by Linzi Baxter
Ledger? What ledger did they want? I was about to respond when it hit me. Fuck. The ledger I took from the bunker. When I got home from being detained, I placed it in a kitchen drawer. With everything that happened, I forgot about it.
When I didn’t respond right away, he motioned to one of his men, who moved his gun from me to Sophie. I forced myself to keep my cool. If I showed any type of vulnerability, they would take action.
“It’s in the kitchen. Follow me.” I hoped someone in the living room could use this moment to strike.
“Don’t be dumb, bitch. Tell me where it is, and I will get it.”
I pointed toward the kitchen drawer.
When the leader turned to walk past me, I used the opportunity to hit him over the head with the butt of the gun. He dropped to the floor with a thud.
“You fucking bi—” a man almost as large as the leader shouted. He swiveled his gun in my direction. Before he had time to fire, a loud bang sounded from Daisy’s direction.
She was standing, with her eyes level with the target she had taken out. Her cheerful smile was gone.
With my attention on Daisy, I didn’t hear the leader get up from the ground. A thick arm came around my throat. “Drop the gun, or this bitch dies.”
With my eyes, I pleaded with Daisy not to listen, but she obeyed and lowered the gun to the floor. Bridget had tears streaming down her face.
A glint of silver in Sophie’s direction caught my eye. She had a gun.
“Boss, we need to hurry up.”
The leader had dragged me over to the kitchen island. “Open it.”
I slid the drawer open and pulled out the brown leather ledger. The leader grunted in approval.
“We got what we needed, men. Let’s kill them and head out.”
The sound of Bridget’s scream broke my heart. It was one of the last things I remembered before the sound of a gun and then the sheer pain in my side. “I love you, Antonio,” I whispered before the world went dark.
16
Antonio
Juan and his men had entered the dilapidated bar five minutes ago. A neon light hung on the side of the bar flashed “Wild Hounds,” half of the letters burnt out.
The red paint on the building had lost its shine. What used to be a window next to the front door was boarded up with a piece of plywood. The sound of broken glass crunched under my boots with each step across the parking lot.
I didn’t need to look to my right to know Zane was in step with me. Over the past couple months, we had become synced with each other.
In the back, I could see the Florida sun setting over the building. It was in direct contrast to our location. The impending night was a reminder we needed to hurry this along before the bar opened. I glanced down at my watch and calculated how much time we had. In one hour, the bar patrons would start to arrive.
“I have eyes and audio inside,” came Neal’s voice over the com.
“Brock, are you in place?” Brock and his employee John took the back door.
Neal gave us an update. Juan seemed to be in an argument with his men. He was under the impression they had captured Sophie and Kat. Neal checked the feed to my house and informed me Kat and Sophie were fine.
I had second-guessed myself all day about Kat being on this op. She was one of the best sharpshooters we had. But if she were here, it would distract me. When Kat had agreed to stay with Ant while Zane and I worked the op, I worried she would find a way here. Yet Neal had confirmed that she didn’t leave the house. Knowing Kat was still safe settled me.
“They look distracted. Time to move in,” Neal’s voice echoed in my ear.
The remaining members of the team checked in. They were good to go.
I reached for the door handle. Wild Hound’s door opened with no resistance. When the door had cracked the first inch, I could hear Juan’s raised voice.
Everyone in the room seemed to be distracted by Juan. Zane and I entered the room and stood to watch the scene in front of us. The smell of cheap whiskey and stale cigarettes hit me like a ton of bricks. The inside of the bar was not much better than the outside. Dirt and empty bottles lined the floor. I could see one chair that was broken. The tables leaned to the side and still had the bottles from last night on them. Behind the bar, only a few cheap bottles of liquor sat. It took a good two minutes before one of Juan’s men saw us by the front door.
“Good afternoon, Uncle. I think it’s time we had a chat.”
Juan’s face turned red with anger when his eyes landed on Zane and me. He didn’t respond to my statement. Juan swung his head back at his men and narrowed his beady eyes. “You sent me photos of those two dead. I will have you fucking killed if you don’t eliminate them.”
“Such a temper, Uncle. Let’s sit down and have a little chat. You can clearly see Zane and I aren’t dead.”
Juan balled his fists. “Stop calling me Uncle.”
I looked over at Brock and John, who held back their grins. Even before Juan had destroyed my life, I hated the man. “Well, I am married to your niece, Uncle.”
Juan sat down at the table and motioned for me to join him. Weiss was the leader of the three in the room. His jaw was clenched, and he took the table next to ours. Brock stayed in the back of the room while John worked himself around to get another angle if things went down.
Zane and I took our seats at the table across from Juan. My hand never left my Glock. The only people I trusted in the room were the men that came with me. We waited at the table for Juan to say something. My goal was for him to tell us what he wanted, and when we had the upper hand, we would take him down.
“I want all the money back, and your plane.”
I tapped my finger on the table. “Let me get this straight. You want Sophie’s and Katherine’s inheritance and my plane?”
Juan's hand trembled slightly. It was the first time I had seen him not completely composed. His three men looked to be in a heated discussion at the other table. Brock had his full attention on them, and John stood as our backup.
