Cutter's Hope

by A. J. Downey

  This round of sex wasn’t rushed or hurried, if I had to describe it, I would say it was fierce but gentle. I loved the feeling of his skin against mine, the taut planes of his back beneath my hands, as he stroked every place that counted both inside and out.

  “Mmm, kiss me?” I begged and he did. I tangled my fingers in his hair and held him to my mouth, drinking him in deep. Soon his thrusting became, hard and fast and wild, as if our kiss were the match to ignite the kerosene inside either of us.

  “God I love the way you make me feel!” I gasped and was rewarded by one of the most dazzling smiles I’d ever received from him.

  “Just the beginning, Baby,” he murmured and God was it true. He made love to me until I was too tired to think, which I think was his whole intent in getting things started in the first place. Problem was, it was having the unexpected side effect of making me love him just that much more… this man who took care of me, took command of me, who turned me on and turned me inside out like nobody’s business.

  We slept, and woke sometime mid-day to Cutter’s burner cell ringing. He picked it up off the nightstand and flipped it open.

  “Yeah?”

  I could hear clearly, Atlas’ voice from the speaker, “Yeah Captain, lap dancer just showed up and went in, was in there maybe five minutes. She just took off.”

  “Shit, any movement?” Cutter asked, I’d stiffened in apprehension upon hearing the news myself, he was on my wavelength, speaking my thoughts aloud.

  “No, Sir. It’s business as usual, whatever the fuck that is for these assholes.”

  “What time is it?” Cutter asked.

  “A little after thirteen-hundred.” Christ, we’d had around four hours of sleep. Not enough, but better than none.

  “Call us if there’s any movement.”

  “Aye Captain,” and the line went dead.

  “Sounds like they’re still in lockdown,” I mused.

  “Yeah, think it’s time we crashed their party. You up for it?”

  “Hell yes, when do you think would be a good time to do it?”

  “Dusk sounds about right, guess we’d better sit down and make some plans.”

  I nodded against his chest and debated with myself, finally sighed and pushed off of him, struggling to sit up in the tangle of sheets and legs. I looked down at him.

  “Thank you,” I said, chickening out at the last second. He traced a thumb lightly across my cheek and smiled softly, searching my face with his gaze as if he were committing it to memory.

  “Any time,” he murmured.

  He knew. I saw it plain as day, that he knew that by ‘thank you’ I meant ‘I love you’ and it was as clear as the bright blue sky outside that by ‘any time’ he meant ‘I love you too’ so why was it so damn hard to say the fucking words out loud?

  Because to say it now was to admit out loud that the situation we were going into, that he was following me into… that only one or neither of us might come out of. Which was bullshit, but true and heartbreaking none the less. I rested my forehead against his and closed my eyes.

  “Don’t do that, Sweetheart,” he murmured.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “It’s gonna be fine, we’re going to get in, get her out and get gone and it’s gonna be fine.”

  I pulled back just enough so I could nod, “Yep, so let’s get planning to give us the best chance of accomplishing all of those goals in that order, shall we?”

  “Sounds good, grab a shower and pack your shit. We need to go for a clean break,” he said and I slipped from the bed.

  I showered and dressed and while he was in showering I packed my bag. I was as dressed for the occasion as I could get. Combat boots, black of course, my black tactical pants which were none the worse for wear, but could definitely stand to be washed after this go around of wearing them. I slipped on a fitted black Under Armor brand long sleeved heat gear shirt and tucked it in. It was made of a thin, lycra or nylon type material designed to vent and keep you cool, wicking sweat and moisture from your skin and dispersing it for quick evaporation.

  I liked it because it took up barely any space in my bag and it was pretty damned good at its job. We’d worn similar in Iraq and while it wasn’t perfect, it did the job. Of course there was only so much you could do in that hot box when it came to keeping cool. Likewise in the oppressive heat and humidity here in New Orleans.

