Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  “Looks like three separate gangs are infiltrating the estate.” Briggs sounds panicked. “You can distinguish them by their colors and patches. They’re storming the facility, Ryder, and they’ve got all kinds of numbers and munitions. You got to get the fuck out of there now!”

  Shouts, groans of death and barked orders tell me it’s become a fucking warzone above us.

  I yank the woman to her feet.

  We don’t have time for explanations. It won’t be long before Miguel’s men or the opposing faction get down here and make us both a couple of ice cold corpses.

  The woman’s legs buckle under her weight. “I can’t walk.”

  “Don’t speak!” I growl urgently against her ear. We don’t want to make any noise that would alert someone to our location.

  Without a word, I sling her body like a sack over my shoulder, wondering how long she’s been held down here. I bring us out the door and into the hallway.

  “Incoming on the stairs!” Briggs announces just as a man drenched in blood comes rolling down the kitchen steps and sprawls facedown against the concrete floor.

  Immediately following him is one of Miguel’s soldiers, who I recognize from yesterday, brandishing a truncheon.

  He takes one look at me and the prisoner I’m carrying and comes at me with the military issued weapon he’d just bludgeoned his enemy with.

  I shoot him between the eyes, turn and prepare to go back the way I came, but odds are the quiet, unguarded exit route I created is now in complete chaos.

  “Dude, you better find someplace to hide; the house is completely surrounded and it doesn’t look like they’re taking any prisoners,” Briggs explains.

  Before I can consider what he said, a blast goes off above us that shakes the foundations of the house and causes a fault line to crack open and snake up the concrete wall.

  The woman screams and curls against me in terror.

  They’re going to take this place apart.

  I may have seen salvation in the basement laundry room yesterday where I’d discovered a steel reinforced plate behind the dryer. It’s worth a try. In my line of work I’ve seen escape hatches into sewer systems, tunnels dug beneath bathtubs, hidden rooms and safes hidden with every guise imaginable. In fact, Chief trained me to seek those types of things out every time I cased a joint—they’ve often proven to be an invaluable lifeline.

  And who the hell puts that kind of barricading behind a common household appliance anyway?

  I get into the laundry room and rush to the plate. After shoving the dryer out of the way with my hip, I glimpse the silver bolt lock on the lower section of panel.

  “I’M HERE! I’M HERE!” the woman shouts.

  “What the fuck, lady? They’re not the fucking cavalry!” I bark. “I am!”

  But she’s not stopping. My fingers find the breaching charge and the duct tape from my carrier pouch. I cover her mouth fast with a strip of the tape and then adhere the charge next to the lock and panel edge. I light the charge and step back, hunching over the woman’s body so I’m her human shield.

  It blows—I doubt with the ruckus upstairs anyone will notice—and the panel unhinges.

  Right away, I see a tunnel bathed in the soft green glow of florescent security lights. Only fly in the ointment could be if this one tunnel has several intersections and we meet up with Miguel and his henchmen.

  Adapt, improvise and overcome.

  Keeping the woman balanced over my shoulder, I arm myself with both Glocks—one in each hand—and press forward like a bat out of hell.

  Chapter Five

  Rachel

  Grave mistake.

  I shouldn’t have played a bargaining chip like that! I just thought if I could get them to remove the cuffs, I’d have a chance to get away. I thought anything would be better than Mexico City!

  Now I’m even more desperate. I don’t understand what’s happening!

  The fighting noise erupts, and a new picture comes to mind. Miguel’s men saw police raiding the place and decided to get me the hell out before I was discovered. That’s why this guy isn’t bringing me to the rescuers. That’s why I’m still in these archaic cuffs that keep my arms and hands in check and immobilized behind my back, and that’s why, when I screamed, he taped my mouth shut.

  He hasn’t uttered another word since telling me he was taking me out of here. No way he’s my savior.

  What does that mean anyway, taking you out of here?

