“His son,” Butch said.
I grimaced.
“Just another target to kill.”
Butch nodded. Spawn never said a word. Lane only bit his lip, but he, too, said nothing more. We all knew what we were walking into.
At best, opportunity. At worst, a painful death.
“Let’s get to work, then.”
* * *
In the span of no more than a couple minutes, we had the entire warehouse surrounded. I was sure that the King’s Men within knew they were being surrounded—motorcycles were not electric cars or stealth choppers, not even fucking close to it—but no one came out to shoot at us. This worried me and convinced me a trap was waiting for us, but I was willing to play along for now.
Once we had the entire perimeter, the nine of us, including the officers of Butch, Lane, Spawn, Patriot, and I gathered on foot. It had been a long, long time since I’d done anything off a bike, but this was the only way. Feet were a lot quieter than engines.
“Patriot, you’re the one with military experience here, so we’re letting you lead,” I said. “But the objectives are simple. Kill any King’s Men. If you see Prince, Crush, or King, wound them if you can, kill if you have to. No one escape.”
“Understood, man,” he said. “Cover and move. Protect your teammates. No unnecessary risks. We follow those guidelines, we’ll be ninety-nine percent of the way there.”
I nodded and glanced up at the sky. It may have been overcast, but it was still daylight. We should have waited for night to fall, but that would have given these guys a chance to escape. We had to make our move now.
There was no such thing as an optimal move at this point.
We had gotten only about halfway across the parking lot when the first batch of gunfire erupted upon us. Fortunately, equal amounts of gunfire erupted from the perimeter, creating a sort of cover for us as we sprinted toward the building. I had never run so fucking fast in my life; it was funny how the imminent threat of death made people go an extra five or six miles per hour.
I practically slammed my body against the wall of the warehouse when I got there, just behind Patriot and Butch. Right after, the rest of the crew followed—well, unfortunately, most of it. One Devil’s Patriot, a prospect, lay on the ground behind us, not moving.Such is the cost of war. No time to sit back and mourn.
Go.
“We kill anyone that shoots at us; I don’t care who,” I shouted. “Understood?”
Everyone nodded. Patriot laid fire into an open door before getting to the other side. One by one, we moved into the building, only to find it…
Empty.
No, that wasn’t right. It most certainly wasn’t empty. We’d had gunfire upon us just a moment ago.
But quiet was accurate, and that was unsettling.
“Move in the shadows,” Butch said. “Stick together. We don’t have radios, so we need to stay in line of sight of each other.”
I nodded. Patriot and Butch moved around the dark corners of large warehouse boxes, abandoned storage containers that had so much dust and cobwebs on them it was probably more a spider’s habitat than anything else.
The quiet played games on us. A clank that sounded like an enemy moving may have just been a mouse knocking something over. The sound of a rush of wind drew guns, only for us to realize how stupid we felt. But better to be wrong than to do nothing.
And then I heard something rolling.
“TAKE COVER!”
Butch’s voice bellowed across the entirety of the warehouse. I got the hint. I ducked behind a container just as a grenade went off. I heard screams of a Devil’s Patriot that had not been so lucky, screams that went mute when gunfire erupted.
“Shit!”
Lane grunted.
“Lane, man—” Patriot started.
