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Beautiful Chaos

Page 29

by Keta Kendric


  “Yeah, but we’re almost in. I don’t think Angel is here. These unlucky fuckers were probably slacking on their duties while he was out. I say we kill the rest, rescue Desiree, and get the fuck out of here before we start a war. We don’t need the syndicate and especially not its committee members getting involved in this.”

  “Agreed,” I replied. Arjen snatched his knife from the man’s chest and sheathed the bloody blade before taking off. He didn’t cast a second glance at the man whose blood had pooled around his body like a flowing dark lake.

  “Package. Second floor. Off stairs, right. First door, left,” came confirmation from Hunter.

  “I’ll get Desiree,” Arjen announced as bullets exited his silenced weapon and sliced through the chest and head of the man at the foot of the stairs. He was already heading towards the stairs and therefore exposing himself, knowing the rest of us had his back if harm came anywhere near him.

  Unusually silent, there were at least three more guards inside the house. Make that two. Our team had just taken out the one that had been position outside the bedroom door.

  “Level one clear,” Cass announced, confirming that the only one left was in the bedroom with Desiree.

  “Bedroom do—” came Arjen’s voice, but his words were cut off.

  “Arjen, say again.” I was running towards the stairs, but was stopped at the sight of him backing up, each step cautious and steady. He aimed straight ahead, but something had captured his attention and kept it.

  “Fuck!”

  The sight of Angel Ramirez, dressed as one of his guards with a gun pressed into Desiree’s skull stalled me. Had Angel just used his men outside as pawns to lure us into his house?

  36

  Khane

  “I have a shot,” Gunz stated, his voice coming across clearly in my ear.

  “Don’t take it!” I hissed out.

  “Hold your fire!” Arjen barked. Neither of us was willing to risk Desiree’s life, although we knew Gunz was the best sharpshooter we had.

  “I can certainly understand why two of the leading men in the Syndicate would risk their lives and break some major rules over this lovely little lady. The sweet scent of her alone is enough to spark a wildfire in the hearts of beasts. Mmm…” Angel groaned, sniffing Desiree as unshed tears sat in her eyes.

  Arjen stood in front of her and Angel, but her gaze had found me at the foot of the stairs and remained aimed down in my direction.

  “Did you all think it would be this easy to come into my place and take what rightfully belongs to me?”

  Belongs to him?

  “Men!” Angel called into a device on his wrist, letting us know we had been set up after all. His men outside had been decoys, unaware that they were in the middle of a major fight.

  The heavy march of boots creeping out from what must have been the basement came flooding into the room as automatic weapons were drawn and ready to fire.

  “Tell your men to stand down, Arjen, or I’ll have one of mine put a fucking bullet in your brother’s head!” he yelled.

  “No!” I yelled. “Don’t stand down. Hold your positions. If he shoots me, it starts a war with the syndicate,” I barked.

  “A syndicate that I am sure has no idea where two of their most prized possessions are. One vicious enough to kill the both of you for being here.” Angel sneered as his gazed bounced between me and Arjen. He had shifted his arm tighter around Desiree, pressing it under her chin as he lifted his free hand, preparing to signal his man to aim at me and shoot.

  My unblinking glare remained on Angel’s face, letting him know his threat meant nothing, although I knew he was serious. Anyone crazy enough to use their own men as pawns didn’t make idle threats.

  However, if Angel’s aim was to kill us, Arjen and I, along with our team, would have been toasting the devil because Angel and a lot of his men were going to die with us.

  I would rather go out shooting than surrender without fighting. My gaze landed back on Desiree, the desperation in her tensed body, and the pleading in her eyes ripped away pieces of my heart. Hell no, I wasn’t giving up. If that meant my death, at least she would know I was willing to die for her.

  Angel dropped his hand when we didn’t waver, being careful to keep the gun aimed at Desiree as he switched hands. The arm he had around Desiree’s shoulders shifted so that his fingers were now around her neck, squeezing. The fear-riding her pinched expression along with her straining cry broke something in me as his men continued to pour through openings at the east and west sides of the house.

