“No one knows they’re here as far as we know,” Warrant replied.
“Tell that to the gunfire,” Jury quipped.
“They better leave us some shitbags to kill, or I’m going to be pissed,” Demo muttered.
I wasn’t listening. My feet were already carrying me to the door. My old lady was in there, and there were too many bullets flying around for my comfort.
“Quit talking and start moving,” Cypher barked at the others. “Split up once we get inside. Kill everyone besides Rae, any women or children, or Dolan. He’s mine.”
“That’s a long list, can you write it down for me?” Jury shouted over his shoulder.
“And dogs, don’t shoot a dog,” Demo told him.
“The fuck I’d ever do that. That’s a dickhead move!” Jury sounded offended. I didn’t hear the rest of their talk, I was moving too far ahead of them.
These Iron Circle fuckers didn’t seem to have a problem with kidnapping women and kids, so Cypher’s orders made sense. Who knew who else was inside this building?
The door was locked, but gave way easily enough beneath my boot as I kicked it open. Scythe, Jury, and Rotor were on my ass as I took a right and headed up the stairs. Second story just seemed to be where fuckers like this liked to keep hostages, well, that and basements. But this place didn’t have a basement so I headed up. The rest of our brothers fanned out to cover the remainder of the building.
I slowed only slightly because the top of the stairs was going to be a choke point. Frowning, I stepped over a dead body. There were three littering the stairs.
“Looks like I was right,” Jury said in a low voice, though he still managed to sound smug. “Someone else got here first.”
But who? Who would be going after the Iron Circle Crew besides us?
We’d figure that out later. Right now my only objective was to find Rae. It crossed my mind that maybe she’d created all this carnage, but I wasn’t sure she had the capabilities. I needed to remember to ask her later if she had ninja skills she’d never mentioned in the getting to know you phase we’d gone through. Of course, we were still getting to know each other. And I’d be very interested to find out if she was some kind of killing machine. Didn’t seem to fit her personality, but people did whatever they had to in situations like this.
One of my brothers began whistling a familiar tune. Glancing over my shoulder, I arched a brow at Rotor.
Jury chuckled. “You borrowing the dead goon song from Toxic now?”
“Seemed fitting,” Rotor replied with a shrug. “Besides, it’s catchy.” He went on whistling.
Jury softly sang along, “One little, two little, three little dead goons.”
I met Scythe’s gaze and he had a look on his face as though he were asking why he had to put up with these two. Focusing back in front of me, I moved to the very top of the stairs. A bullet splintered the wood above my head as I looked around the corner. Jury jerked me backward and I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Safe to say they’re waiting for us.”
“Here. Use this.”
I took the flash bang Rotor handed over. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Thanks.” I hoped like hell Rae wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity as I moved to where I could throw it. That meant stepping out from the cover that the stairwell provided, but it was the only way. Gunfire cracked and I knew rounds were flying all around me as I chucked the flash bang as hard as I could so it would roll into the adjoining hallway.
Turning my back, I waited until the boom indicated it’d gone off, then I was moving. I didn’t wait to see who was affected. It didn’t matter. If they saw me hurl that fucking thing and hid, I still had to get across this walkway and to the other side so I could find Rae.
“Rotor,” Scythe called out. “Check the two rooms on this side then meet us over there.
I didn’t need to look to know that Rotor was peeling off our flanks to follow Scythe’s orders. Though his cry of happiness when he opened the first door made me wonder what he’d justfound. He’d let us know if it was Rae, so I knew it wasn’t her and nothing else mattered to me right now.
Scythe and I moved quickly across the walkway and into the next hall. There was one guy on the ground, rolling around holding his head in agony, so I put a bullet in him. We were going to have to clear out each room, one by one. I stopped next to the first door, glanced back at Scythe and gave him a nod as I moved slightly to the side.
His boot all but splintered the door and I entered the room, rifle raised. Empty. There was some random furniture scattered around but that was it. I backed out and pointed my weapon down the hallway. There was no one around. They were going to wait for us to come to them. That was fine by me. I’d find them. No matter where they hid, they were dying tonight.
The second door burst open under Scythe’s foot and I moved in. A grunt popped out of my mouth when someone hit me from the side. I dropped my weapon in favor of getting my hands on the fucker. We were exchanging blows when a couple of gunshots went off. I hissed in pain as a round hit my thigh. I’d been shot before. I knew what it felt like, so I didn’t need to look down to know what’d happened. There wasn’t time anyway because the fucker I was fighting with had pulled his knife.
Fuck this shit.
I let go of him and pulled my pistol from my holster and put two rounds in his chest. He stared in shock down at the blood pumping out of his body. “Don’t bring a knife to a fucking gun fight,” I told him.
Scythe pulled a couple of magazines off the dead body in the corner, the asshole who’d shot me. “You’re going to need to take care of that.”
