Ruined Mercy

by Brook Wilder

  Surprised, I gave her a nod, receiving one in return. It was an apology of sorts, one I was willing to accept for now. “I’ll ride.”

  “Me too,” Machine Gun added. “Hell, it’s too quiet around here. I’m itching for a fight.”

  “I’ll ride, too,” Chains said, looking at his wife. “But you will stay here.”

  Widow Maker clenched her jaw, her gaze sharp enough to shoot daggers at her husband, but she didn’t argue with him. That was very unlike her. “Fine. I will hold down the fort and give Aisha a head’s up. She would love to have El Templario in her custody.”

  “The location is here,” Chains said, pointing at the screen. It was a grid map of the outskirts of Castillo, a maze of dirt roads that fanned off the main highway to the mountains. I didn’t recognize the location, but it didn’t matter to me.

  We knew where she was. That was more than I had an hour ago. “I need a ride.”

  “I got an extra bike,” Machine Gun said, clapping me on the back. “You are welcome to it.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “What’s the plan?” As much as I wanted to go in guns blazing, I knew I couldn’t. Sabrina was in the hands of a very dangerous man who wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in her brain.

  That and we weren’t sure if her father was there either.

  “It’s in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Machine Gun said, shaking his head. “There’s no vantage points, no way they won’t see us coming. It’s probably the worst fucking place you could rescue a person.”

  I rolled my shoulders, feeling the anger and frustration well up inside. I didn’t care what we did or how we did it as long as I could see Sabrina alive and running to me again.

  “What about the bulldozer?” Chains asked. “We haven’t used it in a while and no matter what we face, it will be enough distraction for Crankshaft to get inside and find her.”

  I grinned despite my pain. The bulldozer was exactly what it was named, a big piece of equipment that Gun Jesus had found in some auction. The big bucket on the front allowed for the cab to be protected from gunfire, and the damn thing was so loud, it commanded attention when it was fired up.

  “That’s over an hour’s ride,” Machine Gun was saying, tracing the road with his finger. “We will have to haul it out there.”

  “Well at least it won’t look suspicious,” Chains said, pointing to the rock quarry a few miles up from the location. “I think it’s our best shot. Otherwise, this will be a suicide mission for sure.”

  “I don’t care what you do,” Widow Maker finally said. “As long as all of your asses come back this time.”

  I rubbed my chest absently, feeling the bandage still under my shirt, reminding me how close I had been to dying last time. Last time I had been going after a man I didn’t even know.

  This time I was going after a woman I wanted to keep for myself. Whatever happened, it would be worth it. Sabrina didn’t deserve to be in this shit, and I was about to get her the hell out of it.

  Then we would try to figure out what was going to happen afterward.

  ***

  Almost an hour later, as the sun came up on the horizon, we arrived at our destination. I climbed out of the truck and shut the door, frowning when I saw my own truck parked in the same copse of trees. “She’s here.”

  Chains looked over at the truck. “Yeah. I’m surprised they didn’t come and try to move it. He really doesn’t give a shit if we find this place or not.”

  I patted the pocket on the inside of my vest, where the SIM card laid, and clenched my jaw. All of this was happening because the cartel didn’t want us to turn this shit over to the cops. Widow Maker had been pretty damn clear on the plan going forward. At no point was the SIM card to be bargained. We couldn’t allow it to get back into their grubby hands. If it did, we would lose all leverage we had on the cartel.

  Still, though, she didn’t say anything about letting them know we had brought it if the time came to do so.

  I was thinking that wasn’t going to happen. While Chains and the others drove the bulldozer right up to the front door, Machine Gun and I were going to sneak around back and look for a way in to get Sabrina and her father out of the gunfire.

  I just hoped they hadn’t kept her in the front of the old shop. If so, this rescue was going to be a hell of a lot bloodier than we wanted it to be.

  “You ready?” Chains asked as he unhooked the bulldozer from the flatbed. “Because as soon as I crank this baby up, they are going to come investigating.”

  I nodded as I checked my guns one more time. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  “Be careful, will you?” Chains added softly. “I still have to kick your ass for what you did back at the club.”

  I grinned. “Like you could. You’re going soft, man.”

  He flipped me off and I walked to the edge of the clearing with Machine Gun, who was checking his weapons.

  “You see a clear path to the back?”

  Machine Gun chuckled. “Yeah, by going through the front. This shit is gonna be a mess, man. We’re sitting ducks out here.”

  I looked over at the guy who had ridden with me more times than I could count, a man who could shoot better than the entire club combined. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yeah, well, if I don’t then you are gonna be pumped full of holes before you can take three steps toward that place. Besides, you’d do the same given the circumstances.”