“It was my money. Those dumb bitches had no right to my inheritance.” He jumped from his seat and started to pace back and forth. “It was my money. It was my money.”
His rant kept on. It seemed that Juan had had a breakdown. When I looked closer, his usually perfectly groomed hair was greasy and unkempt. His thousand-dollar suit was riddled with dirt, and the bags under his eyes were almost black.
Weiss was the commander of his unit. Did something happen that we were not prepared for? He narrowed his eyes in Juan’s direction and stood up from his chair.
“Shut the fuck up.” He raised his gun at Juan and pulled the trigger twice. It was a perfect double tap.
I glanced in Zane’s direction for a second to see his reaction. His eyes zeroed in on Weiss. Brock’s eyes were wide in surprise. John was to my back.
Neal’s voice came over the com. “That was unexpected. Time to roll, guys. Three blocks down, tonight's patrons are approaching your way.”
“How many?” I whispered into the com.
“Looks to be around fifteen.”
An audible curse came from Zane’s direction. Those weren’t bar patrons on their way to get a drink. Those were Weiss’s backup for whatever he had planned. This was a setup.
I stood up from the wooden chair. “Since you’ve eliminated the only person we care about, we’ll be on our way.” I didn’t have any issue with Weiss and his men, but when I got out of there, I would call Director Westblack and let him know where he could find the men who stole the guns.
Zane and I started to back toward the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Brock and John moving toward the back door.
“Don’t take another fuckin’ step.” When Brock and John continued back, Weiss shot his gun at the ceiling. At the moment, we had them outnumbered. Only two of his men stood with him. The odds were not in their favor.
I kept my grip on my sidearm. “Weiss, we have no beef with y
ou.”
“I don’t give a shit about you. If you take one more step, you will look like him.” He pointed to Juan’s body. “If your wife would’ve left things alone, we wouldn’t be here now.”
Fuck. What had Kat done to piss these men off? We had shared all the evidence with each other, but nothing came to mind that would explain why she would have made them angry. When I went to ask Neal to see what he could find, the com in my ear screeched. The com frequency had been jammed.
I heard the rumble of motorcycles approach the building. Whatever was on the other side of the door would be worse if we left the three men inside alive. I didn’t wait. I raised the Glock in my hand and repeated what Weiss did earlier. Zane did the same to the man that had stood next to Weiss. They both dropped to the ground with perfect holes in their heads, and Brock took the last man down.
The device killing the com frequency had to be in one of the men’s pockets. I ran toward the bodies and started to search. Zane understood what I needed to find and joined me. The last body we searched had the device on it. I flipped the switch over, and Neal’s voice came across.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes. Sitrep.”
Neal's voice wasn’t the next to come across the com. It was Jacob’s. “You have incoming. Ten entering the front of the bar and five at the back.”
It was going to be a bloodbath if we didn’t get backup ourselves. Zane and I positioned ourselves behind the bar. John and Brock overturned a couple tables and took cover behind them.
Director Westblack’s voice came over the com. “Antonio, you want to tell me why the fuck you are in the middle of a shootout, and I wasn’t informed about the operation before you went?”
Neal must’ve called Westblack when the com and video feeds went down. “It’s classified. We could use a little help if you have men in the area.”
I heard Westblack grumble, “Classified my ass. We are five minutes out. Try not to kill everyone. We need information.”
Before I had time to respond, the door to the bar flung open and cracked against the wall. The first man to step through the door was close to seven feet tall and dressed in leather pants and a leather jacket. The scar down the side of his face gave the man a heightened sense of menace.
A group of bikers followed him in, and the small bar became overcrowded. The scarred biker was the first to speak. “Who killed Weiss?”
“We have no issue with you. Juan was our target. Let us go, and we won’t have any more issues.” With each word I spoke, the biker leader snarled with anger.
He worked his way across the bar, throwing tables out of the way to make a path to the bar. His men followed behind them. They were so concentrated on Zane and me that they ignored Brock and John behind them. Brock and John slowly crept their way up behind the group of men.
Zane and I needed to keep the men looking our way so Brock and John could take them out one at a time from behind. “Two minutes,” Westblack echoed through my ear.
Neal’s voice came back over the com at the same time the leader put his hands on the bar. Neal said, “Someone breached your house. You guys need to get out of there and head to Antonio’s. I called the police.”
This was the play all along—to get my wife by herself and us unable to get to her. What information did Kat have? The leader had said something I didn’t catch because my head was on Kat.
“We do things differently in Wild Hounds,” one of the bikers was saying. “An eye for an eye. You”—he pointed at me—“killed three of my friends. Now you get to decide which three of yours are goi—”
His words were cut off when FBI agents swarmed the building. Within seconds, the bikers were on the floor and detained.
I passed Westblack on my way out the door. “Brock is still in there and will help you with everything you need. You need to call the president and tell him Juan is dead. The rest of the group is going after my wife.”
Zane and I were running for the SUV. “Neal, tell me what’s going on.”
“The feed was cut. I can’t see anything. The police are ten minutes out.”
Zane slammed his hands against the dash and let out a string of cuss words. “I can’t lose Sophie. She’s my world.”
