American Heroes: The Complete American Heroes Collection

by Teagan Kade

  Fucking cab drivers.

  “You’re not going to bust me, are you?” Mateo shouts back.

  I look over his little collection. “No, my friend. Not today.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WINTER

  It’s over. This Liam, Archer’s supposed cop friend, has betrayed me, handed me right on over to the very people I’ve been trying to escape. But far from the look of smug satisfaction I think I’ll find on his face when I look in his direction, it’s sadness and uncertainty I see.

  He’s not sure about this. I know it. Whatever they’re offering him must be real good to betray Archer like this.

  As far as I can tell, we’re in a large warehouse in some kind of industrial area. In the corner two men are unloading tins of paint from the back of a truck. From my time with the cartel I know they’re actually full of liquid methamphetamine, cleverly concealed. This is the missing piece, I realize, the one location I couldn’t work out, and here I am, my hands cable-tied together in front of me, right in the middle of it.

  There are another two men standing in front of me. I recognize one as the man I saw at the Ball & Chain, the other from Cuba, Serpiente’s lieutenant. In a way, I’m flattered… until the realization sinks in I’ll never see Archer again, never feel the warmth of his arms or touch of his lips, his wry smile.

  Hold it together, I remind myself. There’s still hope.

  But is there? We’re a long way from Miami Beach. It’s the weekend. No one’s around. We may as well be on Mars.

  That hope turns into any icy ball in my stomach when I see one of the men unloading the truck remove an empty body bag, laying it down on the floor.

  So they don’t intend for me to walk out alive. They’re going to torture me, find out what I know, and then dispose of me. It’s their way. Worse, I’ve seen what they do to people, heard it first-hand, sounds that will haunt me until the day I die. Today, I guess.

  Liam approaches, snapping me out of my thoughts. He stops before me, leaning in conspiratorially. I’m hoping against hope he’ll whisper the cavalry is on its way, that this was all an elaborate ploy to bring the cartel down, but that’s not what he says.

  He licks his lips, wiping sweat from his brow. “Look,” he starts, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry it had to go down this way. You seem like a decent person, but I’m in over my head. I need the money, understand?”

  I spit in his face, a surprisingly defiant move that simply happens—no prior thought, no thinking.

  Liam wipes it away, nodding to himself. “Well, that makes it a little easier now, doesn’t it?”

  “Archer is going to kill you,” I tell him, trying to keep the nerves from my voice.

  “Archer’s never going to know, hon. No one is going to know. Do you understand that?”

  He takes a step away, thinking I’m going to spit again. “Again,” he says, “I’m sorry,” placing his hand over his heart in the emptiest gesture the world’s ever known.

  I see someone emerge from behind a shipping container at the back of the warehouse and my heart drops further.

  It’s him.

  It’s Serpiente.

  He walks slowly towards us, whispering something is his lieutenant’s ear before moving to Liam and taking his hand, smiling. “My friend. Thank you for this.”

  He hasn’t even looked in my direction yet.

  Liam nods back. “The money?”

  “Being transferred as we speak,” Serpiente smiles, but I know that crocodile smile when I see it, spotting his lieutenant slowly and silently moving around behind Liam and drawing his weapon.

  I know shouting, trying to warm Liam, will be useless.

  “Excuse me,” says Serpiente, stepping aside and nodding at his lieutenant, who’s now standing behind Liam with a gun raised to the back of his head.

  I scream when it goes off, the front of Liam’s face blown apart, his faceless body standing upright for what seems like far too long before finally slumping forward onto the ground.

  With a whistle, Serpiente signals the men who were emptying the truck, one of them picking up the body bag and bringing it over.

  I feel sick to my stomach, a prickly, all-encompassing kind of sickness that takes over my entire being.

  Still smiling, Serpiente walks towards me with his hands behind his back. His hair is slicked tight to his head as per usual, the large cross he wears around his neck sitting against his shirt. I know he’ll be holding his rosary beads his father left him behind his back, slowly thumbing the beads through his fingers. It’s his way of alleviating the guilt—if he’s capable of feeling anything at all.