  Cutter put on something pretty similar, although where I looked like I was trying to participate in the summer gothic weight loss program, (wear all black all summer long guaranteed lose fifteen pounds,) the coloring he donned was much more… I don’t know… hunter chic.

  He wore some desert issue combat boots and a pair of cargo pants in the classic civilian deer hunter camo. He pulled a long sleeved olive green tee over his head and tucked it in. Over that, he shrugged into a brown leather holster. While I tucked my Ruger into my inner pants holster at the small of my back, he tucked a big bad .45 something or other under his arm.

  We silently went about strapping on weaponry, which for me was just a knife along the outside of my thigh, but for him was a whole lot of knives. I blinked and watched as he tucked them in just about every pocket and added holsters to the outside of his calf and one to each wrist and one to the opposite thigh from the one he’d strapped to his lower leg.

  “I take it this is where you actually got the name Cutter?” I asked.

  He grinned at me, “Where’d you think I got it?”

  “Truthfully with all the maritime stuff I thought you took it from the type of boat, you know like a Coast Guard Cutter.”

  The corners of his mouth turned down like he was impressed at my line of thinking, then he spoke, “Naw, got it because a motherfucker pissed me off, so I cut him up.”

  “Adorable,” I commented dryly.

  “Was still dealing with a lot of the shit from over there, wasn’t exactly in my right head back then,” he fixed me with a look like he was waiting to see what I would do or say so I left my sarcasm at the door.

  “Who the fuck am I to judge? I’m the one about to march the lot of you into a house full of Russian mobsters with every intention of killing them all so I can extract my drugged up and probably fucked up sister.”

  “Yeah, and we’re the crazy bastards who are excited to do it with you,” he said.

  “You know I once saw this quote on the internet, it said ‘When you find people who not only tolerate your quirks but celebrate them with glad cries of “Me too!” be sure to cherish them. Because those weirdos are your tribe.’” Cutter barked a laugh and I couldn’t help but chuckle with him.

  “Okay, I take it you feel like me an’ my rag tag crew are that for you?” he said and I smiled broadly.

  “You know it,” I told him.

  “I’m glad, Baby,” he said and pulled me against him. We hugged for a long minute and with a sigh broke apart before getting back to rounding up and packing up the rest of our shit.

  “You ready for what we might find?” he asked.

  “Nope. Not in the slightest,” I said honestly, “There’s no way anybody can be prepared for something like this. You can talk yourself up, convince yourself that the worst shit you could possibly think of is behind those doors, but once you see it, you know that whatever you convinced yourself of is nothing but a pack of lies. Like what processed cheese is to real cheese. This is going to be ugly, and what we’re about to do is going to be ugly. That’s just the way it is.”

  “Jaded ain’t you, Sweetheart?”

  “Isn’t that part of why you love me?” I asked, holding my breath. I knew I was fishing here but I couldn’t help myself, I wanted the admission so badly.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking me over, “Yeah it is. You’re real, Sweetheart. That’s exactly why I love you.”

  I let out my breath and nodded, “Let’s go get my sister,” I said.

  “Sounds good to me,” he smiled and held the door open for me and I hefted my jacket and helmet
with one arm and shouldered my pack with the other, slipping out into the slightly overcast day.

  Seemed like the Louisiana sky decided it wanted to match my mood and the circumstances we all found ourselves in and I was totally okay with that.

  Chapter 26

  Cutter

  We stood around one of the gaming tables at the Voodoo Bastard’s clubhouse and looked over the sheets of butcher paper. Atlas had roughed out the property on the surface of one sheet and we were deciding how best to proceed.

  The cameras were a problem. We didn’t know if they were closed circuit or not and we were waiting on some communications from one of the Voodoo Bastards who was a security systems guy by day. He’d been texted some pictures of the cameras and it was going to be one of the deciding factors on how we played this. Cameras or no cameras we wouldn’t be going in flying colors. The whole point to this was to get in, get the girl; get out and to go the fuck home.

