The engine roared as we took the corner hard. Headlights from the oncoming traffic blinded me.
“What do you mean you lost him again?” Ben roared, wrenching the wheel as we tried to overtake a slow-ass Toyota that pulled out in front of us. “Goddamnit! Motherfucker!”
His rage permeated the interior, seething and festering until flashes of the rectory returned. Filthy fucking cunt. It deserves to be beaten. Open your legs, Daughter. Open them or I’ll shove this cane all the way in your—
“A?” Ben snapped. “You there? We’ve lost him. Call me when you can. I need a location for this guy.” He glared at the traffic, then finished. “Call me when you can.”
He hung up the call and focused on the traffic. “We need that motherfucker…” He glanced into the rear-view mirror at me. “We need that key.”
Streets passed by in a blur. He seemed to know where he was going, turning hard into an alley before bottoming out as we exited.
His cell rang, the caller ID displayed on the console. Lazarus. Ben leaned forward and pressed the button to answer the call.
“Do you have him?” Laz sounded desperate, his heavy steps thudding in the background. Behind that were voices, frantic voices. I caught London’s voice barking commands.
“No, not yet,” Ben snapped.
“Anna is almost there, she’s so close. We have the men gathering. The moment she has the location, we’re moving. Leave that’s fucker, we’ll go after Hale ourselves,” Laz urged. “We don’t need him anymore.
“I can’t, son.” Ben pushed the car harder. “We have to put an end to any means of escape. I can’t let him come for my family again. I won’t let that happen. I need to finish this. We cut off every head of the goddamn snake. We will get him, Laz. Do you hear me? He will never touch your daughter. Not while I’m alive.”
He yanked the wheel as a message flashed. “I gotta go, son. I’ll call as soon as I have him.”
“Okay, but Dad, hurry.”
Laz ended the call, leaving Ben to his answer. “Alastair, talk to me.”
“I have him.” His voice was low and hushed. “We’re running.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re…wait a second. The bank of units behind Galveston Road. They’re distributors, hardcore motherfuckers. You don’t want to come here.”
“Drug runners?” Ben shook his head. “Fuck. That’s all we need.”
“I think I can get him out of here. If I can lead him south, you can wait for us at that empty warehouse off Walker’s Lane. You know the one?”
“I know the one.”
“Give me twenty minutes and I’ll take him there. Be there, and you can get what you want.”
Ben wrenched the wheel and punched the accelerator. “We’ll be there, and Alastair? Don’t let me down.”
The call ended. I gripped the armrest, sliding with the turn as we headed south.
“Whatever happens, we get that information, then we get the hell out of there. If Anna has the location, we move and keep on moving. We have a narrow window here.”
He sounded desperate, more than desperate. He sounded on the edge. His wide, dark eyes shone in the mirror. The swipe of his hand across his mouth was nothing but nerves. He shifted his focus back to the road, driving through the backstreets where thugs and lookouts were sitting in parked cars, watching everyone who drove past.
We were close to the drug runners, that was easy to see.
“Eyes up, boys.” Ben urged as he slowed but kept on driving.
Colt said nothing. The Son didn’t even react as two men stepped toward his side of the car and lifted their shirts to reveal big silvery guns in the waistbands of their boxers. He just looked away, focusing on the road ahead. But I had a feeling those men wouldn’t like it if we pulled over…not one bit at all.
“Up ahead.” Ben glanced into the rearview mirror. “I’m dropping you, Colt, and Caleb off at the corner. I need you to make your way down in case that fucker slips past us again. Keep your eyes up and stay together.”
Wait…he was dropping us here?
I glanced over my shoulder at the seedy apartment complex and its criminal guardians as Ben slowed the four-wheel drive.
“I’ll call you if there’s any trouble.” Ben said as he met my stare and reached to grab something from under the seat before handing me a gun. “I don’t need to remind you what’s at stake here.”
I stared at the weapon as panic rose. But Colt yanked the handle, pushing the door wide before we even pulled to a stop. Fuck. “No, you don’t.” I answered Ben and grabbed the gun.
We all climbed out, quietly closing the door behind us. Ben was gone in an instant, heading further away.
“Keep close, Priest.” Colt muttered as I slipped the Glock into the waistband of my jeans and pulled my shirt over it.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I glanced at Caleb, then hurried, haunting the Son’s steps, following him along the rear of the houses before we found a small walkway that led to the street in front and slipped down it. My pulse boomed as I kept walking. It was dark here, too damn dark.
Busted streetlights gave us little to go on. But Colt didn’t seem to even notice. Instead, he scanned the shadows, found his way between parked cars, and crossed the street. A long bank of empty warehouses sat behind a towering, rusted-out chainlink fence. We headed for a visibly open tear before Colt glanced over his shoulder, then yanked the corner up.
