Guns n' Boys: Swamp Blood (Book 3) (gay dark mafia erotic romance)

by K. A. Merikan

  Domenico was ready to shoot the fucker if he pulled some trick on them, but he was the first one to rush down the stairs, and gestured for the other men to follow. Their group wasn’t the stealthiest considering how they got here, but with the chaos raging inside the base, loud footsteps could belong to anyone, not just the invaders. On top of that, the constant gunfire outside was their best ally in infiltrating the building.

  The staircase was unpleasantly hot, making Domenico sticky with sweat, but when he opened the right door and walked into an air-conditioned corridor, it didn’t make him feel any better.

  One of the lamps shining over the empty walkway that looked like any other office was blinking, and that alone was enough to put Dom on edge. The trembling light made everything more alive, as if even the pictures on the walls could twitch into life at any given moment. Fred led the way toward a turn into darkness, where the light had an oddly grayish quality, and as Domenico watched Seth’s powerful, armored form follow, he grabbed Ryder’s arm and turned him back.

  Ryder stiffened and squeezed his hands tighter on the rifle, but raised his brows, waiting for whatever Domenico was going to say. And the damn light was still blinking, as if it were imitating the crazily irregular heartbeat in Dom’s chest.

  “I’m gonna be first in line,” whispered Dom, keeping his voice steady. “If something happens, take care of Seth.” He took a deep breath as he glanced at the rapidly growing distance between them and the rest of the group. “If there’s a choice between helping me and him, leave me. I can handle my shit.”

  Ryder stared at Dom with a frown, but he nodded in silence. At least the man knew his debts and was willing to pay them. The two of them caught up with the others just before they could make the turn into darkness. Fred made his way to the light switch, seemingly wanting to push on it with his shoulder, but Ryder stopped him in his tracks.

  “We’ll be better off without it. Fewer people will notice us from outside,” he said, and Domenico nodded.

  Fred hissed. “We need to take the stairs up. This place consists of two parts. They might look like one building, but they’ve been planned as separate structures with just one link.”

  Domenico frowned as they raced through the dark corridor, trying hard not to stomp too much, but some noise was inevitable, and each screech their soles made against the floor made Domenico cringe.

  “Is there a password to access the cargo?”

  Fred growled. “What do you think this is? NASA? Next you’re gonna ask me about eyeball detection or fucking fingerpr—” Domenico struck Fred across the face, sending him into the wall.

  “Shut up when I’m not asking.”

  Fred somehow kept himself on his feet and spat on the floor, but at least he didn’t try to play the sassy villain anymore.

  Jed took over again so Domenico could focus completely on detecting danger as they proceeded down the corridor. All of a sudden, his ears picked up a pounding noise, and at his sign, everyone froze. Guns were drawn, and as light flickered ahead, even Domenico felt the adrenaline rush melting his brain. The rapid footsteps were quicker and quicker in the bright spot ahead when their dark tunnel met a well-lit corridor. One person. Barefoot.

  They all let out excess air as the naked figure of a bald man with a potbelly rushed in and out of their sight. A customer? Worthy of getting a bullet through his brain, no doubt, but it wasn’t the time to alert anyone to their position.

  Domenico exhaled. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Fred slouched farther, but he did move again and instead of following the steps of the naked man, he took them into a short walkway branching out from the corridor toward a closed door in the corner.

  “There.”

  Domenico caught Seth and Ryder’s gazes in the darkness and gently pushed on the handle. The door gave a tiny squeak, so he pushed on the handle as hard as he could and opened the door in one swift move. It soon became clear that he shouldn’t have worried, as he now faced a narrow, steep staircase with gray carpeting on the steps. A buzz of machinery grew stronger with every step, and Domenico tried to focus on the rhythmical noise of something that could be a power generator. At the end of the stairs was a landing and two doors, one of which clearly emitted the noise.

  Fred pushed himself past Seth and joined Dom at the landing. His face was completely pale and sweaty, but his eyes seemed as lively as ever. With the lack of hands to use, he nodded at the other door and leaned against the wall as everyone else reached the landing.