  Ruth’s phone rang and he wandered off from the table and returned a moment later, “Not closed circuit, the feed goes somewhere off site. My guy says it’ll be easy to jam the signal, he can be here in a few hours with a device.”

  I shot Ruth a thumbs up and we made plans on how to breach the place. It was a white, one story house, pretty sizeable. Maybe a two bedroom one bath. There wasn’t really any telling the inside layout from the outside. What we did know was there were two doors, one in front and one in back. A long drive to the left of the house as you faced it, led right past it and into the back yard where there was some kind of outbuilding, from what we’d been able to see, which wasn’t much, it looked like it could be a two car garage.

  The front door had a broad front stoop painted red, with some brick accent columns about knee height at the bottom and two more waist height at the top of the step. It was a bottle neck at the bottom before widening some at the top. Still there was only room for about two men on the front step and the back wasn’t much better.

  The back of the house had a thin decorative iron rail around the back stoop. The advantage was the back windows, even though there were a lot of ‘em, were painted over from the inside. So we may not be able to see in, but they couldn’t really see out either. Some of the local boys had some guesses to the layout of the house based on their experience living in some of similar make around these parts all their life.

  Hex and La Croix both agreed that the back probably went right into the kitchen, the bank of windows on three sides to the right of the kitchen door was probably what passed as a dining area. No telling if there was a wall or just an archway leading into the living room from there but they cautioned us to look sharp and try not to shoot our own boys if we breached front and back simultaneously which was the plan.

  I looked across the expanse of table at Hope who was a study in concentration and tension. She wanted to go and she wanted to go now but she was hanging in there. She met my gaze and gave me a cool nod and I gave it to her back.

  Before we rode out, we split into teams, I would go in the front with Pyro and Marlin. Hope was taking the back with Radar, Atlas, and Beast while Ruth and his boys secured the outbuilding.

  Trike would keep the crash truck running and watch the bikes along with one of the Voodoo Bastard’s prospects and we would try and keep this neat and clean. Like I said, we wanted to get in, get out and get on with it. Nothing was our rear guard, and was on watch to alert us to any incoming trouble from the road, cops included. All of me and mine were retrofitted in body armor from the crash truck. Hope was making due with a vest a size too big but it couldn’t be helped, at least it was black and matched the rest of her.

  I adjusted one of the Velcro straps on my tan vest and tightened it up. We were riding out in three vans with the crash truck bringing up the rear and each of us were as strapped as you could make us. There was no riding through town with as armed and ready as we were and not drawing attention so cargo vans rented under assumed names was the way to go on this one.

  We loaded up and rode out, Hope and I agreeing that it was in our best interest to divide and conquer in this instance. I wanted so badly to be able to watch her back but I trusted and believed in my guys. They would watch her six as if it were my own and if they didn’t, well then they knew the consequences of that. I wasn’t going to have it any other way…

  Chapter 27

  Hope

  Adrenaline started to surge through me as soon as the door on the van shut. I used every bit of my training to quash it down. Deep, steady breathing, it helped until we turned onto River Road in Saint Rose, then my heart picked up again.

  “Okay, their signal is gonna be jammed as soon as you throw back the doors,” Ruth’s security guy, Spec turned around in the passenger seat and smiled, waving a device with a switch on it no bigger than an RC car controller and looking suspiciously like one. I nodded and pulled my Ruger. We rolled to a stop and Spec threw the switch, I looked forward, Radar nodded, I nodded back and he threw open the van door. I was out into the deepening twilight with Atlas and Beast riding my six. I hit the ground and moved swiftly. A man came around the side of the house as we strode down the driveway and I rose, aimed and fired in one fluid movement. The shot hit center mass and he flew back. As I passed him I put one in his forehead just to be sure.