I slipped underneath, wincing as the sharp edges caught my shoulder. Fabric ripped, making me mutter a curse before I was through. Thorny bushes crowded the side of the massive warehouse. In the distance there was a set of stairs that led upwards. Headlights cut through the far end of the lot that seemed to take up half a block. Colt glanced my way and jerked his head, motioning me to follow.
The closer we got, the more I saw. There were lights on at the end of the building. Goosebumps raced as we hunkered in the shadows, then hurried forward. I felt them inside more than heard them. Colt pulled his gun free, keeping it at his side.
I winced and reached for my own. I didn’t want the gun. But I didn’t want to be killed, either. I worked my jaw, reaching up to touch my swollen lips. One attack was more than enough, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to die here if I could help it. So I gripped the patterned steel grip and lowered it by my side, following Colt.
Voices echoed, raised ones.
We pushed ahead, slipping under the overhang to hide ourselves. As we came closer, we heard them. A deep, gruff voice followed. “Keep calm. We wait until the team is here and then we move. You go out there now and you might as well give yourself over to the goddamn Rossis, you want that?”
The answer was a second or two of silence before. “No.” The second guy, who had to be Leroy Hastings, answered a little loudly.
“Then we wait.”
We slowed at the stairs before Colt yanked his gun upwards, finding movement where I saw nothing but darkness. Barely a heartbeat later came two shadowy figures. Ones the Son seemed to know because he didn’t shoot them.
Benjamin neared from the opposite side, then climbed the stairs soundlessly. He was fast and focused, his gun raised in front of him, two hands around the grip, swiveling to scan both sides as he reached the landing.
“How much fucking longer?” Leroy hissed.
“Almost here,” the growl followed.
Benjamin jerked his gaze to us, then motioned right with two fingers. Colt was a ghost behind me, soundless and swift as he swept around Ben and moved toward the dark doorway at the far right. I followed, keeping my weapon low.
Two loud thuds and the door flew inwards with a crack! Ben and Caleb were inside in an instant. Screams and shouts followed, before a crash. We could hear running. Movement came from the window between us and the door where they’d just entered before the one in front of us was yanked open in his hasty escape…and there was Leroy Hastings, slimy little fucker.
He stopped instantly and lifted his gaze to Colt, who crowded the doorway and stepped in, pushing him back into what looked like a darkened office.
“What?” Leroy whispered and shook his head.
He was little, sparse hair stuck to his head in a sheen of sweat. One I could smell from here. I winced with the fetid stench of body odor and turned my head.
“You run and it’ll only make this worse, Leroy.” Ben stepped into the doorway, shrouded by the faint yellow hue. “Now, why don’t we go back inside and have a nice little chat?”
“You…just stay the fuck away from me.” Leroy stumbled backwards, slamming into Colt. I stepped inside the door, closed it behind me, and guarded the doorway.
“Move,” Colt growled, the predatory sound reverberating through the air.
Leroy had no choice but to stumble toward Ben, who grabbed him by the arm and led him back the way he’d come. One hard shove and Leroy stumbled back into the filthy office area of the warehouse. There was a half-eaten pizza that’d turned hard and cracked, the cheese, once yellow, was now a foul molded brown. I quickly looked away, resisting the urge to gag. But the rest of the place wasn’t any better. Overflowing ashtrays and empty cola cans littered every inch of the desk, and the table next to him was crammed full of papers and faded yellow manila envelopes.
“Sit.” Ben drove him down onto a busted swivel chair that scooted backwards until it hit the desk. “Now, you know why we’re here.”
Leroy just wrenched his gaze to a shadowy figure that stepped out from the darkness in the far end of the office.
“Well?” He barked, his eyes widening. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
My pulse was booming and my palms were sweaty as I gripped the gun and raised it. The male that strode toward us was tall and lanky, wearing leather cuts littered with motorcycle club patches. Ones that told me he was dangerous.
“Watch out.” The words left my lips.
But Ben didn’t care about the biker, in fact he barely gave him a sideways glance. “Alastair,” he murmured.
“Just like I said, Mr. Rossi,” the biker muttered, glaring at Leroy. “All tied up in a nice neat bow.”
“I appreciate it,” Ben muttered, straightening. “Now, I’m going to ask this once, Leroy. Where are Hale’s new documents and where is he running to?”
Leroy just glared at the biker. “Fuck you, Rossi.”
Ben lunged with a roar, grabbing him around the throat and bellowed in his face. “I will fucking murder you. Do you get that? I will fucking DESTROY everything you have.”
