Pressure Point (The Extractor Series Book 3)
Page 17
They all made their way toward the door, ready to rush out of the building. With all of them huddled together, Flores tugged on Bridge’s arm.
“How about a gun for me?” Flores asked. Bridge looked at him strangely, as if he were crazy. “There’s no reason for me to turn on you now. I wanna get out of here as much as you do. And you could use the extra gun.”
Bridge thought that he had a point and looked at Nicole, who gave a slight tilt of her head, not opposed to the idea either. Bridge grabbed his backup weapon and handed it to Flores.
“One wrong move with this, and I’ll shoot you myself,” Bridge said.
“As you’ve pointed out multiple times.”
Bridge made sure everyone was ready. Once they indicated they were, he threw open the door and ran out to the vehicle, everyone running out of the building one at a time. One of the guards noticed all the activity and immediately started firing. Nicole and Flores rushed to the hood of the SUV and started to return fire. Bridge opened the rear and started helping the girls inside. As a couple of them went inside, one of them reached back and tapped Bridge on the arm, then pointed behind him. Two more guards were coming up from behind.
Bridge turned around and started firing, leaving the girls to get in themselves as he provided cover. “Get in! Get in!”
The girls quickly got in, and once they did, Bridge closed the trunk, then took cover next to the vehicle, crouching down. By now, the last two remaining guards also were involved.
“We can’t get pinned down here!” Nicole yelled. “We gotta make a move.”
As a few bullets ripped into the SUV, Bridge knew that was true. The car was becoming a bullet magnet, and the girls inside would eventually catch some stray bullets if they didn’t get moving. Bridge killed one of the guards on his side, then put in a new magazine, before then dispensing of the other one.
“Two down back here!” Bridge then dropped to the ground and crawled under the SUV, hoping to gain an advantage by surprising them with his position.
Nicole reached into the front seat of the SUV and pulled out a rifle. She then leaned over the hood of the car and dropped another of the guards. As she moved back behind the hood, she looked at her rifle, then saw Flores slump over to the right of her, falling face forward. Nicole reached down and turned him over. He had two bullet holes in his chest. He was dead. She reached down and picked up his gun and tucked it in her belt.
With everything that was going on, she didn’t have time to feel bad about his death, though she probably wouldn’t have anyway. Just because he was helping them in this instance didn’t mean he was a nice person. At least that’s how she looked at it. If he hadn’t been involved in illegal activities, he wouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with. Nicole leaned back over the hood and kept firing at the remaining guards.
“Flores is gone!” she yelled.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“He’s dead!”
Bridge shattered the shin of one of the guards with a bullet, dropping the man to the ground. While he was down there, holding his leg, Bridge put another couple of rounds in him. By now, the two guards by the front gate had also joined the fray.
“Screw this,” Nicole said, opening the back door of the SUV and reaching for her bag of stuff. “Keep them covered!”
“What do you think I’m doing?! What are you doing?!”
“Ending this!”
“How?!” Bridge continued firing.
“With a bang!”
Nicole pulled out a couple of grenades and quickly pulled the pin, throwing them at the direction of the guards. The first one hit its mark, killing the two guards that were standing next to each other. The second one also did damage, though it only killed one of them. The second one started to run to take cover by one of Meyer’s cars, though Bridge crawled out from beneath the SUV and took aim at him, hitting him before he was able to reach his mark. With two more bullets hitting the guard, the fracas was over. Bridge and Nicole each turned completely around, making sure that was the end of it.
There was an eerie silence for the next minute as they almost expected the heavy barrage of bullets to continue. Once they knew the fight was finally over, they met back up by the trunk of the car. They opened it to make sure all the women inside were unhurt.
“Anybody hit?” Bridge asked.
“We’re all good,” one of the women replied.
“Good. We’re leaving in a minute. You guys can sit up now. It’s all over.” Bridge then closed the trunk and looked at his girlfriend. “How are you? Hit or anything?”
“No. I’m good. You?”