“Don’t worry. They will be fine.” I didn’t believe the words I spoke.
17
Antonio
I gripped the passenger door while Zane weaved through traffic on our way back to my house. The cabin was filled with tension. The Wild Hounds bar was a half hour from my house. A red car swerved in front of our SUV, and Zane slammed on the brakes. He was quick to move to the other lane and slammed his foot back down so the SUV lurched forward.
My heart beat so fast that I felt like it was about to jump out of my chest. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw Asher and Brock on our bumper. Neal had left his post at the command center and headed toward my house. Everyone we loved was in that house.
We were halfway there when I heard the beep of Zane’s phone. I reached for it so he could concentrate on the road. It was a text from Sophie.
I’m safe honey, but please hurry home.
While I read Sophie’s text, Asher and Neal both spoke through the com and stated they had heard from their loved ones.
I reached for my phone, but no message appeared. I texted Kat and asked if she was okay. No response. My hands shook as I typed each letter in Zane’s phone to Sophie. Tell Kat to text Antonio. Bubbles appeared as if she was typing and then went away. I waited two minutes, but no text came through.
I called Kat’s phone, and nobody answered. I tried Sophie’s phone, and she sent me to voicemail. Fuck. I was going to lose her again. “Why the fuck are they not answering? Asher, call CJ and ask if Kat and Ant are okay,” I demanded through the com.
He responded that he would try. The time on the dashboard clock slowly ticked by.
Zane glanced my way for a second. “Stop that train of thought. Kat is tough. She can make it through anything. Let’s get to the house and see what happened.”
It felt like it took Asher hours to respond. His voice was low and filled with worry. “Ant is fine. Your parents just showed up. Neal is also at the scene.” There was a long pause. I didn’t think he would tell me about my wife. “Kat is alive.”
Alive. What the fuck did that mean. “Tell someone to make her call me.”
“She can’t call you at the moment.”
The last ten minutes to the house felt like hours. Nobody would tell me if Kitty Kat had been hurt. Zane pulled around the last corner. My house sat at the end of the street. Blue and red lights beamed to a point that it was hard to see the road.
Zane hadn’t even put the SUV in park by the time I jumped out the passenger door. My boots hit the cement, and I ran down the street at full speed toward the house. When I went to duck under the yellow police tape, an officer tried to stop me.
“You can’t go over there, sir.”
I pushed him to the side. “That’s my fucking house.”
He grabbed my arm and tried to drag me back.
“So help me, if you don’t take your hands off m—”
My words were cut off by Detective Higgins before I could threaten the police officer.
“Let him go, Officer Carl. Antonio, settle down, and I will take you to your wife.”
I saw a stretcher being wheeled out from the entryway of my house. Kat’s red hair hung over the edge. I didn’t hear anything else around me. I ran toward my wife.
When I reached Kat’s side, her eyes were closed, and blood marred her beautiful face. I gripped her hand and brought it to my face. Her hand was warm, and I felt her squeeze when I whispered her name. Someone kept trying to pull me away from Kat. I felt the wetness drip down my face.
“Sir, you need to move. We are trying to help her.” I stepped back so the paramedics could work on her. I glanced around the front yard to find my boy. He was in my mom’s arms. I was torn between the need to hug Ant to make sure he was o
kay and the need to follow the men who carted my wife away.
Sophie rested her hand on my back. “Let Zane and I drive you to the hospital, and Ant can ride with us. The paramedics will need to work on Kat.”
When I turned to see Kat again, the ambulance had closed the door and taken off. Shouts came from the front doorway of the house. The cops escorted three men out the front of the house, all in handcuffs, followed by another body on a stretcher.
I walked over to my mom and grabbed Ant out of her arms. He laid his head on my shoulder. I didn’t say a word as I walked toward Zane’s SUV.
“Mommy’s going to be okay,” Ant whispered in my ear.
I squeezed him to my chest. “I know, son.”
But I didn’t. Kat looked lifeless on the stretcher. If she hadn’t squeezed my hand, I would have thought she was gone. The only sound in the car to the hospital was Sophie’s sniffles from the front seat.
When we arrived at the hospital, we were directed to the waiting room. Kat was rushed into surgery. A bullet had hit Kat’s pelvic bone and traveled upward. The last we heard was that they didn’t know what damage had been done. They were concerned because when Kat had been shot, she had fallen backward, and her head hit the corner of the countertop.
Everyone had made it to the hospital. Brock and Jessica were the last to show. They stayed at my house until FBI Director Westblack arrived. Brock handed the leather ledger over to the FBI. I was still shocked she had kept that in a kitchen drawer. Westblack had said he would let us know what he found out.
Daisy had withdrawn into herself since we arrived at the hospital. She blamed herself for Kat being shot. She thought if she would’ve kept the gun in her hand, Kat wouldn’t have been shot. But these men were ruthless, and Daisy would’ve been killed if she hadn’t dropped the gun when she did.
When the police arrived, they heard the gunshot and rushed the house. They were able to get Kat medical attention immediately. If Neal hadn’t called the police the second he noticed something go wrong, Kat would be dead.
