Page 58 of Cutter's Hope

Seemed like the Louisiana sky decided it wanted to match my mood and the circumstances we all found ourselves in and I was totally okay with that.

26

Cutter…

We stood around one of the gaming tables at the Voodoo Bastard’s clubhouse and looked over the sheets of butcher paper. Atlas had roughed out the property on the surface of one sheet and we were deciding how best to proceed.

The cameras were a problem. We didn’t know if they were closed circuit or not and we were waiting on some communications from one of the Voodoo Bastards who was a security systems guy by day. He’d been texted some pictures of the cameras and it was going to be one of the deciding factors on how we played this. Cameras or no cameras we wouldn’t be going in flying colors. The whole point to this was to get in, get the girl; get out and to go the fuck home.

Ruth’s phone rang and he wandered off from the table and returned a moment later, “Not closed circuit, the feed goes somewhere off site. My guy says it’ll be easy to jam the signal, he can be here in a few hours with a device.”

I shot Ruth a thumbs up and we made plans on how to breach the place. It was a white, one story house, pretty sizeable. Maybe a two bedroom one bath. There wasn’t really any telling the inside layout from the outside. What we did know was there were two doors, one in front and one in back. A long drive to the left of the house as you faced it, led right past it and into the back yard where there was some kind of outbuilding, from what we’d been able to see, which wasn’t much, it looked like it could be a two car garage.

The front door had a broad front stoop painted red, with some brick accent columns about knee height at the bottom and two more waist height at the top of the step. It was a bottle neck at the bottom before widening some at the top. Still there was only room for about two men on the front step and the back wasn’t much better.

The back of the house had a thin decorative iron rail around the back stoop. The advantage was the back windows, even though there were a lot of ‘em, were painted over from the inside. So we may not be able to see in, but they couldn’t really see out either. Some of the local boys had some guesses to the layout of the house based on their experience living in some of similar make around these parts all their life.

Hex and La Croix both agreed that the back probably went right into the kitchen, the bank of windows on three sides to the right of the kitchen door was probably what passed as a dining area. No telling if there was a wall or just an archway leading into the living room from there but they cautioned us to look sharp and try not to shoot our own boys if we breached front and back simultaneously which was the plan.

I looked across the expanse of table at Hope who was a study in concentration and tension. She wanted to go and she wanted to gonowbut she was hanging in there. She met my gaze and gave me a cool nod and I gave it to her back.

Before we rode out, we split into teams, I would go in the front with Pyro and Marlin. Hope was taking the back with Radar, Atlas, and Beast while Ruth and his boys secured the outbuilding.

Trike would keep the crash truck running and watch the bikes along with one of the Voodoo Bastard’s prospects and we would try and keep this neat and clean. Like I said, we wanted to get in, get out and get on with it. Nothing was our rear guard, and was on watch to alert us to any incoming trouble from the road, cops included. All of me and mine were retrofitted in body armor from the crash truck. Hope was making due with a vest a size too big but it couldn’t be helped, at least it was black and matched the rest of her.

I adjusted one of the Velcro straps on my tan vest and tightened it up. We were riding out in three vans with the crash truck bringing up the rear and each of us were as strapped as you could make us. There was no riding through town with as armed and ready as we were and not drawing attention so cargo vans rented under assumed names was the way to go on this one.

We loaded up and rode out, Hope and I agreeing that it was in our best interest to divide and conquer in this instance. I wanted so badly to be able to watch her back but I trusted and believed in my guys. They would watch her six as if it were my own and if they didn’t, well then they knew the consequences of that. I wasn’t going to have it any other way…

27

Hope…

Adrenaline started to surge through me as soon as the door on the van shut. I used every bit of my training to quash it down. Deep, steady breathing, it helped until we turned onto River Road in Saint Rose, then my heart picked up again.

“Okay, their signal is gonna be jammed as soon as you throw back the doors,” Ruth’s security guy, Spec turned around in the passenger seat and smiled, waving a device with a switch on it no bigger than an RC car controller and looking suspiciously like one. I nodded and pulled my Ruger. We rolled to a stop and Spec threw the switch, I looked forward, Radar nodded, I nodded back and he threw open the van door. I was out into the deepening twilight with Atlas and Beast riding my six. I hit the ground and moved swiftly. A man came around the side of the house as we strode down the driveway and I rose, aimed and fired in one fluid movement. The shot hit center mass and he flew back. As I passed him I put one in his forehead just to be sure.

Shouting in the house, Beast passed me and we heard Cutter’s cue. Fast and faster, that was how this needed to be done. Beast let fly with a massive booted foot and the door flew open on its hinges. I followed his breech and put one in each man sitting at the table to my right before they even got up and that’s when shit got real. A bat or stick or something crashed into my arm from above, my nerveless fingers dropped the Ruger and I let muscle memory take over.

I ducked and came at him up and under, my shoulder connecting with his solar plexus, but this was bad. Real bad, I needed to back off. Disengage before he got me. Shouting, screaming, guns going off in the front of the house but I was engaged and in it to win it. His elbow crashed down between my shoulder blades andfuckthat hurt! I went down and Atlas or Radar, one of them popped him. He jolted back, once, twice a third time before falling to his knees in front of me.

I rose, knife drawn and ran it across his throat for good measure. I moved past him deeper into the house, I kicked the door directly in front of me open and plastered myself to the wall to the side, Radar had his gun raised and at the ready but lowered it. I ducked around the corner and looked into a bathroom done in god awful turquoise. A girl, maybe mid- twenties was crouched in the bathtub hands raised shaking and crying. Not my sister.

“Stay down,” I told her.

Radar passed me up and lined up to breach the next door, I could see Cutter just past him waiting for Marlin to breach the last door up the hall. I nodded and Radar and Marlin let fly simultaneously.

These doors were padlocked from the outside. I went in low since I didn’t have a gun, Atlas right on my ass, aiming for corners, he fired at the dude in the center of the room and I felt wet rain down on me as my knife buried deep in his groin. Blood, hot, slick and wet ran down over my hands and he fell back, crashing like a felled tree. There were two girls to either side on dirty twin mattresses. The dude in here with them was obviously sampling the merchandise which made my gorge rise and stab him a few times out of pure fury and hatred.

The two girls in this room were crying the one on the right trying to cover her naked lower half with her hands. I looked at their faces, really looked and finally the one on the left looked back. We froze for an instant…

Faith…

My sister’s aquamarine eyes stared out at me from the days old cruddy makeup smeared around her eyes. I sheathed my knife and held out my hands to her and realizing they were bloody, did my best to wipe them on my pants.

“Faith…” I tried and she stared at me with confusion. Her pupils dilated to where there was barely any color.

“Faith?” I tried again and went to her and she started to cry again. Big wracking sobs that hitched her too thin shoulders in her dirty skin tight dress.

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