  He was right. I would be right here beside him if the tables were turned. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I drew in a breath before taking off in a dead run, aiming for the broken down junker to the left of the old garage to give us enough cover. We barely made it before the rumble of the bulldozer shattered the silence, the loud engine halting any conversation within a few feet of the machinery. Checking my gun, I gripped it in my hand, feeling my palm sweating. This was going to be our only chance at this, and I hoped it didn’t turn into a bloodbath. Machine Gun tapped my shoulder and started toward the side of building, giving me mere seconds before I did the same. Chains slowly made his way on the bulldozer, and we waited, not surprised at the movement in the front of the garage. Two guys sprang out of the building, taking aim at moving bulldozer.

  We didn’t return fire, not wanting to draw attention to our location, and continued on the trail to the back of the building, finding no back door.

  “Shit,” Machine Gun muttered. “There’s not even a damn window.”

  “We got to go in the front then,” I said, swallowing. I didn’t know how many more would be lying in wait for us, but it was the only way. I had to get in that building. With this gunfire, Sabrina had to be inside.

  “I’ll cover you,” Machine Gun stated, his jaw clenched as he gripped his gun. “I’ll backtrack and use the vehicle for cover. Your window will be small, man, real small.”

  “Got it,” I answered, not caring. This was what I lived for, wasn’t it?

  Besides, I needed to get to Sabrina and her father. That was the only goal in my mind.

  “Good luck,” he said before darting off around the corner. The gunfire erupted in the distance and I closed my eyes briefly. Sabrina was in there. Her father was in there.

  I had to succeed this time.

  Chapter 19

  Sabrina

  I grabbed the bars and stood on my tip toes in an effort to see outside the small window in the door in front of me, growling in frustration when I couldn’t see anything. The sound of gunfire and some sort of machinery rattled the entire building and I was scared something might come through the walls at any moment.

  One thing was for sure, the Jesters had arrived. My heart had leapt into my throat when the chaos started, knowing without a doubt that Harrison was out there.

  He had found me. He had come for me.

  Now, if only I could get out of this cell and help!

  I yanked on the bars again, knowing they wouldn’t budge. How many times over the last
few hours had I tried to do just that? My escape wasn’t going to be that easy. My captor was far too devious to forget to lock the cell.

  I didn’t know whether screaming to catch anyone’s attention was a great idea either. I wanted to, oh I wanted to make the biggest racket so that Harrison knew where I was, but I didn’t know what was on the other side of that door either.

  By the sound, there was a war on the other side, which meant no one would hear me anyway.

  Suddenly, the door flung open and my captor was staring at me, his eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Looks like your rescuers are here,” he said, reaching into his pocket that held the key. “Guess it’s time we do some bargaining.”

  I shrank back as he unlocked the cell and opened the door, readying myself for what I was going to do next. He stepped inside and I rushed him, catching him by surprise. He lost his balance, giving me an opportunity to make it out of the cage and to the doorway, where I wasted no time pushing through.

  Just as I stepped into the doorway, a shadow fell across the front door and I gasped as Harrison charged through, his guns blazing.

  “Harrison!”

  The relief on his face was evident. “Sabrina. Thank God. Come on.”

  But that relief was instantly replaced by something darker when I felt a hand twist in my hair and pull me backwards. I cried out as I was slammed against a solid wall.

  “You’re not going anywhere just yet.”

  “Let her go,” Harrison growled, his guns trained on my captor. “She’s nothing to you.”

  The laugh was sharp in my ear as an arm snaked around my waist, holding me in place. “Yes, well, she is to you and that’s enough for me to hold her here. Good to see you, Crankshaft. Didn’t think you would do something like this, but then again, a woman can make you do crazy things, eh?”

  “I got the SIM card,” Harrison said, his eyes on me. “I’ll trade you. SIM card for her. Think about it, El Templario. You can make the pressure all go away with a simple trade.”

  “I could,” El Templario said, his arm tightening on my waist. For a captor and goon of the cartel, he didn’t smell like one. In another time, I would have thought this man was just another decent human being. He dressed nice and he was even polite in his demeanor.

  Of course, killers could be nice.

  “Why don’t you,” Harrison challenged, his jaw clenched. He had no idea how happy I was to see him no worse for wear and very confident in whatever plan he had developed. The man before me was Crankshaft and I was actually happy to see him in his element.

  “She means something to you, no?”

  “She does,” he ground out, softening my heart further. Harrison didn’t look at me, but I could see the subtle changes in his expression and knew he wasn’t lying to this man. He did care for me.

  “Put your guns down then.”

  “No!” I shouted, wanting to lurch at Harrison and beg him not to do it. If he put his guns down, he would be unarmed, and I imagined that this El Templario had one on his person somewhere. “Don’t do it, Harrison.”