  He stops before me and looks back at Liam’s body. He touches his shoulders and the top of the top of his head. “May God rest his soul.”

  His eyes are the color of a deep moss, cold and impassive. He reaches and lifts a strand of my hair with his finger. “I thought we’d lost you, but the Lord has brought you back to me. This time I won’t be so reckless with you.” He looks down my body, pausing when he reaches my nether region. “This time I will have my reward.”

  “My boyfriend,” I say, the term odd in my mouth, “he will kill you.”

  Serpiente starts to pace around me in a wide circle. “The, ah, what is it called? The lifeguard, yes? He’ll be dealt with.”

  I swallow down the dread knowing Archer doesn’t stand a chance against the cartel. If only I had been able to warn him, to tell him to save himself.

  “You don’t know God,” I tell him, finally finding the courage to speak my mind. “You are the antichrist, and you will pay for your crimes. If not here, up there,” I nod to the sky. “One way or another, you will be held accountable.”

  He places a finger on my lips. It smells of tobacco. “Hush, hush, hush. After all, you’ll need to conserve your energy for what I have planned for you.”

  That icy ball becomes a solid rock in my chest.

  I want to cry, to scream, to do anything, but I know it’s fruitless. I will not allow him the satisfaction of seeing me break. I will fight this to the end. If nothing else, Archer taught me that much.

  I picture his face, see him holding me. ‘You are a bad-ass,’ he’s saying. ‘You can do anything.’

  I pull in a deep breath and force a smile onto my face. “You cannot hurt me,” I announce, being sure to look Serpiente in the eye. “You can have my body, but you’ll never have me.”

  He laughs, wagging his finger at me. “But your body is all I want my little virgin. We’ll see how much you’re smiling when every man, every dog has their way with you when I’m done.”

  He gives another whistle and walks away, the body bag zipped up and slid away towards the truck in the corner, a horrible mess of blood and gristle remaining on the ground.

  It’s a terrible thought to think I’ve seen worse.

  “Bring her,” Serpiente shouts, the man from the club with the teardrop tattoo walking over and taking me under the arm. “Walk,” he barks.

  You’ll have to damn well drag me out of here, I think.

  “Wal—” he goes to say, coughing through the end of it and turning to look at me with wide eyes. It’s only then I notice the hole in his neck. He reaches for it, mouth wide, but there’s too much blood. It flows around his fingers like thick, cherry syrup before he tilts and falls to the floor, his hand releasing my arm.

  I can see the shock on Serpiente’s face.

  There’s another loud “oof” from the right, another man going down, this time with a ruby dot on his forehead.

  Serpiente shouts something, but with two more muffled expulsions of sound in the distance the men unloading the truck go down, one and then the other, a second shot hitting the poor guy in the back as he’s trying to crawl away.

  Another ‘pfft’, another separation of air, and then Serpiente’s lieutenant screams aloud, falling to one knee and reaching for his gun, only managing to get it halfway up before he’s struck twice in the chest, slowly rocking forward on
to his stomach.

  It all happens so fast I barely process what’s going on.

  Serpiente looks around, but his entire team have been dispatched somehow, all of them lying dead and dying around the warehouse in the space of seconds.

  He looks up, past me, and rushes forward, taking me by the arm and shifting behind me, walking us back towards the shipping container. As he does, I see something, a glimpse of something I’ve never seen on his face before.

  Fear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ARCHER

  I reload from my position high on the emergency stairwell at the side of the warehouse, a perfect eagle’s nest from which to work.

  I wasn’t a sniper in the Army, but Liam was. I picked up enough to know what to do—find a high vantage point with multiple exits, sufficient cover, work quickly, have an out, watch the wind… There’s barely a breeze outside—perfect conditions for shooting up assholes.

