by Mike Dagons
The secret exit was for emergencies only, so it wasn’t on any blueprint, and she’d never had an occasion to use it before now.
Trevarid sat quietly with his eyes on hers in the rearview. She drove slowly, and when she drove up the ramp and into the exit garage, sensors on the ground opened the door.
Chanay drove out of the garage, and the door closed behind her. “Call Ice,” she gave the voice command, and then heard his phone ring once, and then go to voicemail. “Anakin needs you,” she said, and ended the call.
She had the entry code for the safe house in Joliet, and she was going to stay there until Anakin came for them. She turned the radio on because Trevarid liked to listen to music while they were in the car. The special report cut into the broadcast. A residential building in Evanston had been bombed, and at least six people had been found dead. At precisely the same time, a bomb went off in a field house in Joliet.
The field house was a shell used to hide the location. There was a bunker under it that was three levels deep. The bomb wouldn’t have done much damage to it unless it was an annihilation bomb, which she seriously doubted. The safe house would still be there, but she wouldn’t be able to get inside. And even if she could, she didn’t know if it was being watched.
The realization that it was an organized hit had fear slicing through her like a cold steel blade, making her hands tremble. Joliet was off the table. Her second choice would have been Evanston, but it was gone too.
Her mind went to the next logical person. “Call Sam Jawlins,” she commanded the onboard system.
The number rang once, and Sam answered. “Anakin, where are you?” she asked in a rush.
“It’s me, Chanay. Some men came into our house, and Anakin—”
“Is he dead?” her voice was stressed with worry.
“No, I don’t think so…I don’t know. He made me leave with the baby. I was headed to Joliet, but I just heard that it was blown up. What’s going on, Sam? Where is Ryan? We need somewhere to go.”
“Melvin was hurt in that explosion, Chanay. The doctor is working on him.”
“Oh my God!” she shouted.
“What’s wrong, mommy?”
“Nothing, baby, mommy is just trippin’,” she forced a big smile to calm him.
“Chanay, we’re at the private airstrip. I’m going to hold the plane for you. I want you to get here as fast as you can.”
“No, I’m an hour away. If they know about the safe house, they may know about the landing strip. Y’all need to get out of there now.”
“Chanay, this is Ethan. I want you to drive to Cairo, IL. Pull over and put this address in your GPS. We’ll wait for you and the baby there. And we will not leave without you.”
“Okay, Mr. Cole, we’ll see y’all there.”
“Chanay, Monique is dead, so be careful, baby.”
Shit had just got real, and the tears that had been pooling in her eyes dried up instantly. “I’ll see y’all in a few hours,” she ended the call, and pulled back out into traffic.
Chanay pushed the release button for the compartment where Anakin kept his gun. She took it out and put it on the seat next to her.
She didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but she was going to shoot the first muthafucka who dared to look at her sideways.
The busted double doors left an opening wide enough for only two assailants to enter at a time, and the first two entered dressed in full riot gear, complete with batons. Anakin rushed into the foyer to meet them.
They didn’t come through the door shooting. They weren’t even carrying guns. It clearly meant they were desperate to take him alive. There were at least a dozen of them, so they probably would succeed, but he was going to make sure the cost of their success was great.
He met them head on with his arms extended, and a knife in each hand. Spinning like a tornado with cutting edges, he slashed both of their throats from ear to ear at the same time, with expert precision. Blood fountained, wetting his face and shirt, and they went down like boulders on a steep hill.
The next man in line was so shocked by what he’d seen, he stumbled over the dead. Anakin stopped his fall with a knife in his gut. He pulled up on it, with a savage scream, and enough strength to cut through his protective vest and open him up from navel to sternum.
Moving with speed and agility, Anakin went low on his partner, and pushed a blade up into his groin in a twisting motion that emptied his bowels. Blood splatter painted the floor red, and the stench of it filled his nostrils.
They kept coming, crowding in through the doorframe. He didn’t think he could win the battle. There were just too many of them, but he sure in hell was cutting down the number in the fight.
He stabbed the knives in the sides of the next man’s throat, and then pulled them out in a crisscross motion, slicing through his trachea. His head lulled back, and a hole opened up under his chin that made him look like a PEZ candy dispenser. In a constant flow of movement, Anakin spun around behind his partner, yanked his head back, and raked the blade across his throat nearly decapitating him.
He was about to butcher his next victim when every muscle in his body spasmed. The 2500 volts surged through him, making him convulse violently until he was laid out on the floor helpless as a newborn.
The country road to the airstrip was dark and isolated, and Chanay hadn’t seen another vehicle the entire hour she’d been on it. The baby was sleeping soundly in his car seat in the back. They had only had to stop once, and Chanay had been able to make the five and a half hour drive to Cairo in four.
Because the highway was so dark, and she didn’t want anybody to see her before she saw them. She slowed down and drove with her headlights on dim, so they emitted just enough light for her to see good enough to stay on the road.
Chanay saw the headlights cutting through the darkness long before she reached them. It looked like they were blocking the road, so she cut her headlights and pulled over to the side of the road.
