He laughs and we walk to a truck parked at the edge of the lot. “Honestly, I was surprised when you wanted to stay in this place. My cousin says it doesn’t get much traffic though.”
“It’s a good spot. I appreciate you suggesting it.”
“The wife doesn’t mind?”
“It was her idea.”
He nods, his smile fading. “She’s probably not used to all that fancy shit you like.”
“She’ll get there.” We pause at the end of the truck bed and look out at the Otel Eaven. I drink the cheap, hot coffee, and there’s still a piece of me in the room with Nika. I wish I could shake that feeling like there’s a tether around my chest, but my thoughts keep straying to her. Tugged back to where they belong.
“The soundstage isn’t far from here. About twenty minutes north.”
“How’s the security?”
“About what you’d expect from Aslan. Drones, electronics, shit like that.” He pauses and takes a drink, staring across the lot. “Shouldn’t be a problem though.”
“We fucked up once and underestimated him. We can’t do it a second time.”
“Whole crew in the area’s going on this hit. But I think you should know—“ He cuts his eyes to me, his smile gone. “Marat’s there too.”
I tighten my grip on my coffee, nearly spilling it. “I thought that fucker survived. He should be bleeding in a goddamn ditch right now.”
“We’ll take him too.”
“I want him. I owe the bastard.”
“He’s all you then.” Daniel pats the side of the truck. “Ready when you are.”
I gaze back at the room where my wife is still asleep. I’m about to ride into fire, but I’m thinking about her lips wrapped around my cock, about her moans, about her body arching into mine. And about the soft, embarrassed, self-conscious way she acted after, like she was afraid she did something wrong.
When in reality, she was so good it fucked me up.
“Let’s get moving.”
An hour drivenorth of Hollywood on the 14. The city spreads out until there’s more scrub and canyon than buildings. The caravan splits when we’re a few minutes away and half my crew circles around toward the back of the property. I’m behind the wheel of a truck with Daniel by my side. Three more vehicles are behind us, all filled with our best soldiers, men vicious, violent, and unscrupulous.
“They built this place in the late 90s,” Daniel says as we approach a chain link fence. The road is gravel and dirt. The truck bumps and kicks up stones as I pull off the main thoroughfare and begin skirting the edge. “Went bankrupt around 2008. Been in legal limbo ever since.”
“You did a lot of research on a building.”
“Wanted to make sure we weren’t stumbling into a trap.”
“We’re probably still doing that.”
He shrugs with a faint smile as I pull over the truck. “Probably,” he agrees. “But what’s the other option?”
“We need Aslan.” I take in the structure. It’s not glamorous. The place looks like an old warehouse: big metal walls, huge metal roof, lots of little trees and brush growing around the edges. Vines snake their way up to shattered windows. There are a couple outbuildings, crumbling now. They were probably production offices once.
I get out of the truck and load up from the back. Body armor, tactical gear, rifle. The men around me begin to do the same. No reason to be subtle about it. Aslan’s likely got the entire place wired up with cameras and infrared devices. He probably knows when a mouse takes a shit within a quarter mile.
We’re not hitting him with surprise. We gave that up when we burned down that building.
Now I’m going with overwhelming-fucking-force.
“Job’s simple,” I tell the gathered, hardened killers. Twelve of them in total, plus two more squads of twelve surrounding the place. “We go in. We find Aslan. We kill him and anyone who gets in the way. If his people put down their weapons and offer tojoin our crew, we’ll take them as prisoners. Otherwise, kill, loot, take what you want, do what you need to do. We get through this richer and one more step to true power.”
I know my audience. These men aren’t here because they believe in some ethical crusade. They’re not believers.