  The rifle I found in the back of Mateo’s taxi is a SAKO TRG 42, a long-range Finnish weapon generally considered one of the finest of its kind in the world. The serial number’s been filed off, of course, which I imagine is going to make things interesting when the questions come later.

  The trunk of the taxi was basically the Punisher’s own personal war chest, but I had to pick and choose fast, thankful for Mateo’s lifeline.

  It wasn’t easy taking down these pricks from such a distance, but seeing Liam going down, shot in the back of fucking head like a chump, I found the nerve I needed.

  But the one behind it all, the one who has to be the Serpent himself, is right behind Winter blocking my bullet. I’m lying down, looking through the scope as he takes her, drawing out his own weapon, a gold-plated Ruger, and holding it to her side where I know it will do a fuck-load of damage if it goes off.

  He’s looking around wildly, doesn’t know where the shots came from.

  Good, I think, packing up quickly and making my way down the stairs.

  “Where are you?!” he shouts, his voice booming around the warehouse. “Fucking show yourself, coward!”

  I have every intention of doing so, approaching from the north-west corner with the rifle slung and a Glock drawn, holding it tight with two hands while I move towards the center of the warehouse where he’s holding Winter.

  I want to stop, to tell her it’s going to be okay, but I have to focus. If I look at her eyes it might all come undone, and I can’t lose her. Not now. Not fucking ever.

  “That’s fucking close enough,” spits Serpiente. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Give me the girl,” I tell him, speaking slowly, “and I’ll let you run back to your fuck buddies in whatever hole you crawled out of.”

  He laughs, jamming the gun into Winter’s side. “This bitch? You’re who, the fucking lifeguard?”

  “Sure am. Saving lives in style since twenty-oh-nine.”

  He likes that, throwing back his head. “Fucking David Hasselhoff, yes? You American assholes all thinking you’re heroes. Do you even know who I am?”

  He’s acting confident, but his body language, his tone, is suggesting he’s shitting his pants. I just have to be patient.

  I take another tentative step closer, moving slowly. “Let her go. I won’t say it again.”

  “I said stop where you fucking are!” he shouts, but I keep on moving forward.

  He’s getting irritated now, the fear getting the better of him, swallowing him whole.

  And finally, he breaks.

  “I said fucking get back!” he screams, moving the weapon away from Winter to point at me.

  I don’t hesitate. I fire.

  He shouts as his hand is blown away, the weapon going wide, his entire torso exposed in the movement.

  I fire two rounds in the middle of his chest, waiting until Winter manages to spin away before punching another one right into the middle of his stupid fucking skull.

  That does it. He goes down. Dead—the head of the mighty Lacoya cartel taken out by a fucking Miami Beach Lifeguard.

  Winter rushes forward into my arms, but I keep my gun raised, moving us towards the front doors. We’re still exposed here.

  “Archer,” she says, pulling on my shirt.

  I look outside, can already hear sirens in the distance, but I take a moment to hold her in the doorway, kiss her lips. I don’t care she’s sweaty, dirty, scared, she’s back and that’s all that fucking matters. My baby is back and I’m never going to let her go again.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, the sirens building. “I didn’t know.”

  “Your friend…” she says, looking sideways to where what’s left of Liam’s head remains.

  I swallow down a sudden thickness in my throat because yes, Liam betrayed me, but I know it could only be out of the deepest desperation, know I could have stopped it if I’d only been quicker. My anger turns to pity.

  Sensing this, Winter reaches up with her bound hands and holds my face. A single tear cuts down her cheek. “It’s not your fault. You saved me… again.”

  “I think it’s becoming a habit,” I laugh.

  A police car swings into the parking lot of the warehouse.

  “Walk out with your hands up,” I tell Winter, “Slowly. It’s all going to be okay. Serpiente’s dead. He can’t hurt you.”

  Another police car joins the first, a third and fourth following.

  I place the rifle and Glock down, placing my hands on my head and walking out into the sunlight, stopping and getting down on my knees.