She started to put the car in reverse, but then she looked at the GPS readout and saw that she was only five minutes away from her destination. “Trevarid,” she called his name in a voice barely above a whisper, waking him.
“Yes, mommy,” he rubbed his tiny hands over his eyes and yawned.
“There are some bad men up ahead. Mommy needs you to stay alert. If they come near the car, I may need to drive away really fast.
Immediately, he tightened the buckle on his seatbelt. Chanay picked up the gun next to her on the seat, and then called Ethan.
“Where are you, baby?” he asked.
“On the road leading to the airstrip, I believe. The GPS says I’m five minutes away. I’ve run into a road block. I think that there are two cars or trucks. I can’t see anything but headlights.
“You’re in Anakin’s Mercedes?”
“Yes, sir, I pulled over and we’re sitting on the side of the road. I don’t know if they can see us.”
“You stay inside the car. It’s bulletproof. I’m on my way.”
He ended the call, and Chanay kept her eyes on the road and counted down the seconds.
At the three minute mark, she saw two men approaching on foot. One was carrying a lantern that illuminated only the area around them, so they were walking in a white glow in the dark. “Trevarid, here they come. Be ready, you hear?”
“I’m scared,” he whined.
“Don’t be, baby. Mommy needs you to be brave, okay?”
“Okay,” his speech was clipped, and she imagined his eyes were red like Anakin’s would’ve been.
The men stopped and stood in the middle of the road approximately ten feet in front of the car. The one carrying the lantern gave it to his partner, who was taller, and then he held something up in his right hand high over his head. “This is an incendiary device, Chanay!” he shouted. “I know that your car is bulletproof, but it is not heat resistant. If I throw it, the car will become so hot inside, you and the baby will be roasted alive! I don�
�t want to do that, but I will if you don’t get out of the car and come with us now. Anakin is dead, so no one is left to help you.”
Chanay’s world crumbled when she heard Anakin was dead, but she knew he’d expect her to fight to protect the baby.
“Get out the car, now! It is your only chance to live!” he shouted. “I’m going to count to ten to give you time to think about how horrible it will be to be roasted alive, and then I am going to throw it,” he promised. “One, two…”
“Is poppa dead? Are we going to roast, mommy?” his frightened voice sounded small from the backseat.
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna kill these muthafuckas.”
When the count reached seven, Chanay prepared to take her foot off the brake, and run them down. She didn’t know if the vehicles blocking the highway were too large for her to barrel through, but she was going to kill the men standing in front of her, or die trying.
At nine, three things happened simultaneously. He held the device up like he was getting ready to pitch it. Chanay turned on her headlights. The hand holding up the device was shot off at the wrist, and it dropped to the pavement at his feet, still holding the thing in its fingers.
His delayed scream was interrupted by the bullet through his head, and the man standing next to him dropped the lantern and threw up his hands.
Valow appeared through the darkness behind them, and the headlights shining at his back made him look like the phantom killer everybody said that he was.
He sauntered up to the man with his hands raised and wacked him across the head with his gun. “Stay down,” he warned him. Then he beckoned for the semi tractor trailer that had been at his back to come forward. The big 18 wheeler rolled into view, and the man on the ground started to get up out the road. Valow shot him in his knee, and put him back down. The man screamed in pain, and then in terror, when Valow back peddled out the way, and the truck rolled over him like he was a bump in the road. He was crushed under the giant tires, and his body squirted blood like a smashed ripe tomato.
The driver climbed down out of the cab, and Chanay saw it was Sam. She opened the car door, and they ran to each other and hugged. “I’m so fucking happy to see you,” they said at the same time. “Anakin is dead,” Chanay cried.
“No, he’s not. You can’t believe anything they tell you, Chanay. Anakin is resilient, so I’m sure he’s fine, and he’ll make contact as soon as he can,” she spoke with certainty, although she couldn’t be certain it was true. Where’s the baby?” she looked back at the car, and Trevarid waved happily.
“You ladies take the car back. I have something I need to do, and I’ll meet you at the next stop,” Valow said.
“How are you going to get back?” Chanay hugged him.
“I have a bike,” he blushed. “Go on, get outtá here.”
They got back in the car, and Sam drove. Valow watched them until they were out of sight, and then he got on his bike and headed for the nearest heliport.
Chapter 25
When Ceylon got back to Severe’s place, her front door was standing open, and she and Roc were both gone.
He thought they may have gotten called out on a job, but then he saw the butt of Roc’s gun sticking out from under the sofa.
He put the pizza down on the table, took out his Glock, and picked up Roc’s P226. He moved through the apartment slowly with his Glock out in front of him.
In the bedroom, he saw Severe’s engagement ring on the nightstand. He picked it up, and put it in his pocket.
Something was wrong, and he needed some Intel. Most of the people at Genesis knew about his relationship with Severe, but he was not a favorite son. He didn’t think they would be inclined to give him information about her whereabouts.
Viper, the organization he worked for, was family owned and based in Anaheim, California. His father, James Battle, was in charge of operations. There was a lot of bad blood between his family and Ethan Cole, and it had something to do with what had happened between them back in the day.