Bridge made a painful expression and felt his arm, the one that had gotten hit earlier. “I’m good. Still burns a little. Must have fell on it under the car. I’m good though. No new holes.”
Bridge moved to the right a little and his eyes went past Nicole, seeing Flores’ body lying there in the dirt. He walked over to the man and stood next to him, looking down at his lifeless body. He had a strange feeling come over him. He wasn’t sad about his death, but he wasn’t happy either. Though killing people, and seeing dead bodies, wasn’t foreign to him, and he helped quite a few people see whatever awaited them in the next life, he never felt happy about it. Even if some of those people deserved that fate. Sometimes it was necessary, sometimes it had to be done, but it was never something he took satisfaction in. Nicole walked over to him and tapped him on the back as she hopped in the passenger seat.
“Let’s go.”
Bridge got in the car and drove through the front gate. As they were driving, Nicole noticed the expression on her boyfriend’s face and thought he might have been mourning the loss of Flores.
“You angry about what happened back there?”
“No, what’s to be angry about?” Bridge replied. “We got Evelyn, got the other girls, and we made it out alive. That’s a win in my book.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Annoyed?”
“I’m not annoyed. Just…”
“What?”
“I told Flores’ wife he’d be back. And now he’s not going back.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“I know. Still… I hate saying something and going back on my word.”
“Like I said, there’s nothing you could do about it.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that it happened. I told this woman her husband would come back to her alive. And now he’s coming back dead.”
“Would you prefer he was alive and one of us were dead?”
“Of course not.”
“Then forget about it. Chalk this up as a win, which it was, and move on. We did a great thing here. Nothing should take away from that.”
After a few more minutes, Nicole thought they were driving in a different direction than what she thought they were going.
“Where are you going?”
“The Flores house,” Bridge answered.
“What? No. Are you crazy?”
“I need to, Nic.”
“No, you don’t. This is insane. Why would you go back there?”
“She needs to know her husband isn’t coming home.”
“And she will. I’m sure the police will tell her.”
“She needs to hear it from me.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“It’s what I’m doing.”
Nicole sighed and put her hand on her head, thinking he was crazy for even thinking it. Once they got to the Flores residence, they parked far away from the house, that way Bridge could go in alone while Nicole stayed with the rescued women. Bridge told her if there were any problems by the front gate, that she was to come swooping in with guns blazing. But there was no trouble. Bridge was let in and was immediately brought to Mrs. Flores.
Nicole was only giving him thirty minutes in there. If he wasn’t out by then, she was busting through the gate, dropping grenades everywhere until she got
to him. Luckily it never came to that. It was a short meeting for Bridge, who walked out of the house only fifteen minutes later. Once back in the car, Nicole looked at him.
“Happy now?”
Bridge shrugged. “Content, I guess.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“Just that her husband died trying to save other people.”
“You also tell her that he helped put them in there?”
“She knew her husband wasn’t always doing legal activities. I think it’s important, though, for her, and their son, that they knew he died doing the right thing.”
“What’s the point? To make him look better?”
Bridge shook his head. “No. It’s not about him. It never is. It’s never about the people that have passed on. It’s about the people that they’ve left behind and how they move on. If it helps the living, that’s what matters.”
“Great. Can we go home now?”
“Only if you promise not to take on any new jobs for a while. I need a vacation.”
“There’s people out there who need us, Luke.”
“I’m sure they can wait a week or two while I refresh myself.”
“And I can play nurse for you while your arm heals.”
“I said a vacation.”
About the Author
Mike Ryan is a USA Today Bestselling Author. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, and four children. He’s the author of the bestselling Silencer Series, as well as many others. Visit his website at www.mikeryanbooks.com to find out more about his books, and sign up for his newsletter. You can also interact with Mike via Facebook, and Instagram.
Also by Mike Ryan
Continue reading with the next book, Deep Cover.
Other Books:
The Silencer Series
The Eliminator Series
The Cain Series
The Brandon Hall Series
The Ghost Series
A Dangerous Man
The Last Job
The Crew