Beyond Wilder

by Leigh Tudor

  “Yup,” Trevor responded.

  “Let’s do a quick head count.”

  After a minute, Trevor responded, “I count fifteen trailing our guys.”

  Alec nodded. “Go time.”

  Trevor’s phone began to buzz. He pulled it out of his jacket and smirked at the caller ID.

  “Director Birch, sir,” he said, “I take it you’re watching what’s going down from a remote location. Yes, we see it as well. With your permission, we’d like to assist your SWAT team that’s about to get picked off by Amado’s men.”

  Alec rolled his eyes. “Fucking suck-up.”

  Trevor replied into the phone, “Yes, sir. We’re on it.”

  Mercy had just begun to hunt down her sister for an in-depth conversation when she heard a number of vehicles pulling into the parking area, so she hunkered behind one of the desks outside of Loren’s office.

  She checked her phone.

  Kinda late for visitors.

  Loren’s office door opened, and she ducked farther down. Loren was all but pushing Jasper out the door, instructing him to escort their guests back to her office, and slammed the door in his face.

  He stood there for a minute as if unsure whether to bolt for one of the back exits or do as he was told. He appeared to have chosen the latter as he made his way to the front entrance.

  A couple of minutes later, Jasper returned but with no one in tow. He knocked on Loren’s door.

  Loren swung the door open, no longer wearing a hoity-toity skirt and blouse but what looked to be black tactical pants with a pair of impressive combat boots, a white T-shirt, and a cropped black leather jacket.

  Not necessarily dressed for success, but more for nonnegotiable discussions followed by physical force.

  Mercy strained to hear what they were saying as the heating system kicked on.

  Jasper cleared his throat. “Amado insists the meeting occur outside.”

  “Where his people can protect him, I’m sure,” Loren responded. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Lying low, Mercy followed them, giving them plenty of time to get to the outside before walking to the front lobby. She dived to the side of the door, seeing that Loren and Jasper were no more than twenty feet from the entrance.

  She slipped behind the attendant’s desk, where there was a pneumatic door that opened to the outside for the distribution and retrieval of security badges, as well as an intercom system. She flipped the switch, which allowed her to listen in on the conversation while remaining incognito

  Chapter Nine

  “There is no such thing as an evil genius, as evil in itself is stupidity.”

  — David Farland

  Amado wasn’t the evil, greasy-coifed drug lord Loren had envisioned.

  Oh, no.

  Amado came in at no more than five feet and some change, looking to be at the ripe old age of seventy, maybe pushing eighty.

  But even more surprising . . .

  Amado was a woman. An elderly woman with silver-gray hair wearing a polyester suit with support hose and sporting a shuddering set of dead eyes.

  A Queen Elizabeth look-alike without the couture attire.

  Loren stared open-mouthed and astonished. How in the world was she going to fight a geriatric female who likely wore incontinence pads and was well into the throes of hormone replacement therapy?

  Now, the men surrounding her?

  No problem.

  They were well-armed but physically sloppy with cervesa-distended bellies and severe dental hygiene issues. Sadly, the gold-plated teeth were not an improvement.

  “You seem surprised, Miss Ava.”

  Amado knew her name? Her original name, from when she was forced to live at the Center and work for Halstead. She scanned her memory. Did she ever work for her? Or, maybe, against her?

  Nothing. Nothing sparked her memory.

  Loren moved her head from side to side. “I can honestly say that I wasn’t expecting you to be a woman.” She left out the geriatric part. “You’ve quite a reputation, and I’d be lying if I didn’t envision you as the stereotypical male boss.”

  “Ah, yes. We’ve been quite successful in hiding my gender. It was a business decision. Difficult to incite fear into the souls of detractors when dealing with a woman.”

  Amado took a couple of steps toward Loren with a disturbing smile on her face. “But don’t be mistaken, Ava. I have no conscience when it comes to retribution and revenge.”

  Loren gave the woman a single nod, knowing the only reason the woman was revealing her gender was because she didn’t expect them to live through the night. “Then let’s get straight to the matter at hand. What will it take to expunge Jasper Bancroft from further retribution for his recent failings?”

  It was Amado’s turn to appear confused as she turned a glance in Jasper’s direction.

  Loren followed the elderly woman’s eyes, and Jasper straightened his spine as if to assert a renewed level of confidence.

  Amado gave Loren a chilling smile. “I’m afraid you have been misinformed. Arrangements have already been made and agreed upon, Ava. And I am here to collect.”

  A chill ventured up Loren’s spine.

  “Maybe someone would like to fill me in on the details of this arrangement.”

  “I am here for the children.”

  Loren’s head jerked back. “Children?”

  “Yes. Jasper informed me that there is much to gain financially from their talents.”

  Loren’s eyes blazed at the morally corrupt degenerate to her right and then toward the anemic one on her left. “You bartered your life for children? You used children to pay off your debt to a notorious drug cartel boss?”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Jasper replied with eyes as dead as Amado’s.

  “When did you broker this deal?” she asked, stunned.

  With a bored shrug, he replied, “A few hours ago.”

  “But you were going to bail. Remember Punta Cana?”

