’t have much time to make it hurt. I’ll have to get creative.
James gives me another look that tells me he knows what I’m thinking, but I appreciate that he doesn’t warn me off. Instead, he lays his gun on his thigh as the gate opens with a silent swing, and we head in.
Because Romano’s a pathetic little weasel without any real foresight, Phoenix has already determined that he didn’t set up any of his own external surveillance. He seems to think that a handful of men inside a locker sitting in the middle of nowhere is enough.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a trap, but I know Romano better than I want to. And so does Kane. It’s probably why he took the risk. Kane knew that Romano would pull some shit like this, and he knew we’d find him in a couple of days or less.
I’m still pissed that he put himself in that position, but I also know he needed to see Romano’s face when he passed over the thumb drive. He needed to see the fear in his eyes when he realized that Kane was done implying his threat.
The time had come to end it all.
James puts the Jeep in park and leaves it running, and I grip both guns in my hand as he leads the way. All of the storage units are accessible from the outside, so James takes the first, and I take the third, and we wait for the click of Phoenix’s tech to undo the dead bolts.
James goes first. He slides it up just a fraction, crouching down, then shakes his head. He moves over one. The third door clicks—just a gentle snick, and I do my best to crack the door.
Empty apart from a pile of boxes.
I move to the fourth and meet James’ gaze.
The second door clicks, and we hear a shout. Flinging myself to the side, we press our backs on either side of the door as bullets begin to smack against the thick metal. A couple pierce it, but after a few shots, they stop, which means the bullets have either ricocheted or embedded in the steel. I smirk just a little. Romano can’t even give these little fuckers basic training.
My fingers start to get itchy as they hover over the triggers, but I only have to wait a second before the door flies open. Two of the guys have automatics, but they lack my eye and my skill. I manage to hit their wrists, and the guns drop as James takes out two more who are unloading 9mms at him. A bullet grazes my face, but I barely feel the sting as I aim at the first guy’s dick.
A press of my finger and the bitch is singing soprano on his knees. The other turns to me, but I take out his right ear first, then his left. His face is a mess of blood, and his hands are trying to hold the shreds of skin together as I approach. Two bullets and the screaming stops.
There’s one more guy.
He’s hovering behind Kane, whose half-lidded eyes tell me he’s conscious, and he’s got a knife to his throat. Kane’s already bleeding, and when the little blond fuck digs the knife in and makes him hiss out, I lose it and fire with precision.
I hit his shoulder, then his neck, then his left eye, which takes him down.
Unlike the movies, the silencer doesn’t erase the noise—it just dulls it, so I know that if anyone else is around, we’ve already been heard. Shoving my guns into my holsters, I motion for James to work on Kane as I grab each dead man by the ankle and drag them into the locker. One of them had a phone in his hand and his thumb on the screen.
Hovering down, I can see that he was attempting to activate an emergency alert through text, so I slide his thumb to the side and let him rest where I’ve thrown him. The locker is cold as fuck, which is probably how Kane’s survived this long because from where I’m standing, I can tell he’s lost a shitload of blood.
His skin is grey, and he’s now missing his left foot about three inches above the ankle. It’s badly wrapped and weeping, and I grit my teeth, wanting to inflict more horror on these men who did not deserve to die so easily.
‘Which one of them was the butcher who did this?’ My fingers shake as I sign.
I glance up and see Kane’s staring at me. His arms are free, but they’re unmoving—dislocated, most likely, and full of nerve damage. He sits up as straight as he can, though, then jerks his chin at the guy I shot in the dick. A thrill shoots through me because his chest is rising and falling.
He’s still alive.
Reaching behind me, I pull out my hunting knife from its little sheath and rip the leg of his trousers up to his knee.
“We don’t have the bloody time for—” James starts.
“Let him,” Kane rasps.
I grit my teeth and hope this motherfucker is feeling this in hell. It doesn’t take me long to saw through flesh, muscle, and tendon, but the bone is trickier. By the time I break it and finish the job, the guy’s dead.
Kane’s on the floor, still watching me, and James is tying a proper tourniquet around his calf, using his teeth to keep it tight.
I rush over, helping him finish it off, and then he lays Kane down and rummages around for supplies.