  Domenico opened the door.

  From the inside, three men looked back at them but took only half a second to pull out their guns and shoot, no questions asked. The faint lights of monitors and consoles inside became a blur when Dom was hit by a bullet in the chest. The force behind it punched the air out of his lungs, and the tile inside the fabric burst with an explosion of heat, but he still rushed forward, crouched close to the floor, and aimed his gun upward. Dom shot one of the men in the head, and the brains exploded out his slack jaw.

  He didn’t have to see a gun pointed at the back of his head to sense its presence, but his pack followed inside, and as Dom shot the man above him, splattering bits of bone and meat at the wall, another body fell to the ground close by.

  The last guard rolled over the desk and shot from behind it, missing Dom’s hair by an inch. When Seth screamed, Dom’s heart stopped, but it flooded with warm blood once again as soon as Seth yelled that he was fine.

  Only then, when immediate danger was out of the way, did Dom rapidly yank the vest off his burning skin. He was gasping by the time he touched the spot of impact, which radiated pain all over his chest. But there was no wetness other than sweat. Thank fuck for bulletproof technology. Domenico searched for Seth, and he was relieved to see a small smile on the handsome face across the room.

  There was a noise behind the consoles, and Dom shot at the desk next to it, hoping to at least give the guard some splinters in the face, and judging by the scream that followed, he’d been successful. The smell of blood filled Dom’s nose, but instead of disgusting him, it spurred him on into action. Only the indistinguishable bits of body parts in his hair bothered him. For once, he was happy that he had it tied back.

  He shot at the desk again, but Ryder ran past him, jumped on, and sent a round of bullets from his machine gun, silencing any movement of the last guard.

  Domenico turned around to look behind him, just in time to see Seth push Fred to the ground with his crazy shield that now had a small crack on the right top edge.

  “Fucker tried to run,” Seth said from behind his helmet and kicked Fred’s foot with the steel tip of his boot.

  Something creaked, and then a masculine voice came from a speaker at the console. “Max? Can you send backup?” The edge of panic and the trembling quality of the sound dawned on Domenico. This was some kind of control room. And when he looked up at the monitors, the outskirts of the base were visible, including an image of the damaged fence that now looked like a big lump of rubble, with a dead man lying on the right side of the screen.

  Domenico pulled in a lungful of cool air and glanced at Fred, who stared at him from beneath Seth like a wounded wild cat under the boot of its captor. If he could, he’d claw Seth’s eyes out. The fucker had led them into a trap, so it was only fair he got a taste of his own medicine.

  Ryder picked up the mic and spoke into it through his hand. “Copy. Sending now. It’s fucking mayhem.”

  “They’re getting through. Send someone to get rid of the papers, for fuck’s sake!”

  Domenico exhaled and looked toward Jed, who was back at the door, ready to shoot anyone willing to bust in here. “You two, stay here. Don’t let anyone through, or we’ll be fucked,” he said on his way to Seth. He picked him up and yanked on Fred’s hair.

  “That’s what you wanted? I can do this all fucking day until there’s no one left here. Including you.”

  Fred looked up at him with those lying eyes of his, pupils wide with fe
ar. “I made a mistake! But the door to get lower is just through this room. That’s why we’re here. I was sure they’d be gone by now!”

  Domenico smirked. “Sure you were.” He looked at Seth and touched his face, just because it was the only naked part of his body. “Are you okay?” he whispered, holding on to Fred’s hair as if his head were cut off from the body already.

  “Shield came in handy.” Seth grinned and gestured to it with his head.

  Ryder groaned. “There’s no time for this.” Yet he looked over toward the door and took two steps closer to Jed.

  “Just spread chaos,” said Dom as he pulled Fred to his feet. It was time to go. “You can speak to your own men at the same time and tell them all about those fuckers’ soft underbelly.”

  Ryder’s nostrils flared, but he nodded nevertheless. Domenico knew it was difficult for the man to listen to a stranger’s orders, but without even thinking about it, Dom had become the leader of their small party. It felt right.

  “Let’s go. No tricks this time,” said Dom, pushing Fred forward.