  He snickered. “I knew you’d double down if I threatened to leave. I had to make sure you didn’t do the same.”

  Amado clicked her fingers, and two of the larger goons, probably a couple of her so-called hitmen who reported to her lieutenants, converged into a circle around them as the others continued to surveil the area.

  “Bring me the children,” Amado said without taking her sinister black eyes away from Loren. “Jasper will take you to them.”

  Jasper led the way, steering a wide path around Loren.

  Loren and Amado continued their stare off.

  “Well, you really do your capos title justice, Amado. You really are the sludge-sucking slime that earns their financial rewards off the backs of innocent children.”

  Amado shrugged smugly. “Life as a child was difficult for me. Why should it be any easier for others?”

  Loren’s stomach twisted. Praying that the children were, in fact, gone and not slumbering in their beds, only to be awakened to their worst possible nightmare. Worse than when they were brought to the Center.

  And what would they be forced to do? She could barely contemplate what their punishment would be if they refused.

  Suddenly, the plight of living at the Center paled compared to the squalid life of small defenseless children working on behalf of soulless criminals.

  As Amado instructed her men to open the back doors of a van, Loren began to assess her surroundings and current situation.

  Not good. There were just too many of them with too many weapons.

  And where was Birch and the feds? They promised to be on the lookout for Amado, ready to come to her aid. Time was running out.

  Jesus, she’d have to do this alone. Her options were dismal, considering the piling on of innocent lives.

  She almost lost her footing as a body was thrown to the ground between herself and Amado.

  It was Jasper, coughing up blood and gasping for breath.

  Steely eyes from the heinous woman glared at
her hitmen.

  “Where are the children?”

  One of the men responded, “Gone.” And kicked Jasper in the stomach, causing him to wheeze and retch.

  The rage in the woman’s body was palpable.

  Her facial movements twitched as her eyes narrowed.

  Amado bent to one knee, pretty agile for a woman of her age, and repeated the words to Jasper but with an even more stringent tone. “Where. Are. The. Children?”

  Jasper spat blood onto the pavement, holding his sides. “I don’t know. They were here a few hours ago.” And then his eyes landed on Loren. “It must have been her. She must have let them escape. She did it.”

  Amado looked up at Loren, who rolled her eyes. “I didn’t even know there were children in the Center.” But she could kiss Mercy for managing to get the children and herself to safety prior to this atrocious woman’s appearance.

  With a determined flick of her tightly permed head, several of her men grabbed Jasper and pulled him to his feet as he sputtered and sobbed.

  “Yet again, you are a disappointment to me,” Amado said with a bland expression on her face.

  Another side-eye glance at the man on her left, and the button of a flip utility knife was unloaded, causing Jasper’s eyes to widen as he sobbed hysterically, the acrid smell of urine permeating the air.

  “Too small,” Amado said, glancing at the knife. “I want his hand.”

  Another man came from behind with a fourteen-inch machete.

  As Jasper fruitlessly struggled against the men restraining him, Loren continued her assessment as she knew she was more than likely next in line. She was fast, and she was agile. With a few exceptions, they were slow and slovenly. Maybe if she took out the larger threats first, she could more easily address the B-team with little to no effort.

  But could she do it without earning a bullet to her head?

  Two men pulled Jasper to the ground. One held him down with a knee to the chest as the other lengthened and secured his arm to the side. The machete came down hard and swift, severing just below the wrist and causing Jasper to scream with demented fervor.

  The men released him as if watching him flail were all part of the show. Jasper came to his knees as he cradled his spurting appendage, the blood making a red splattered trail against Amado’s periwinkle polyester suit jacket.

  The woman didn’t flinch.

  Finally, those soulless eyes looked up at Loren as Jasper mewled hysterically.

  “Jasper had shared that the reason my trucks were sabotaged was largely because you chose to leave the Center and ignore your contracted obligations.”

  Loren smirked. “That sounds like something Jasper would say.”

  “I will not be leaving empty-handed. You will come with me.”

  “Come with you?”

  “Yes, a paltry replacement for fifteen narco trucks and a dozen of my men, but better than nothing.” The woman smiled wickedly. “You will come with me willingly or die. Either option will appease me.”

  With droplets of blood splattered across her jacket and clinging to her Aqua-Net-secured curls, Amado remained unmoved as Jasper writhed, clutching what was left of his arm. One of the men who had been restraining him was now picking up his hand and tossing it into a Styrofoam cooler.

  Eyeballing the van, Loren deemed it less secure than the one she effortlessly escaped from a few days prior. This option had a 95.6% chance of success. An easy decision.

  Loren raised her eyes, visibly contemplating her options, and then stopped as if coming to a conclusion. “I’ll go with you. It’s been a while since I’ve vacationed in Mexico.” Her eyes remained glued to that of her geriatric foe.

  “So be it,” Amado responded as her men quickly went to work, one pulling zip ties from his vest.

  “No, I’ll go with you.”

  Loren squeezed her eyes shut at the familiar voice as the probability for success just tanked to single-digit percentages.

  Amado turned toward the entrance to the building. “This certainly has been a night of surprises. And who might you be?”