  He would have taken the cuffs off if this was a rescue; he would’ve removed the blindfold so I could see his face . . . it all would’ve been done differently.

  He still hasn’t talked to me. His breathing is controlled as he runs almost full-force. He’s so strong, I don’t know how I can get free from him. But if I’m going to get free, this is my chance—during the transportation—before I’m thrown into another hole or a vehicle.

  I consider hitting him with the cuff bar but realize I don’t have enough distance to strike with any real force, so I’d probably just succeed in pissing him off enough to knock me unconscious. Then I’ll have no chance.

  Dread slows the beat of my heart to a near stall. What if this is the guy in charge of delivering me to the buyer?

  I can’t figure any of this out. All I know is that I’m being whisked away from police and closer to my death.

  The man running doesn’t slow or falter, and his muscular shoulder is driving into my ribcage, grating against it without mercy. My legs press up against his chest, and being barelegged, my skin scrapes against some sort of utility vest—I can feel the cool metal and lumps of plastic within the Velcro micro pockets.

  If I can just reach something in one of those pockets! I can poke out his eye! Or jab him in an artery.

  Dear God, give me the opportunity.

  All of a sudden, he stops and changes direction.

  My ass, feet and legs keep hitting unyielding metal . . .

  It’s a ladder, I can feel it.

  Oh my God! How high is it? I’m on his shoulder!

  I try screaming under the tape.

  “Stay silent,” he barks gruffly in a low, threatening tone.

  I can only imagine how high up we could be.

  I wonder if I can push my face against the fabric of his shoulder and back and move this blindfold away from my eyes. Why hadn’t I thought of that when he first picked me up?

  As he jostles me while going up the ladder, I work my cheek and temple over his shoulder, willing the blindfold to loosen its hold.

  He wraps one arm over me and the other under my body for just a moment, causing me to freeze. Then he focuses his effort upwards. Lifting his arms and crushing me closer against him, he also lifts whatever’s over the top of us.

  When he presses me into him, it’s exactly what I need, and the blindfold comes down and away from my right eye.

  It feels like a lifeline I can grip onto for all I’m worth. I can see again. But what’s happening around me causes me to shudder with fear that’s quickly spilling towards hysteria.

  It’s darkest night as he’s racing away through the edge of woods, as if to stay under the cover the low hanging trees provide. I can see a mansion and its lights receding as he pulls me deeper into the night.

  That place had to have been my prison. Under floodlights in the distance, I see men fighting, dying. I hear the sounds of bullets firing into the air and dogs barking.

  Before I have the chance to process much more, I see a large man come out of the shadows and rush headlong into the guy carrying me. I’m thrust to the ground painfully hard as the three of us go down together.

  The man who knocked us down jumps onto the man who took me, who responds by pistol whipping him in the head.

  My legs aren’t useless any longer. I start crawling away from their melee and then get to my feet, but my arms still being locked behind me throws off my balance. I stumble over fallen logs and massive tree roots protruding from the soft soil. With no hands to catch
myself, I’m nearly impaled. The black night is interrupted only by the moon, which is hidden behind the dense trees, and I can hardly see. I’m fleeing and fighting for my very life in this desperate nightmare, as my shins, knees and feet are ripped by the terrain.

  I twist my head, trying to make a split-second decision. That man was taking me somewhere, and I need to assume it was nowhere good! The guy who tackled us could be here to help me or he could just be another one of my captors. I have no idea who’s winning the fight back at the house. I won’t run back towards the mansion, and I won’t run in the direction my assailant was taking me. I’ll go east.

  I’m only a few feet away when a terrible grunting and gurgling sound hits my ears. I’m compelled to look.

  And immediately wish I hadn’t.

  The man who took me is on one knee, holding the hilt of a knife that presses through the tackler’s heart. The sound is the man drowning in his own blood and fluids.

  Not me, please not me! I push through on my knees over broken branches and puddles of dank, stagnant water. I pitch forward and my face smacks against the earth.

