Page 119 of Savage King

“Here,” someone says. I look over. Enrico stands off to my left, dressed in tactical gear.

He’s holding out an iPad. He must’ve broken land-speed records getting here.

Good. He’s the only other bastard I trust not to screw this up.

"What am I..." I drift off, staring at a thermal image of the inside of the warehouse.

"Thirty men on the ground floor, four dots in the basement. I suppose those are the girls and whoever has them." Enrico fills me in.

I don't feel grateful very often, but Enrico just handed me the key to my assault plan. We can obliterate the first floor without the girls being harmed.

"Thank you."

Enrico nods at me grimly, his eyes conveying his understanding. He wouldn't feel any other way if it were Cat down there. "You got it, brother."

I give the command for the snipers to take out the men on Carlos's roof first. The shots are silenced, but in the still of the afternoon, they are audible; thankfully, not enough to be heard inside the warehouse.

Next, Vito, Enrico, and I make our way to the warehouse walls, followed by more of my men and the ones Enrico brought. Everybody else is getting into position, waiting for my command. Enrico also brought comms and earpieces—essential for keeping every team sharp and synced.

"The plan is to roll in hot and shoot indiscriminately. Kill every last one of those bastards, except Carlos and Nestor, they're mine. Capiche?"

"Yes, sir," the men answer as one.

"I can’t talk you out of this?" Vito mutters. He’d rather I stay out of it—but there’s no universe where I sit this one out. Not with the three people I’d burn the world down for on the line. Just then, three SUVs come into view. Their lights are off, and they're accelerating with every inch of ground gained.

"Not a fucking chance," I grin at him. It's been a while since we've seen this kind of action. Getting into the other warehouse had been a piece of cake; this one is a bit more challenging. But nothing we can't handle.

As one, the massive trucks slam into the hangar doors, pushing them in. The sound of grating metal is only disturbed by an explosion coming from the roof and the shouting of men in pain.

The pain is back,as if it had never left. As if I had never left the warehouse where Carlos's men took me the first time. For a frightening moment, I think that maybe everything, including Antonio, has just been a dream, a hallucination, but a soft moan from Gigi tells me otherwise.

Antonio!

Tears burn in my eyes. This is all my fault. I was so damn stupid. I should have just been honest with him and told him about my suspicions. Gigi's pain is on me, just like the deaths of all those men who came to rescue us.

I have no doubt that Antonio will move heaven and hell to find us, but there is no way for him to know where we are. And if anything happens to him… that will be on me too.

"Are you ladies ready for the show? I think this time we're going to have a little bit more fun than last time," Nestor remarks in his polite way.

I already noticed the drain between Gigi's and my feet, the slight slope of the floor, and the dark stains around it. Tears burn in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.

"You know he'll gut you alive?" I snarl.

"He'll have to be alive for that," Nestor replies. "Which one do you want to start with?" he asks his companion.

I was aware of the other man’s arrival, but I've refused to look at him past an initial glance. It had been enough to hear him come down the stairs. All I've seen is that he's a giant—over six feet tall and probably over three hundred pounds. He's wearing a mask, an honest-to-God mask like those henchmen in medieval times, and his scar-covered, muscular torso is naked. I wish I hadn't looked, but I did, and now tremors move through me.

Gigi whimpers next to me. So far, she has been nothing but fearless, but this man… no, he's no man, he's a monster, is the stuff straight out of nightmares. I need to keep it together. I have to be the strong one now, for her, for jellybean.

The Henchman, as I call him, steps forward. He takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger and presses it hard. Through the mask, his blue eyes look dead and cold at me.

"Too much fire still in that one," he says in a hard accent I can't place. Maybe Eastern European. I don't know.

He steps over to Gigi and repeats the process. She hisses, "Bastardo," before she spits in his face, well, in his mask.

"Oh, they’re both fiery ones," the man laughs. "I'll enjoy?—"

Booming sounds from above interrupt whatever he is about to say. He glares through his mask at Nestor, "You led me into a trap?"

---