His father and uncles never talked about the specifics, but because of it, Genesis was number one on their list of enemies.
Ceylon knew that his old man would not be too pleased about his relationship with Severe if he knew that she worked for Genesis, which is why he’d been careful to keep it a secret from Viper.
James Battle was a hard man with old fashioned ideas and principles. Ceylon had told the kid, Devon, the truth about him. His mom ran the household, and there his father was putty in her hands. But when it came to the business, he was the only nigga in charge. Nobody did things that he didn’t approve, and nobody disobeyed his orders.
It crossed his mind that James Battle may have found out about his secret romance, and he had sent a team to take her out of the picture. His father could be cruel, but he didn’t want to believe he would have a woman killed for falling in love with him, but you never knew.
He took out his cell to check the time and discovered it was turned off. He hadn’t been gone an hour. Not enough time for a cleaner to set things back in order. So he was certain they had been taken, not murdered in the apartment.
Somebody took them, and he was wasting time playing the guessing game. He needed to use Viper resources to find her, and he wasn’t going to waste more time by trying to do it off radar.
Ceylon called his father. He listened to the phone ringing on the other end, and when his father picked up, he put him on blast before he could say a word. “I have asked you not to cut your fucking phone off. Suppose I needed to get in touch with you!” he fussed.
“Sorry,” he said, and then got right to the point of his call. “Dad, a friend of mine has been taken, and I need to find her.”
“Who, Severe Payne, is that all she is to you, a friend?”
He knew, and judging from his tone, the odds that he was behind the snatch had just doubled. “No sir...I asked her to marry me tonight, and it sounds like you know something about the snatch, so I’m going to need your help to find her.”
“Please dad,” he said when James got uncharacteristically quiet.
“You know you putting us in bed with Genesis by looking for her. She’s connected to one of their operators.”
“I don’t care about any of that. I need Malcolm to bring up a satellite image on her place. I need to know who took her and where.”
“You’re willing to put this woman above the family code?”
“Yes, gotdammit!” he shouted impatiently, and then immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Who the FUCK do you think you’re talking to, boy?”
“I’m sorry, forgive me. I love her, and I am worried. It’s making me anxious. Please, I’m begging you to help me.”
James Battle paused for several beats, and then he spoke slowly. “We were contracted to snatch her boyfriend, William Rottweiler. Did you know that you’re not her only boyfriend? You know she was also engaged to that Basin boy before he was killed. She was with Roc tonight when they took him, so they took her to motivate him to cooperate.”
“You knew what she meant to me and you let them take her anyway?!” he blew up.
“Watch your tone, boy,” he warned.
“Yes sir,” he took a deep breath, and put a lid on it for Severe’s sake.
“First, I didn’t know what she meant to you until now. It’s not like you took the time to properly introduce her to your family before you asked her to become a part of it. I thought she was just some chick you were fucking.”
Ceylon held the phone quietly, and let him fume a minute. “I instructed them not to hurt her unless they couldn’t break him.”
Ceylon was sure that order would have carried a lot of weight if they were being turned over to a Viper Team, but clearly that was not the case. He wanted to ask his father what made him believe the people who contracted him would think he was the lord of all he surveyed, and obey his order after the exchange had been made. But he knew better than to question the man’s majesty if h
e wanted his help, and he did want his help, so he simply asked. “Who are they?”
“Clients are confidential. If your phone had been on, you’d know who they are already. As it is now, you don’t need to know.”
“They may hurt her,” his response was unemotional like it was expected to be.
“If her man tells them what they want to know, they won’t.”
Ceylon knew that he actually believed that, and it always amazed him that a man as worldly as his father could be so fucking naïve.
“I was wrong. I should have told you about her, and I’m sorry that I didn’t, but—”
“Did you hear me say she has another man, fool?! Step away from this, now!”
“You don’t know the whole story. Roc is her brother, not her man. I’m her man, and I have been since we hooked up on that Basin job. Severe is an operator. Her engagement to Stephen was a cover to get her inside for Genesis. Now, this woman is going to be the mother of your grandchild,” he lied to give him a reason to want her to live. “I can’t step away from this. You know I can’t.”
“You saying what I think you’re saying? When did you get to be so fucking stupid?! You allowed yourself to become that involved with a woman who works for Genesis?”
“Dad, please, you raised me to do the right thing. I’m going to marry her, and I’m going to kill anybody who touches her tonight. I’m asking you to put my feelings first for a change. Let this be about me, and not about the job. I’m begging you as my father, not my boss, to help me, please.”
“Damn you, boy,” he huffed. “LaRue, Rabbit, and Jonsey pulled the snatch. They were instructed to deliver them to the address I’m sending you now. LaRue already made the delivery, so I can’t order him to cancel it, and I can’t ask him to help you retrieve her. It would be a conflict of interest, and I will not cross that line and give the business a bad rep, not even for you. It’s all the help I can give you,” he ended the call abruptly.
Ceylon knew he was angry, but he’d worry about that later. He checked the IM his father sent. It was a satellite map that pinned a warehouse on Halsted. He could be there in fifteen minutes if he hurried.