  He’s on top of me in a heartbeat. “Don’t fucking run from me.” He seethes the warning into my left ear, quiet and deadly.

  In the sharp glow of the moon, a trickle of blood drips from the large serrated blade he grips in his massive fist.

  It’s instinct to scream. Self-preservation.

  He mutters something, but I can’t hear anything except for my icy trill breaking through the night’s humid heat.

  In the back of my mind, I realize the tape adhesive over my mouth must have been loosened by the water I face-planted in earlier.

  A cloth is quickly stuffed into my mouth. I choke and nearly vomit as my belly goes back against his shoulder. I’m jostled as he continues on his original course.

  I kick as hard as I can, but he holds my legs easily in his vicelike grip.

  Moments later, he runs down a dock and throws me into the bottom of a boat.

  The pain in my spine is sharp, but it dulls quickly enough. Rolling over, I see him grab the oar.

  Jesus! He’s pushing us into the swamp!

  Horror rushes through me. Oh my God! He’s going to dump my body in the swamp where they can’t find me!

  All of that time keeping me “safe” and their talk of selling me undamaged comes to a screeching halt when they realize their plot was discovered.

  I’m not dying this way!

  His back is turned to me. It may be my only chance. I come at him with all my weight and drive him over the side of the boat. I take him off guard. He curses as he hits the shallow waters.

  Lumbering to the front of the boat, I scan the dashboard, praying to see how to turn it on!

  The silver moonlight glints off something metal on the floor. Wedged halfway underneath the carpet are a set of keys. I must have dislodged them from their hiding place when I ran over them. I land hard on my knees and scoop the keys up and then, with fumbling fingers, try the first key I get a good grip on.

  The lights on the boat flash.

  I feel a surge of excitement as I turn the key and listen to the rev of the engine.

  Spinning around to face the wheel, I decide I can drive with my chin. Just as I lean down to engage the gas pedal, a bullet whistles over my head.

  My body is roughly pulled to the floor by a pair of calloused hands.

  “Are you fucking crazy!?” my attacker storms in my face. “Now they all know where we are!”

  Bullets spray into the side of the boat as my attacker orders, “Hold your breath!”

  Almost before I can suck in a quick gasp of air, he plugs my nose closed with his fingers, hugs me hard against him and throws us into water on the opposite side of the boat.

  A painful rush of fluid coats my lungs in white hot fire. As I’m spitting it up and out of my mouth, I’m flipped harshly onto my side. Coughing and gasping for oxygen sends excruciating vibrations through my chest.

  After a second, I understand I’m on land again.

  The man who pulled me out here wrenches me up from the ground, but instead of throwing me over his shoulder, he holds me with my front slung against his, one arm latched around my upper legs and the other around the center of my back.

  There’s been a lapse of time. What the hell happened?

  I’m still choking on the water coming up from my lungs.

  Did I almost drown? Did I fully drown?

  Why am I alive now, then?

  Did he . . .? Why?

  Why would he revive me?

  It makes no sense! I want to scream!

  But then I see a black shadow closing in on us. An involuntary sound escapes my agony filled chest. Am I warning the guy carrying me or crying out for help from the one chasing us down? I don’t even know.

  My eyes gaze upward just in time to see my assailant turn his head to see the guy chasing us. With the element of surprise no longer in his favor, the other guy stops, points his gun and takes several steps forward to close the distance between us.

  My heart is hammering in terror and confusion.

  The guy holding me lets my legs fall to the ground and my feet touch the earth before his arm moves away from my back. The next sequence of events happens so fast I almost wonder if they happen the way I think I see it.

  My captor grabs the gun with his left hand, pushing it down to the side. When the bullet is released from its chamber it tears its way through the earth in a spray of dirt and mud. He hooks around the gunman’s right arm and, with a powerful fist, pummels the guy in the jaw as he rips the gun from his hand.

  They exchange savage blows until the gunman lunges at my carrier with a knife.