  Mercy stood with her trademark bravado as a new series of options and calculations swam in Loren’s head.

  “I’m Mara Halstead. But more importantly, I’m worth more to you than she is.” She nodded toward Loren. “I can create artistic replicas and swap them for originals worth millions of dollars of revenue for you and your operation. I can make you a shit ton of money in a very short amount of time. But to get me, you have to let her go.”

  Loren shook her head in disbelief. What stupid, ineffectual horseshit was she spewing? Their odds for survival were rapidly decreasing with every word that came out of her mouth.

  Amado smiled, but it was more creepy than reassuring. “Do you know who I am?” she asked, moving toward Mercy as her men followed, their guns clicking, aimed from behind. “Do you really think I would be moved by an ultimatum? One made by you?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Mercy said, making Loren wince. “I’m not spewing ultimatums. I’m offering you a business opportunity. So the only question that remains, is whether you’re smart enough to take it.”

  Loren blanched as her sister had just offended a ruthless criminal.

  This wasn’t going well at all.

  For what Loren knew was that what kept Amado in such high esteem with her men as well as her adversaries wasn’t the lure of money but the unquestioning loyalty from those who served her. Easily garnered through merciless acts of violence.

  And by walking away from promises of huge financial gains and responding with unreserved violence, she kept her men in check and willing to commit said violence.

  One of Amado’s eyebrows rose, likely from Mercy’s blatant disrespect. “I don’t require your paltry offerings, Miss Halstead.”

  Yep. She’d called it.

  Mercy’s shoulders slightly fell, along with her misplaced hubris. She clearly didn’t know how to pivot from this unexpected response.

  Loren’s head calculated several potential scenarios, but none showed the likelihood of either of them walking away, let alone breathing.

  She landed on the one with the highest probability of success. A disappointing 9.9%.

  Amado continued to glare at Mercy with rabid contempt. “Execute them both.”

  It took a minute and then some for Alec and Trevor to pick off the first of Amado’s men. After gunshots were fired, the feds and M2M realized they’d been ambushed. And after seeing Alec and Trevor in action, they realized they lived to see another day because of two operatives that had been instructed to stand down and return home.

  Now they were speeding through the wooded perimeter as a united front to surround the Center and hopefully get to Loren and Mercy before Amado and his men.

  Alec’s heart was pounding in his chest as he did his best to remain stealthy while barreling through the leaves and over the fallen trees.

  Trevor threw out a restraining arm, stopping Alec as the parking area came into view, illuminated by floodlights and a full moon.

  Alec’s heart lodged in his throat as he and Trevor watched Mercy and Loren forcibly pushed to their knees by the hair, the men wrenching their arms behind their backs with more force than necessary. To the right, he caught who looked to be a frantic Jasper Bancroft, covered with blood and holding his arm that was missing a right hand.

  Fucker.

  They had to move.

  Alec turned to Trevor, making a pulling pin motion, and Trevor turned to an M2M operative wearing a grenade vest. Yanking a device from the Velcro tie, Trevor tossed it to Alec, who grasped the pineapple casing, pulled the pin, and reared back in true quarterback form. He threw the device with pinpoint accuracy as it hit and rolled behind the trained rifles, far enough from Mercy and Loren so as not to cause them harm.

  Basically, a diversionary tactic.

  And then, all hell broke loose.

  The blast threw Mercy several feet from where she knelt.

 
; Dazed, she wondered at the level of G-force of the guns trained on the back of her head by her personal executioner. Excessive, considering it catapulted her so far across the pavement.

  The smell of smoke and the drastic increase in air temperature made her wonder where exactly she ended up. Maybe she should have paid more attention during Pastor Roberts’ mind-numbing sermons?

  She pushed herself to her elbows, taking in the melee around her, and realized she wasn’t dead and thrown into the fiery pits of hell. From the searing pain rummaging around in her head and the gravel burn on her forearms, she was definitely alive.

  And surrounded by what looked like hell on earth with rifle fire pinging all around her.

  Searching for Loren, she pulled off the loose zip tie hanging on her wrist. She winced at the effort, feeling as if she’d been body slammed into the pavement by an entire NFL offensive line.

  Bullets grazed her arm, with more hitting the ground around her, which precluded her from doing a quick inventory of injuries. She pushed up as far as was reasonably safe, considering the sporadic gunfire, and noticed her hands were bloody. But her fingers were all there, which was more than she could say for Jasper, who was sitting up against the entrance doors of the Center, attempting to use his belt as a makeshift tourniquet.

  Amado’s henchmen were shouting instructions while others did their best to defend their capos amidst a volley of gunfire. Mercy caught a fluff of blue hair hunkered down behind an overturned black Escalade surrounded by a couple of her lieutenants as bullets ricocheted around her.

  Despite the chaos, Mercy pinpointed Loren lying still and bleeding at the temple about ten yards to her right. She crawled to her as the men who had forced them to their knees were now busy returning fire.

  “Hey.” She grabbed Loren’s shoulder and put her mouth to her ear. “Come on, Cinder-slacker, this is no time to sleep.”

  She had a head wound that was bleeding profusely and a long scrape on the side of her cheek where she must have made contact with the pavement.