Leroy flinched, paling as he leaned as far away from the Mafia leader as he could. The smelly, weedy asshole shook his head, his eyes wide. “No. Don’t you get that? I tell you what you want to know and I’m as good as dead.”
Ben’s reaction was swift, he lifted his gun and pressed it against Leroy’s temple. “You think I’m joking here? Either way, you’re a fucking dead man. The only difference is you might have a chance at evading Haelstrom but you have no chance at evading me.”
A dog barked in the distance, drawing my gaze to the doorway but no one else moved, just me. Inside instinct shifted, morphing into a beast of its own. Something felt wrong. Just like it had felt wrong in the church with Cassius.
Through the broken metal slats in the window, a shadow shifted.
“Ben,” I croaked, then jerked his way. “Ben!”
BOOM!
The sound reverberated as the door was thrown open and the space was invaded as powerful, muscled bikers surged in.
Crack!
Crack!
CRACK!
Gunfire exploded all around. Caleb opened fire. Colt lunged, taking out the biggest of them. I wrenched my gun upwards, my finger poised on the trigger…but I didn’t fire.
That instinct was screaming in me, making me swivel as the biker Ben had called Alastair lifted his gun behind Ben’s back, his dark eyes glinting as he took aim at the back of Ben’s head.
“NO!” I screamed, my finger jerking the trigger.
BANG! BANG!
Two shots sounded, slamming Alastair backwards, but only one shot was mine.
Ben dropped to the floor in an instant, blood splattering over Caleb in front of him.
Colt roared, bang, bang, BANG!
Two more men dropped. Caleb shot two more. But there were more of them coming. I couldn’t look away from the dark crumpled form on the floor as I stumbled forward. Please, God…please, GOD!
The heavy thud of steps boomed like thunder along the stairs and headed toward us. I was grabbed and hauled backwards, the bestial glare of Colt right in front of me.
“We have to move now!”
A light caught my gaze. Ben’s cell lit up, the caller ID visible clear across the screen Lazarus.
“No…no…no…no…no.” The words repeated.
But the Son gave me no other option. He opened fire at the door allowing Caleb to slam against me and drive me back into the far office. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even fight, leaving Caleb and Colt to unleash shot after shot into the office as we sank back into the darkness, and I yanked open the far door.
Two men lay on the landing outside the main office, bathed in the ugly yellow light as they pressed their hands against the blood flow of their wounds.
“Move, Priest,” Caleb barked as he shoved me down the stairs.
I stumbled but kept on my feet somehow, letting me careen down stair after stair until I staggered back into the dark.
“Are there more?” Caleb barked.
Colt swung his gun, then lunged, quickly leaving us behind.
“No.” I shook my head, the image of Ben’s unmoving body burning in my mind. “We have to go back. We have to go back.”
“Listen!” Caleb grabbed me and roared. “There could be more of them coming. Do you understand? There could be more here.”
But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t my life I thought about.
I’ll take care of you, Thomas. Ben’s words echoed. I’ll protect you.
He’d saved me from the FBI and those men who’d tried to kill me. Men dressed in leather just like they were.
“I’m not leaving him up there.” I wrenched my arm out of Caleb’s hold. “Not in that filthy place. He needs to come with us.”
I lunged for the stairs and climbed them as fast as I could.
My knees were shaking almost as much as the gun in my hand. I took aim and swiveled to the two men lying outside the office. One was slumped down, his eyes glazed and empty. The other just wheezed an awful wheeze, watching me as I neared.
His gun lay just out of reach. I kicked it away as I neared, leaving it to topple over the landing and fall to the ground with a clatter before I stepped back inside. One scan and I found Leroy Hastings dead with a neat bullet hole in the middle of his head. But I didn’t care about him. Not anymore.
Alastair was still alive, wheezing, lying on top of a mountain of files as he stared at the ceiling. He never looked my way as I neared and knelt beside Ben’s body.
“It wasn’t personal.”
I jerked my gaze to Alastair.
“Just business,” he muttered.
I rose and moved closer, to stand over the man who’d killed Benjamin Rossi. “Everything is personal,” I murmured. “But you can tell that to God.”
I lifted my gun, my hands no longer shaking as I took aim and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
His body jerked and then stilled…forever.
Ben.
I turned around and knelt, pulling him over. There was blood over the back of his head, but it was nothing compared to the massive hole in the front. Wide, unblinking eyes stared up at me as his cell rang again. Lazarus.
“Please, Father, give me strength,” I murmured.
Beep.
Lazarus: Dad, we have him. We have Hale.
Agony ripped through my chest at the sight. I reached down, grabbed his cell, and slipped it into my pocket before I gripped Ben under his arms and hauled his body upwards.
There was no way I was leaving him here.
No goddamn way.