  Cringing, I remember with all too much clarity what happened the last time a knife was pulled.

  I can’t get enough air to breathe properly, let alone run. Trying to crawl again, I’m struck by the piercing rawness of my knees, legs and feet. I’m not going to get far.

  Frantically, I scan what’s around me—if I could get under some cover and hide . . . but I’m crushed by the probability of being at my captor’s mercy.

  With two quick and deliberate turns, my assailant is around the back of the gunman and plunges his blade up and into the guy’s throat—directly in the crook beneath his chin where it meets his neck.

  Blood sprays out of the hole when he yanks the knife down and out. He steps to the side, and the other guy drops, dying, his eyes wide and wild.

  My captor comes at me, still holding the knife. The scream that’s been welling up in my bruised and swollen lungs finds its way out of my mouth.

  He grabs my face hard to close my mouth, and my jaws clamp, bearing down on his hand for all I’m worth.

  The taste of his salty flesh combines with the rust of his blood.

  He’s silent as he lifts my arms up towards my shoulders until they feel like they’ll break! I have no option but to let his hand loose.

  Bracing myself for the fierce blow he’ll inflict, I’m surprised when he simply ties the soaking wet cloth back around my face, then throws me over his shoulder again and runs away from the second dead body left in his wake.

  Ryder

  I’m seriously considering killing Rachel Farrington myself! She’s nearly gotten the two of us caught or killed multiple times now.

  I’d really love to sit for beers and chat with her about exactly what is going on so she doesn’t fuck up again, but the area is crawling with Miguel’s men and whoever else is in on the action. And unless she’s deaf, she hears the dogs coming too. Dogs that are going to seek us out and rip our flesh off if I don’t throw them off our scent—which is nearly impossible.

  Christ. Can’t she just shut up, stop drowning and stop being a target and a fucking pain in my ass for one goddamn minute?

  I’ve never had a rescue mission turn so exceptionally bizarre! Fucking bites my goddamn hand, runs away and shoves me off a boat—as if I’m one of them.

  Oh Jesus!
She thinks I’m one of them!

  A branch snaps at our eleven o’clock.

  Pulling Farrington to the ground, I crouch to blend into our surroundings better. We’re both full of mud and dirt and well camouflaged.

  I get a glimpse of Miguel’s henchmen as they close in around us—about three of them, but they haven’t spotted us. The henchman leading the charge sends the other two in a semi-circle to fan out. Their automatic weapons are poised and ready for murder.

  “Don’t. Move,” I barely breathe across her ear.

  Henchman—now at our five o’clock—squeezes in and is about to trip over Farrington when I move in front of her to block his path, stand up swiftly and shoot him through the heart twice.

  Holding him carefully, I take all the dead man’s weight before quietly lowering him to the ground.

  One down, two to go.

  Movement about one hundred yards away catches my eye, along with a swatch of red—more men. But these aren’t Miguel’s goons. These are entirely different goons flying gang colors.

  I need to get Farrington out of the brush.

  The road ceased being an option when the conflict broke out—it had been my original unguarded exit route—until every direction was cut off by Miguel’s opposition.

  Perfect timing, Ryder, I berate myself. A half hour earlier I could have found the girl and made exodus like I was planning to, with the cartel lord.

  But truth of it is, these guys are betting men, like me. They’d learned of his alias and knew the window to kill or capture him was closing fast.

  Wondering which they chose to do to him, kill or capture, I lift Farrington again and move as fast as possible to the edge of the swamp. We’re going to have to take to the water.

  Keeping to the muck at the edge of the waterline keeps our escape quiet, unlike our enemies who have now found each other and are hacking away to make sure there are no survivors.

  It’s the only way now . . . but I have to get this iron bar off her or we’ll sink like a couple of rocks.

  I put another thirty feet between us and the men, put Farrington on her belly and retrieve my tools. Padlocks like these are pretty simple to open when you have a spare ten seconds.