  “I swear,” Fred mewled. “My mind got clouded. I’m so scared…”

  Even Seth wasn’t buying that shit, and he shook his head at Dom before pulling the clear shield over his eyes.

  “You’re like a futuristic soldier,” whispered Domenico as soon as they were out the door on the other side of the room. Stepping over the body of the fallen guard posed no problem for Seth after witnessing the atrocities that had happened in the base. Domenico felt proud of him manning up.

  Seth gave him a smug smile and pushed Fred with the tip of his gun. “I’m still finding my own brand.”

  The red light of the lamp above reflected off his eye guard, and for a moment Dom almost felt like he was in a science-fiction-themed sex hotel. He waved off the silly thought and kissed Seth’s lips before prompting a very resigned Fred to lead. Clearly, the man would go for his best bet immediately, and now he had no choice but to do what was asked of him.

  They passed an elevator Dom and Seth recognized and eventually reached the equally familiar staircase, but this time, Fred took them behind the stairs in the first floor, where another door was hidden in the shadows. A full two stories underground, they finally reached a heavy door.

  Domenico jumped down the last few stairs and touched the damp wall, smirking at the sight of an electric lock by the handle. He pushed on it anyway, and the heavy steel didn’t budge. “Did you say no codes?” he asked, grabbing Fred’s hand and pushing him at the door. Fred hit his head with a dull thud and slid down to his knees, breathing hard.

  Domenico squeezed his fist, hardly stopping himself from beating the life out of the fucker.

  Fred coughed and rolled to his ass, blinking up at Dom. “I didn’t know... I’m just an... associate. New to this whole thing. This was my first time...”

  Domenico laughed into his face. “Right. But you knew where this place is. Like fuck you’re just an associate.”

  “You said that there’s no codes, but somehow you led us to a door you knew damn well needed one for access,” Seth said in a cold voice Dom rarely got to hear, and at the back of his brain he knew he wanted to. Sometimes. “I’m not buying that you don’t know how to get in there.”

  Fred gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to speak again, but Dom kicked him right in the fresh wound on his chest, and he went down with a searing scream.

  “So, what’s the code?” asked Domenico calmly, touching the metal keyboard.

  Fred wept on the ground, curling up into a ball. “Nine-three-two-five.”

  Seth snorted. “Knew it.”

  Domenico put in the code, and a second later, the screen above the handle flashed them a green light. Domenico kicked Fred aside and opened the door.

  A gust of wind that smelled of sweaty bodies hit Domenico’s face, and as he stepped into complete darkness, his hand searched for a switch. His fingers finally traced a plastic box with a rubbery membrane stretched over a piece of plastic that Domenico pressed on. A hum of electricity echoed all around, and moments later, weak white lights flickered over a short tunnel with a rounded ceiling and thick ropes of cables glued to the gray walls.

  Domenico took a deep breath, noticing several openings in the wall on both sides, flinching slightly at the thud of the closing door behind him. All were separated with thick metal bars, and as Domenico moved forward, a high-pitched gasping sound triggered goose bumps to grow all over his body. He looked back at Seth, to make sure he had Fred, and then slowly moved forward with his gun ready to shoot. For once, the familiar steel felt heavy and unnecessary.

  The smell of excrement made him scowl, but he moved along until he stood between the first two cells. In one breathless heartbeat, he looked into ten pairs of eyes staring at him from the shadows at the back wall of the small cell. There were thin futons lining the floor with faded blankets on top. He stepped forward, and each time he moved closer, the crowd of girls pressed into a tighter mass.

  No. He needed to search for boys.

  Domenico looked across the hallway and then ran over to the other set of cells. It was all women. “Where are they?” hissed Domenico, spinning around to look at Fred.

  The man didn’t dare look up at Dom, and for a moment, Domenico froze, wondering if this meant that Mark was already dead and Fred only led them to the base hoping to get away. But no. Fred spoke.

  “These here are for transport. He was to stay. New arrivals are at the end.” His voice was raspy and his lips deservedly covered in blood.

