Page 80 of Our Tricks

Now I was fucking pissed. Rising, I grabbed my wrist and drove my elbow down right over his heart. The blow knocked the air out of him, so I took the stunned moment and throat punched him, making it even harder to catch his breath, following it up with a blow right to his eye, then another and another.

“Dax,” Void bellowed, and his thick arms wrapped around me, hauling me off the bastard. “Enough, little demon, we can’t let you kill him.”

“The fucker came out of nowhere, and you want me to just let him live?” I snarled.

It would seem that the darkness I’d kept locked down tight for so long wasn’t as easy to control anymore. Guess letting it out of its cage wasn’t the best idea. Now I had to learn to manage it differently.

“Holy shit, she’s fucking fast,” someone said, sounding impressed.

Whipping my head around, I found a man dressed in an all-black tactical uniform. “Did you send him after me?”

His green eyes met mine, and he smirked. “Just wanted to confirm you were as badass as everyone said you were.”

“You realize if Void hadn’t stopped me, I’d have killed him,” I pointed out.

This had the man looking slightly guilty. “Okay, so my test had a few flaws, but that’s why you’re here to help us. If we’re gonna take down Marco Tesoro, then we need to get on his level. That’s where you come in.”

“The fuck?” Eagle swore, squaring up to the mysterious man.

“What? It’s not like you guys weren’t going to do it on your own, except now you’ll have our help,” he offered with a shrug. “Names Corbin, by the way. I’m the leader of a special ops team whose sole purpose is to take Marco down, aka Operation Desert Lion.”

“Nope,” I said, wiggling out of Void’s hold. “Not gonna happen. You and your team can fuck off and leave the job for people who know how to deal with sort of thing. Right now, all I’m getting from you is some gym bro, frat boy who wants to play secret agent.”

“Yeah, sorry, Dax, but that isn’t gonna happen,” Corbin commented before he let out a shrill whistle, and thirty men popped out of various places with their guns raised and pointed at us.

“Come on,” I screamed, stomping my foot. “Why me? Why does this shit always happen to me? Fuck, I could make a fortune if I sold my story to a screenwriter because you can’t make this shit up.”

Corbin walked up to his guy who I’d wiped the ground with and motioned for one of the others to grab him. “Hedrek, take him to the doc and have him checked out. As for the rest of us, why don’t we head to the house, and I can explain what’s going on? I’ll even make as much coffee as it takes.”

Crossing my arms, I looked at the guys, and they looked at me. None of us had an idea of how to get the fuck out of this mess other than to do as he asked.

“I suppose we should hear them out. They’ve gone to quite the trouble to make this happen,” Cam reasoned.

Sprocket nodded in agreement. “Who knows, maybe they have a better plan than we do, and it will save us from all the work we’d have to do.”

Not at all happy about it, I groaned and gestured for Corbin to lead the way. “I’m gonna need coffee before I’ll listen to anything you have to say. It’s been one hell of a morning.”

Chapter 28

Dax

We were sitting in the basement of the cute little rustic farmhouse that had a secret bunker under it with all the latest and greatest modern technology. The only good thing was the huge-ass mug I had in my hands. I think it might have been meant for soup, but right now, it was giving me life.

Corbin stood at the head of a large conference table as well as three of his men who had joined us. The rest were doing whatever super Secret Squirrel shit in another room with a fuck ton of screens. Of course, we weren’t allowed to know what they were doing or enter the room since we didn’t have clearance or some shit. It’s not like we fucking asked to be brought in on this bullshit.

“So are you going to tell us what the fuck made you drag us all the way out here for?” Eagle growled out.

Corbin held up his hands. “You guys really need to chill. I get that this wasn’t how you saw this day going, and none of you want to be involved with the government, so to speak, but that’s where you’ve got it all wrong. The CIA doesn’t have any rights or grounds to do anything in the US. We operate outside the borders and take down the assholes like Marco who are causing chaos in the world.”

Cam snorted. “Pretty story. Now tell us what you’re really up to.”

“Look, you took the win from the FBI when you took down Diego and put in your own choice. Now Tommaso, we can live with… he’s got morals and wants to do better than his shitty old man. If only all his kids were like Alvaro and Tommaso, but they’re not. Franco is now the FBI’s problem, but I’m left dealing with Marco and Martin, who are a massive problem,” Corbin explained.

“Seriously, tell us something we don’t already know,” Sprocket said, his tone bored.

Corbin rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to be contemplating how he would say this next part. Then I figured it out. “You don’t have a fucking clue where either of them are, do you? I’m sorry, are you telling me that my band of criminals has outsmarted the CIA? How can you not know?”

“Fine, you want me to be real with you,” Corbin snapped. “We’re the second team to be put on this mission because the first one got massacred. Marco left a trail of breadcrumbs, and they followed them right into an ambush where they were slaughtered. They weren’t going to send another team after him until Black here started his criminal task force with arch-enemy number one leading the charge,” he announced, pointing a finger at me. “The FBI didn’t know what to do with you, but we couldn’t step in because I knew what you were doing, and we couldn’t do it ourselves. No involvement within the borders at all.”