  Beside me, Winter does the same.

  I know what’s coming isn’t going to be a walk in the park, but for all I care Miami PD can make me walk across hot coals.

  Winter’s safe.

  That’s all that fucking matters.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  WINTER

  We’re back together at the police station, the familiar, all-too-bright lighting causing my eyes to water. Or maybe’s it just the rush of emotions I’m feeling. They’ve been drawn up and rearranged, scrambled and reordered until I’m not sure exactly what I’m feeling only that I’m thankful I’m alive. I have Archer to thank for that—again.

  We’re seated against the wall in a holding area of sorts, not that we’re under arrest. The policemen who took us in, a couple of which I recognized from the volleyball competition, made that very clear. The way Archer was talking with them, it was almost like he was a cop himself.

  I tug at his arm beside me. “That’s twice now you’ve saved my life.”

  He smiles at me. “I wasn’t counting.”

  “What happens when it hits three?”

  He kisses my forehead, leaving his lips there, warm, against my skin. “I hope it never comes to that.”

  I let my head rest on his shoulder. “Me too.”

  I can see a group of men enter the adjoining room. Men from the Drug Enforcement Agency arrived at the scene along with a parade of emergency services. But these men look different again.

  “Who are they?” I ask, jerking my head in their direction.

  “ICE agents,” Archer replies, his expression clouding.

  “Immigration?”

  “Yes,” he says, rubbing my arm, “but don’t worry about it. It’s just protocol. They might take you, ask some questions, hold you for a bit, but the information you’re providing… I’ll make damn sure you stay put.”

  “Are you sure you have that kind of power?”

  He laughs. “Baby, I can charm anyone—male, female, canine, feline. I’m a walking, talking eight ball that only comes up ‘Yes’.”

  I can’t help but laugh along, but deeper down I’m scared. I am here illegally. Won’t they send me back? Wouldn’t that be the easiest option?

  But Archer’s right. With the things I know, the information on the cartel, I am the one in a position of power, one I’ve never been in before or known. I should take advantage of it.

  Haven’t you been through enough? my head interjects. Don’t you deserve
this? Don’t you deserve happiness?

  I look across at Archer and nod to myself. Yes. Yes, I do.

  Eventually, after countless interviews and meetings, people, strangers asking question after question, I’m turned over to the ICE agents, but they’re not as threatening as I imagined. In fact, Archer, as predicted, has managed to charm them.

  “…and then the bastard threw up, right up into my face as I was doing mouth-to-mouth. There’s nothing about that in the training manual.”

  He sees me, telling the agents. “Can you give us a second?”

  They nod together.

  Archer approaches me with his hands in his pockets. He looks as tired as I feel. He points behind himself at the ICE agents, lowering his voice. “Alright, these guys are going to have to take you now, but you’ve got nothing to be worried about. I’ve talked to them and they understand. They’re going to make a great case for getting you temporary residency, at least until we sort the rest of this shit out. Everyone’s going to want to keep you a) close and b) protected.”

  “Will I have to testify?” I ask, questions popping into my head faster than I can process them.

  He takes me by the shoulders, squeezing gently. “I don’t know, baby, but I’m going to be here, right by your side, the whole way. You’re safe and we’re going to make sure your father’s safe, too. Precautions have already been made.”

  “They have?”

  I feel guilty not even having thought about my father.

  Archer stands back grinning. “Come on now. I told you I could work miracles, didn’t I?”

  “Can you miracle up a bed, because I’m real tired.”

  He brushes hair from my forehead, his eyes relaxed and warm, telling me it’s all going to be okay. “Soon, I promise.”

  He kisses me one last time, holding my face with both hands, deepening it until together, we can barely breathe, desperate to hang onto each other.

  I break away and a fresh tear slides down my cheek. Archer wipes it away with his thumb. “Don’t cry now. You’re strong, remember? You’re a skydiving, cartel-kicking badass. Don’t you fucking forget it.”