  Shouting in the house, Beast passed me and we heard Cutter’s cue. Fast and faster, that was how this needed to be done. Beast let fly with a massive booted foot and the door flew open on its hinges. I followed his breech and put one in each man sitting at the table to my right before they even got up and that’s when shit got real. A bat or stick or something crashed into my arm from above, my nerveless fingers dropped the Ruger and I let muscle memory take over.

  I ducked and came at him up and under, my shoulder connecting with his solar plexus, but this was bad. Real bad, I needed to back off. Disengage before he got me. Shouting, screaming, guns going off in the front of the house but I was engaged and in it to win it. His elbow crashed down between my shoulder blades and fuck that hurt! I went down and Atlas or Radar, one of them popped him. He jolted back, once, twice a third time before falling to his knees in front of me.

  I rose, knife drawn and ran it across his throat for good measure. I moved past him deeper into the house, I kicked the door directly in front of me open and plastered myself to the wall to the side, Radar had his gun raised and at the ready but lowered it. I ducked around the corner and looked into a bathroom done in god awful turquoise. A girl, maybe mid- twenties was crouched in the bathtub hands raised shaking and crying. Not my sister.

  “Stay down,” I told her.

  Radar passed me up and lined up to breach the next door, I could see Cutter just past him waiting for Marlin to breach the last door up the hall. I nodded and Radar and Marlin let fly simultaneously.

  These doors were padlocked from the outside. I went in low since I didn’t have a gun, Atlas right on my ass, aiming for corners, he fired at the dude in the center of the room and I felt wet rain down on me as my knife buried deep in his groin. Blood, hot, slick and wet ran down over my hands and he fell back, crashing like a felled tree. There were two girls to either side on dirty twin mattresses. The dude in here with them was obviously sampling the merchandise which made my gorge rise and stab him a few times out of pure fury and hatred.

  The two girls in this room were crying the one on the right trying to cover her naked lower half with her hands. I looked at their faces, really looked and finally the one on the left looked back. We froze for an instant…

  Faith…

  My sister’s aquamarine eyes stared out at me from the days old cruddy makeup smeared around her eyes. I sheathed my knife and held out my hands to her and realizing they were bloody, did my best to wipe them on my pants.

  “Faith…” I tried and she stared at me with confusion. Her pupils dilated to where there was barely any color.

  “Faith?” I tried again and went to her and she started to cry again. Big wracking sobs that hitched her
too thin shoulders in her dirty skin tight dress.

  “Hope, is it really you?” she asked and I nodded emphatically.

  “It’s okay Bubbles, I got you. I got you now, I always got you, Sis,” she collapsed into my arms and I dragged the dirty, dark wig off her hair. Her blonde tresses fell free, equally dirty and brittle like straw and I felt tears burn the backs of my own eyes.

  I stood up and dragged my sister with me, her arm over my shoulders. She was so light, painfully thin and malnourished and I wanted to kill some more motherfuckers. I wanted to scream and to shout my rage into the sky but Faith… I had my sister in my arms again.

  “It’s okay, I got you, Bubbles; these men are here to help, easy…” I helped her out into the darkened living room, the only light source the busted in front door.

  “Awe fuck,” I heard and looked up into Cutter’s face, which was equally devastated by the horrors we were taking in.

  “Marlin!” he boomed and Faith jolted in my grasp and started to cry harder.

  “Easy, it’s okay!” I soothed.

  Marlin came around the corner from the kitchen, “Yeah, Captain?”

  “Tend to the girl, you’re the only one with the experience for this,” he said and I followed my man’s gaze to the inside of my sisters arm, to the black and blue scabbed over track marks and the infection taking hold there.

  My vision flashed on and off and the blood roared in my ears, “Awe shit,” I heard Marlin exclaim and the slight weight that was my sister, her easy burden disappeared from my shoulders. Marlin had scooped her up, arm under her knees and around her back and had lifted her easily as if she were light as air, he strode for the front door, Pyro right behind him and Cutter caught me as I went to go after them. I blinked, overcome, bent at the waist over Cutter’s arm and vomited.