  “Team,” Arjen called. Desiree’s eyes started to flutter as Angel’s glare pivoted from Arjen standing in front of him to me at the foot of the stairs.

  “Team,” I said, readying them when it appeared Desiree was on the verge of passing out. I was a hair pull away from letting my finger flex against the trigger to put a bullet in Angel’s head. As Desiree’s body shook, a vein in her forehead protruded from the strain of trying to breathe. Her fingers scratched at Angel’s tight grip around her throat as she edged up on her toes to relieve the pressure he was applying.

  The threat of imminent death hadn’t been enough to make me stand down, but seeing Desiree in pain had folded my will in half. I couldn’t take it. I was unable to stand there while Angel was hurting her.

  Our men came out, but like me, they refused to drop their weapons, even with at least forty of Angel’s men circling us. Good.

  I kept my weapon trained on Angel’s forehead, and so did Arjen. Angel would die instantly if either of us took a shot, but so would Desiree. My bold movement, when I started up the steps, caused weapons to be charged and pointed at me from every angle.

  The harmonic clinking of metal sounded like deathly wind chimes. Angel’s men were trained soldiers that weren’t going to take a shot unless Angel ordered it. Same went for our men. In this type of situation, they weren’t going to flex a finger against their triggers unless Arjen or I gave the word.

  My heavy steps echoed as I marched up the stairs, noticing at least twenty men with clear shots aimed at me, but I didn’t give a solitary fuck about any of them. If I was about to die, I was doing it standing next to my brother, and staring at the only woman my heart ever beat for.

  “Let him approach,” Angel called to his anxious men, all itching to send death in my direction.

  “Tell your men to drop their weapons,” Angel stated with his glare aimed at Arjen. I should have been stressing about dying, but Angel’s smirk was scraping the fuck out of my nerves.

  A glimpse of Arjen’s face as I stood next to him suggested he wasn’t going to obey Angel’s request, even as the number of enemy forces continued to grow.

  “Tell your men to drop their weapons. No one else has to die here tonight. I would like for you to stay alive since you two are the best I’ve dealt with in the arms business.” His grip around Desiree’s neck had loosened since he was distracted with me and Arjen.

  Angel, along with a few others, had special buy-in deals with the syndicate to purchase their arms from us although they were not in any of the syndicate’s operational regions. Neither Arjen nor I spoke a word, only stood staring, waiting with our guns gripped tightly.

  Angel’s head tilted as he glared at us, realizing something was off because of our unflinching stances even with the threat of sudden death. A quick glance revealed Arjen’s smirk, the devil inside shining through his expression. Here we stood, soaked in death, but instead of fear, pure hell was shooting through our veins.

  “You fucking Vallins are every bit as crazy as your reputations suggest, but even the crazy accepts defeat. I’m giving you a chance to live so that we can continue to do business.”

  “I’ll never accept defeat,” Arjen spat before the sinister smirk on his face deepened.

  “All in place,” came a low-toned voice in my ear.

  “What the fuck are you smiling at, you fucking animals?” Angel barked. His eyes moved left to right, taking in Arjen and m
e after I’d allowed myself to crack a smile also. Although Desiree breathed harshly from being choked, it didn’t take away from her confused expression.

  I lifted and aimed a finger at Angel’s head, before moving it around. “I’m connecting all those red dots on your face,” I stated, releasing an evil chuckle. At those words, Angel froze.

  His gaze followed mine down to the floor level, where our original team had their weapons raised and ready to fire although outnumbered five to one. It appeared Angel’s men were starting to discover that they too, were painted in red dots.

  The sound of metal dropping to the shiny expensive floor brought joy to my ears, and the sight of relief on Desiree’s face brought a spark of excitement to my heart.

  “You motherfucking Vallins!” Angel yelled, shoving his gun painfully into the side of Desiree’s head, causing her eyes to clench tighter.

