Page 80 of Life Or Death

Dread steps forward, clapping Nightmare on the shoulder. “I tried to warn you, you stubborn son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, well, half the shit that comes out of your mouth is bullshit,” Nightmare mutters, pressing the napkins back to his nose.

My eyes connect with his. “We good?”

He jerks his chin. “Yeah. I’ll send you the bill for my plastic surgeon.”

“Don’t bother,” Dread interjects. “He’s tapped out on funds, and polygamy is illegal in Oklahoma.”

I wish I would’ve broken his nose instead of Nightmare’s. The tension starts to bleed out of my shoulders, and I round up the guys.

“We’re burning daylight,” I tell them. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

By the time we roll up on the warehouse outside Nuevo Laredo, the sky has gone black. The building sits at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by nothing but brush and a rusted chain-link fence. No lights. No guards posted outside.

We park the bikes a quarter mile out and go in on foot, moving through the brush in a staggered line. Shadow takes point. I hang back, my .45 already drawn, my thumb resting against the safety. We breach the side door, surprising the motherfuckers who stole our shit, and gunfire explodes.

Round after round.

Body after body.

Blood sprays across corrugated metal and pools on the floor.

By the time the last shot echoes and the ringing in my ears starts to subside, the warehouse is quiet except for the hum of a generator and the drip of something leaking from a pipe in the ceiling.

I stand in the middle of it, my chest heaving, my gun still warm in my hand. The bodies are scattered across the floor—eight, maybe nine of them. Hard to tell when some of them are in pieces.

Tormentor moves past me toward the back wall where the stolen hardware is stacked on metal shelving. Rifles. Ammo crates. He runs his hand along the stock and lets out a low whistle.

“Everything’s here,” he says.

I holster my weapon and turn to Shadow. “Get the van.”

He nods and disappears through the side door, and I hear the engine cough to life a moment later. Tormentor is already stacking crates by the entrance. Behind me, Dread, Mammon, and Nightmare are rolling bodies into tarps. The thick plastic crinkles as they work, and the sound mixes with the heavy drag of dead weight across concrete. Nightmare’s nose is still swollen and purple, but he doesn’t complain.

This is the shit we live and breathe for.

I step away from the carnage, moving toward the far wall where the generator hums. The stench of gunpowder and copper is thick as I reach into my cut and pull out my phone to call Jess and tell her I’m coming home.

Again, she doesn’t answer.

My jaw tightens, and I stare at the phone, my mind racing. The first time it was easy to make an excuse for why she was ignoring my call. This time, not so much. So I call Homeboy.

He picks up on the second ring.

“Prez?”

“Everything good there?” I growl.

“Yeah,” he says. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Where’s Jess?”

He pauses for a beat, and my gut twists. “She left a little while ago. Was she supposed to stick around?”

My fingers tighten around the phone. “What do you mean she left? Did you drive her home?”

“Nah, man. I offered, but she had her friend pick her up.”