“I—”
“My house, my rules.” Rock’s voice may have been mild, but there was no mistaking the order in his statement. “Get your family back first, then deal
with the other shit. Right now, we need every damn gun we can get to rescue them, got it?”
Castello nodded, he agreed with Rock, but was torn, as he totally got where Axel was coming from too. “He’s right Axe, when we get them home I’ll even hold them for you so you can kick the shit outta the younger one.”
“Right.” Rock snorted, “Azrael will love that. Not.”
Azrael? Huh?Castello frowned at Rock. “I thought his name was Malik.”
“Yup,” Rock grinned. “He’s called that too. You will hear both names here, so it’s best that you know who the guys are talking about. C’mon, war room.” He turned and walked away, thumping his fist on the door of the room assigned to Ambra as he passed it. “My guys have been working on some recon.”
“You good?” Castello knew this must all be weird or kinda surreal for Axel. Maybe like he woke up and landed in some action movie or video game. He had gone over and back in his mind. Chewed on it and given himself a sleepless night trying to figure out if he should bring Axel with them on this mission or not. Then he’d had to do some very fast talking to the General to get permission to bring him. Now that they were here in Rock’s Dreamworld safehouse, he felt justified in going toe to toe with his superior officer to make it happen. Axel was safe here; like the dormant volcano this place was built in, it was pretty much impregnable. Still, there was no way a civilian, even one who grew up rough in a 1% club like Axel had, should have been allowed to come.
Ahead of them, Grif appeared through a door, before closing it behind him.
“That corridor is off limits.” Rock said. “If anyone goes in, they are not coming out again. Got it?”
“Sure,” Castello figured that was the family wing, or the location where Rock and his team guys had their quarters.
“The codes don’t work there anyway. But if by chance any of your men manage to bypass them, their ass is mine.” Rock demanded, but with just enough respect that Castello knew none of his team would object. He himself would demand the same given a similar set of circumstances.
“Of course.” He allowed Rock to lead them deeper into the—hell, Cas didn’t know what he could call it, building, volcano, safe house. It didn’t matter what name the premises had. It only mattered that it was their base of
operations.
“War room.” Rock announced as he punched in a code on the box next to the metal door.
“Wow.” Castello whistled as the door opened to reveal a massive communications room in the cavernous central room beneath the metal catwalk they stood on now. Computers buzzed, lit up maps lined one massive wall, and screens filled with satellite images took up most of another.
“Holy shit, Boss, I quit.” Sage leaned over the railing. “Rock, wanna be my new Boss?”
Castello swatted his former Delta teammate on the back of the head.
“Idiot.”
“Nope, Razlaff, not a damn chance. I have enough people busting my balls over damn phones without adding another to the mix.” Rock snorted,
“Cade?” At Rock’s bellow all the people working in the room below them looked up for a brief second before turning back to their computers.
“Here, Boss.” The man they all recognized as the one who had spent time helping Sage research intel on the cartel and on Marc Colgan appeared from under a desk covered in wires and a whole lot of techie shit that he was pretty sure would give Sage a hard on for a month. “Just setting up for, Sage.” He dusted off his hands, “It’s ready.”
“It’s for me?” Sage was practically vibrating with excitement to get his hands on all the ‘good’ toys.
“Yup.” Rock nodded, “Cade has set you up so you can connect into any of the satellites or databases you need to.”
“Fuck, I think I love you,” Sage pushed past Rock, his laptop case still in his hand. Rafe and Balas followed them down. They disappeared around a bend in the spiral staircase. Within seconds a crash followed by metal pings had everyone, including the men in the room below, pulling weapons and turning toward the noise.
“Lynx?” Castello bellowed for Sage and Rafe, his sig pointed directly at Rock. Had he fucked up in trusting this man?
“Clear, Boss,” Rafe yelled back. “Balas knocked over the swear jar with his tail and about nine hundred motherfuckers escaped.”
“Stand down,” Rock yelled at his guys, before gesturing to the gun Castello held in his hand. “You planning on shooting me?” He gazed past Castello’s shoulder. “G will take you out before you finish squeezing the trigger.”
“Don’t you worry about Grif, Cas,” Axel called, “If he moves an inch, I’ll give his kidney’s some air.”
“I thought we were brothers, man,” Grif grumbled.