  Arjen glared in my direction and nodded once. We had ensured we had reinforcements. Arjen often called me the overkill king because of my obsession with killing and my excessive need to ensure that anything or anyone that faced death at my hands, died. If it meant shooting or stabbing them a few extra times, packing too many weapons, or killers, so be it. I did it right the first time.

  “There’s a team of a hundred surrounding this compound with enough weapons to kill you and everything breathing a hundred times over.” My words were expressed as a threat and a dare. There were only ten more men out there, but he didn’t need to know that, besides the plan was working and Angel’s backup was giving up their weapons.

  “I took what rightfully belongs to me,” Angel stated. This was the second time he had made that statement.

  “What are you talking about?” Arjen asked. “Why would you take a woman you have no association with, from an organization you’re in business with and have never had a problem with?”

  He hadn’t removed the gun from Desiree’s head, but his tight grip had loosened enough for her to open those beautiful eyes again.

  “I paid for her,” Angel stated. His words caused our eyes to widen. “I gave Raymond Evans ten-million dollars for Desiree Evans over a month ago. A Ramirez and Evans alliance would open us to a market we have never tapped into before. When he failed to deliver her like he promised, I realized something was wrong. I haven’t been able to get a hold of him for over two weeks. When I got reports that she was with you Vallins, I sent my men in to claim what was mine. It was supposed to be a peaceful reclamation, but dealing with you two, it quickly turned deadly.”

  The expression on Desiree’s face as she turned her face away from the gun and peered at Angel suggested that she was as stunned as we were.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? I made a deal with Raymond Evans for his daughter’s hand in marriage. An Evans and a Vallin union brings us respect from the streets as well as a solid investment in the drug trade.”

  Angel’s weapon dropped away from Desiree’s head, spinning on his finger before he shoved it down the back of his pants.

  “Fucking Raymond Evans!” he shouted, making Desiree jump. “That two-timing, gambling prick is going to die! I’m going to pick his body apart piece-by-piece over a year’s span and feed him to the fucking rats.” He spat out his words through gritted teeth. There was no doubt Angel would put action to his threat. Raymond Evans, when he was found, was a dead man.

  However, Raymond was smart, somewhat. If Arjen had married Desiree as planned and workshop hadn’t been called, Raymond would have been under the protection of the syndicate. Even now, his fate wasn’t completely sealed as far as the syndicate was concerned. If they believed they needed Raymond alive, the FA couldn’t touch him.

  As soon as Angel released Desiree from his grip, she ran and stood behind me, gripping me around the waist like her life depended on it. Her face was pressed into my back, her body trembling against mine.

  The hurt in my brother’s eyes was reflected on me as guilt swallowed me whole. The agony that blazed through me for inflicting that pain on him, cut as deep as the jagged curve of a serrated blade. I dropped my head in shame, but I wasn’t strong enough to push Desiree away at a time when she needed me.

  Even with red dots roaming his body, Angel moved about, in thinking mode, like his life wasn’t in danger. Raymond Evans had been at the root of most, if not all of our problems.

  Angel glared at Arjen before settling his confused gaze, with one eyebrow lifted high, on me with Desiree. He tilted his head slightly before he scratched his beard, likely piecing together a family problem that my brother and I hadn’t resolved yet.

  “We’ve been played,” Arjen stated, tearing Angel’s probing gaze away from Desiree and me. “Obviously,” Angel replied as curiosity seeped from his gaze, and rage tightened his body into a tight coil. “He made us the same deal. How do you gamble with your own fucking daughter and organization? He had to know we would find out and kill him.”

  Angel’s accent, mingling with his anger, had him skipping and slurring words. Desiree stiffened at my back when he made another threat on her father’s life. Arjen glanced in our direction before he glared at Angel.

  “I’d like to call a truce until we figure this shit out.”

  “Truce,” Angel agreed as he marched towards us and his stairs, unconcerned about the dots still roaming over his body. Desiree’s grip on me tightened at the sight of Angel moving in our direction.