  “Interesting,” El Templario chuckled. “Apparently you do care for her if you let her use your real name like that. Put your guns down, Harrison, and I will let her go to you to retrieve the SIM card.”

  “How do I know you won’t shoot me?” Harrison challenged as I bit my lower lip to keep myself from throwing out another outburst. I didn’t like this plan. My entire conscience shied away from this plan. I knew this man was not to be trusted.

  “You don’t,” he answered. “But I won’t let her go to you until you lower those guns of yours.”

  “No,” I whispered as Harrison caught my eye, giving me the barest hint of a nod. “Don’t do it.”

  “I have to,” he said softly, lowering his guns and kneeling to place them on the concrete in front of him. He then straightened, showing his empty hands. “Send her to me.”

  El Templario’s grip on my waist lessened and I realized he had released me. “Go to your man, Ms. Cortez.”

  He was going to let me go. I forced my feet to move, one in front of the other to cross the distance to Harrison. His gaze encouraged me to move and I was mere inches when the shot rang out. The bullet whizzed by my ear before it slammed into Harrison. I screamed as he pulled me down with him, blood pouring out of his chest as we fell to the floor.

  Before I could register what was happening, another shot rang out and I braced for the bullet to pierce my body, throwing myself over a bleeding Harrison.

  “Shit, is he hit?”

  Crying, I looked up to find Chains over me, his gun still smoking in his hand. “H-he shot him.”

  “Shit,” he breathed again, pushing me off Harrison to assess the damage himself. I looked back and saw El Templario on the ground behind me, blood seeping out of the wound in the middle of his forehead.

  He was dead.

  Turning back to Harrison, I watched as Chains held pressure against the wound.

  “Go outside. Get Machine Gun. We need to get him to a hospital.”

  I didn’t want to leave him. His color was already turning pale, his eyes wide and unfocused as they bounced between me and Chains.

  “Go, dammit!”

  Snapping into action, I hurried outside, seeing another man as he came from behind the rusted out vehicle near the building. He took one look at me and swore. “Who is it?”

  I couldn’t speak. The emotion and fear clogged my throat. Had I just lost Harrison? “The truck,” I finally forced out. “We need the truck.”

  “Shit,” he said, taking off in a dead run toward the woods. I hurried back inside. Chains was applying pressure to Harrison’s chest, the blood pooling under both of them. There was no way he was going to survive this one.

  I had just lost him.

  ***

  The ride to the hospital was longer than it should have been. Machine Gun drove like a bat out hell while I stroked Harrison’s cool face, Chains holding pressure so tightly his hands looked white. There was blood everywhere, all over me and all over Chains, and all I could think about was that with every smear of blood, it was another bit of Harrison’s life gone.

  He was dying.

  Harrison’s eyes were now closed and none of us spoke. We were too busy watching his chest rise and fall erratically. My finger was on his pulse, the normal beat now thready and becoming fainter by the minute.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, we pulled under the archway of the hospital’s emergency room. Machine Gun flung open the driver side door and was gone in a flash, coming back with a group of medical personnel.

  “We got a trauma! Gunshot to the chest! Call the OR!”

  I was forced out of the truck and pushed aside, standing nearby as they unloaded Harrison onto a stretcher and whisked him inside, the doors sliding closed behind him.

  Chains came around the truck, his clothes and hands covered in blood, holding them out in front of him like he didn’t know what to do. “What happened?” he asked harshly, his eyes wide with fear.

  “He tried to trade me for the SIM card,” I forced out, my body feeling like I was living in an alternate world. I wasn’t in pain, but more like numb from the shock of what I had just witnessed. “He s-shot Harrison.”

  Chains’s eyes travelled over me, something akin to sympathy and understanding on his face. “Are you alright?”

  I nodded, the tears threatening my eyes. I didn’t care about myself. I cared about that Harrison was likely going to die alone in that operating room, and we couldn’t do anything about it.

  He gave me a tight nod before looking over at Machine Gun. “Call Widow Maker, let her know what’s happened, and tell her to bring extra clothes for all of us. I want double protection on the clubhouse in case the cartel retaliates. Take the prisoner to the holding room. I want to speak to him later.”

  I listened to him, his words sounding fuzzy in my own ears. “You have a prisoner?”

  Chains looked down at me. “Yeah, and he
’s gonna tell us where your father is.”

  ***

  The next hour passed like a blur. Kristina and Rivet arrived with sets of clothes, their own faces withdrawn and pale when they saw the amount of blood on our clothing. I went into the bathroom and stripped my clothing, scrubbed my arms and face until the blood was gone, crying the entire time. This could not be happening.

  Harrison could not be dying. There was so much I wanted to tell him, so much I wanted to promise him. I wanted him to know that I did care about him, that I wasn’t going to let anyone else hurt him again.