Page 92 of Unveiled Wounds

“I got it, pussy.” Cyph’s fingers flew over the keys. “It’s highly illegal to jam the signal in the fucking thing, but you don’t see me complaining. Give me a sec, and it’ll be down.”

The wind immediately died down.

“You’re the one sitting in your room, and you have the nerve to call me a pussy. You wouldn’t say that shit to my face.” Op was hot.

“Yeah, I would,” Cyph said. “Hang on, I got movement.”

Silence settled over the club. The wait was excruciatingly painful.

“Yeah, round two is here. I don’t know how this is going to play out. There are cartel soldiers in camo approaching our fences in quadrant two,” Cyph said. “They look like they have shotguns.”

“If that’s true, don’t get close,” Chef quipped. “Our vests can’t handle a shotgun shell unless it’s buckshot. No matter what, it hurts like a bitch—speaking from experience.”

“Fucking fools. They’re trying to cut the fence with wire cutters, but if we rush them, we might keep them to the outside. That’s not chicken wire out there.” Cyph fed us updates.

“Cyph, check the front gate. We reset in quadrant one, but I feel like someone’s watching us from across the street,” Count came in.

“How the fuck did that happen? It’s like soldiers appeared in every quadrant out of thin air.”

“Headshots,” Sabre said definitively. “We defend what’s ours, and we’ll call the clean-up crew later.”

My gun was in my hand before he finished. Our communication went silent as we waited for the right moment to attack. The trees didn’t have a fenced-in area, and if I survived this, it would be one of the first things I upgraded. Flattening my back against the nearest tree, I crouched, waiting until I heard shuffling creeping towards me.

The first shot rang out somewhere on the property, and I used it as the signal to move. They had denied me a fight in the first round, and I wouldn’t miss out again.

I remained low to the ground, listening to the soldier come closer to me. The drone had kicked up enough wind that it had knocked some leaves off the trees, and the soldier wasn’t stealthy. His boots crunched them with every step. When he was right on top of me, I hit him with a clothesline, following him to the ground.

It was a scramble of limbs, and I didn’t give him enough room to fire his shotgun. However, there wasn’t enough space for me to get a headshot in. The guns went flying as we traded hit for hit. I punched. He tried to lock in some submission move, but neither one of us got the best of the other.

I was trying to rip his head off when I heard my name in my earpiece.

“Don’t move, Grizz.” A shot rang out from above me, and I watched as the soldier hit the ground, dead. It must have been a brother in the deer stands, but I didn’t stop to ask.

I looked for the gun I had thrown in the fight, but as I searched the area, another soldier came running at me. Tucking in behind the tree, I hoped he would run past me, but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

He fired two shots. The first one I watched hit the tree in front of me, and the second barely clipped the tree I was standingbehind. Ducking, I let the gunshots sounding around me drown out any noise I made as the soldier approached. Using the tree, I crept around the other side, jumping on his back as I took him down with my weight.

When I hit his arm against the ground, he loosened his grip on the shotgun. It went flying forward, out of reach of the soldier. He tried to flip me over his back, but I had at least thirty pounds on him. Grabbing his hair, I drove his face into the ground repeatedly while sitting on his back. His nose crunched as his hands waved around, but in this position, he wasn’t able to reach for me. The extra weight didn’t give him a fair chance. Yanking his hair in a tight grip, I bent him backwards, waiting for his neck to snap. The sound didn’t disappoint as he dropped back to the ground. Dead.

I grabbed the shotgun before quickly searching for my gun. Finding it, I put the safety on and slid it into the back of my pants. We probably needed to buy holsters in case something like this ever happened again.

I didn’t see anyone heading my way, but I also didn’t want to move inadvertently out of my sector. Waiting, I listened to various fights going on. The brothers were standing on business, and I was proud to wear the patch.

The action was dying down when, suddenly, there was a loud scream. My body immediately went on high alert.

“Prez!” It had been too high-pitched to determine which brother it was.

“Yeah, baby!” Pretty was excited. “Wreck just bagged a hostage.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Sabre rang out.

“Hang on. Wreck’s a little busy right now,” Pretty answered. “Hey, Twig, are you close to us? We’re in quadrant two, on the right side.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a second.”

The chatter died down, and all I heard were the sounds of a scuffle.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Sabre asked if everything was alright. I could tell he hated not knowing what was going on.

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