  “Stay in place. Stand down, but be ready.” My words made the red dots disappear as we turned to follow Angel down the stairs. The stand-off on the first floor lost its intensity as our group started lowering their weapons, the clink of metal sounding off, but not with the echo of death behind it.

  I sensed Arjen’s eyes on me as Desiree kept a firm grip on my arm, unwilling to let me go. Her actions revealed more of the strength of the bond we had formed. It was also a bond that we were destined never to keep. This was likely our last close encounter if Arjen had anything to say about it.

  We followed Angel, through the sea of men standing around, some still confused about what had transpired. They questioned each other in Spanish, their expressions highlighting their confusion.

  When we stepped through the opening that led into Angel’s large dining area, he gestured for us to take a seat. He sat across the table and faced Arjen and me. Desiree sat at the table between me and Arjen. Four of our original team members stepped inside the area along with an equal group of Angel’s men. They took positions against the wall, each of our teams at our backs, ready to die on command.

  Other than make plans to kill Raymond Evans, how the hell were we going to fix this situation?

  37

  Khane

  A deep, irritating sigh left Arjen, his strained gaze pinned on Angel. Raymond Evans had pitted us against each other, placing his own daughter in the middle of what could have been a long bloody war if Angel hadn’t disclosed why he had taken Desiree.

  “What do you propose we do to solve this issue? We’re here, and we’ve killed at least ten of your men, so it’s obvious we want the woman back.”

  What he hadn’t admitted was that we had come willing to kill everyone on his compound to get Desiree back. I knew that Arjen had initiated this mission more for me than for Desiree, or even the ten-million-dollar investment he kept using as an excuse for his actions.

  He knew that I would have come for her with or without him. As well, we had to consider that the syndicate had voted on the Vallin-Evans alliance, and going against them would be the next best thing to committing suicide. Therefore, we had to leave with Desiree, even if it meant a war with the FA over her. There were so many merging angles to this situation, that my mind had to build a decision tree to figure out the best route to take.

  I wasn’t even sure if we were going to disclose to the syndicate what Raymond had done as they would investigate and find out we had crossed territorial lines and killed at least ten members of a cartel secretly linked to us. It was a hot fucking mess.

 
There was also the option that I would have never considered. The one that would keep the syndicate quiet and prevent a war with the FA, and that would be to kill Desiree.

  “I sacrificed good men to lure you into a trap. I want the woman,” Angel finally replied. “She must be worth it,” he said, glaring at Desiree and winking at me.

  We were at a stalemate. Neither Arjen, nor Angel were going to submit. Was I going to have to be the voice of reason? Me. I was usually the one who would have tried to kill Angel and every last one of his men. However, the woman sitting next to me had the ability to quiet my beast like nothing else ever could.

  “Can we not forget that we are talking about a person who’s sitting right here. She didn’t ask for any of this, and only agreed to it to help her father.” I put cold eyes on my brother before I glanced at Angel. Desiree sat hunched over Angel’s table, not looking at any of us.

  “Raymond’s plan could have been for us to take each other out so he could go and make a deal with another unsuspecting crime family. He has placed his niece in charge. It’s supposed to be temporary, but I believe Raymond is laying low to see how this all turns out.” My statement caused all eyes in the room to travel in my direction.

  Angel pointed at Desiree. “Call your backstabbing father. And remember, little Dove, he played you too. Set you in the middle of a war.” He’d addressed Desiree with a term of endearment like he hadn’t just been choking the life out of her.

  “Then the gambling prick, walked into one of my state-side casinos some weeks ago and tried to leave owing a half-million,” Angel added.

  His admission had just solve the riddle of the two men from the BMW that was looking for the Bookkeeper. I handed Desiree my burner phone. She shook her head, unwilling to double-cross her father who had not only sold her into this mess, but left her dangling like a carrot between two of the most dangerous organizations in the world.

 

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