  Seth frowned, looking at Dom over Fred’s shoulder. “We were told this place is just for transport. Who do they keep?”

  “There are clients with particular tastes,” Fred whispered, looking as if he wanted to disappear, with his head down and his shoulders slouched.

  Domenico could hardly breathe and yanked Fred forward by his shirt. The image of Jo’s broken body, of her stump, came to his mind in a rapid wave. “You’re making people into toys? Training them?” he uttered, looking around, at all the cells in this corridor. There were probably more of those, and each one held several people.

  “Not me!” Fred moaned. “Not me! I was only here once. I was so, so desperate. It’s the fucking sadists who come here. It’s their fault. There’s people who want to do some crazy shit. Cut others up… just anything. I broke under the pressure of it all, I wanted to quit, but they threatened my family, held me by the balls.”

  “Right. In your fake house,” roared Domenico and punched Fred in the stomach. The fucker was lying all the damn time, even though he clearly knew the operation well enough to memorize the code to the most important door in the whole base.

  Domenico kicked Fred right in the ass. “Get up, you trash.”

  Fred wailed and only listened when Seth pulled on his arm. Dom went forward, passing dozens of cells. The women must have listened in on the conversation, because they approached the cell doors, reaching their arms out and crying. Their pleas for help melted into one, but even when Dom heard one scream that Fred had been here before, and that she’d seen him, he didn’t stop.

  Every step he made was quicker. He turned a corner, followed the damp gray tunnel faster and faster, realizing just how desperate he was to find the stupid boy who dared to believe that someone would take care of him.

  He tried not to look at the cages around him as he sped up without looking back anymore. Seth would be fine, and there was no one dangerous here.

  After getting into a dead end, he ran along a whole array of cells holding people in bandages and casts. He didn’t pay any attention to the details, letting them turn into a grayish mass as he ran for the open doorway at the end of the corridor. It was dark there, and so Dom’s gaze searched for the light switch. His chest was burning as voices rose in front of him in the pitch black of a room that made them echo. Frustrated, he stepped down the few stairs that led him out of the safety of the faint light and into the unknown. Only at the edge of the illumination be
hind him did Dom switch on his flashlight.

  In the ghastly glow, he saw a floor dotted with grated sewer covers, or maybe ventilation shafts, and it reminded him of the disgusting pockets in flesh where toads kept their young. But as he stepped closer, movement made his blood turn into ice. There were hands reaching from between the bars of the covers, grabbing the metal and clawing at air.

  So many hands.

  Domenico’s breath shook as he stepped inside the room. From the way noise echoed from its walls, Domenico assumed there was a high ceiling above him, but the floor itself was the size of a basketball field, with well-like cells organized into rows, with enough space to walk between them. Domenico swallowed hard, already knowing he couldn’t just let all those people out. There was a tank and bazookas out there. He couldn’t risk them all running ahead like suicidal ducks, straight underneath the wheels. What he needed was Mark, but with his voice trapped in his throat, he shone down one of the wells instead.

  From the shadow of the bars, a squarish face emerged covered with so many bruises Dom couldn’t recognize the person’s gender. Wide-eyed, with strained muscles, the person, the young man inside yelled for help.

  Domenico opened his mouth, but all mercy had to wait when a bullet ricocheted off the floor in front of Dom. Its speed tickled Domenico’s hair, but he moved instinctively and spun back so fast he started falling to the floor. But even as his back stiffened and his shoulders set, Domenico pulled the trigger three times. A choked roar rushed through the air at the impact of Domenico falling to the floor, but a second later, something heavy thudded against the grating in the corner

  Domenico grabbed his flashlight with a trembling hand and pointed the ray of light across the room at the twisted remains of a man in a black jumpsuit. As Domenico sat up hearing Seth’s voice coming from behind a thick fog, the grating under the guard shook with gunfire. A flash of light and a heart-searing shriek told Dom there was yet another casualty. Inside the well.

  “Fuck,” he uttered, pointing the light around to see if there were any more guards hidden. Wails and cries were so many he had to ignore them, even as he watched hands clutching at the bars.