Page 49 of Devil's Due: Sarge

Giving her arms a squeeze, I turn around to walk out the door, leaving the woman behind for the moment. Vlad follows close. We mount our bikes, making sure to completely clear the gated community before we contact the rest of the brothers. Now it’s time to pull the plan together.

The group converges on Rumble again. In the back corner, where we’d sat earlier, Vlad turns the floor to me. “We’re going in for an extraction. Tonight.” Then I excuse myself for just a moment to walk over to another table and swipe the squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard. We’ve got a napkin dispenser at our table.

I use the condiments to draw a map. The brothers need to know the layout of the house and where exactly Greer’s room is located. They’d spent their time getting familiar with the neighborhood.

We wait out the night at Rumble, closing it down, but staying completely sober. We’d ordered pitchers of beer to drink to not get kicked out, but only drank sodas. Finally, the brothers and I load into the expensive, black SUV and take the road back to Greer’s subdivision.

All these houses have security systems, flood lights, dogs, and even armed men. During their surveillance, my brothers sussed out the houses without dogs or armed men and calculated at what point the flood lights stopped at the edge of each property.

Guns out, we jog single-file through the different properties until we reach the back most edge of Greer’s family’s property. The men break, taking up defensive positions, staying hidden. Yes, we’re bikers, but we go at this mission as a military action. This was my job for ten years.

The easiest access into Greer’s room from the outside comes from a small balcony attached to the east wall. A pair of French doors leads inside her room. Although there’re no trees or trellises nearby, the wall is covered with a flowering ivy. I’ve worked with less.

The ivy suction cups to the wall with indomitable strength, and that’s what I choose to use to climb up to Greer’s balcony. Although the handholds and footholds are shallow, they’re enough to allow me quick movement up the thick, green ropes provided by nature. Once I’m even with the balcony, I roll my body forward over the railing, continuing to roll until I do a complete summersault and push up on my feet.

From there, it’s just a matter of opening the door. Without verbal instruction, going solely on the promise that I’d be coming for her, she left the door unlocked for me. Quietly, I creep over to the bed, only to find her sitting up, legs crossed and folded in front of her. She’s wearing her jeans, tennis shoes and a sweatshirt, along with her black leather backpack. Hair back into a ponytail. She’s ready to run.

“Took you long enough,” she teases in a whisper. I nod, reaching my hand out to grasp hers. Together, we make our way back over to the door and out onto the small balcony. I shut the door quietly.

“We’re going down the ivy. I’m going first, then you follow. That way, if you slip, you’ll fall into me—okay?”

She smiles at me, leans in to peck a quick kiss to my lips, and motions with her eyes for me to get moving. Climbing over the railing, I slide down a bit and wait. She appears a little hesitant, eyeing the ivy and then down to the ground. But once she brings her eyes back to me, she nods and throws her leg over the railing, searching out a foothold to take her weight. When she finds it, she balances herself with a handhold. Secure enough, she brings her other leg over, and lastly her second hand.

I give her the chance to get a feel for the plants beneath her, then I begin moving or risk plucking the ivy from the strong suction it has on the wall. With every one of my movements, she echoes that above me until I finally touch ground and immediately, reach up to capture her waist, helping her down the last few steps.

Glock drawn again, suppresser in place, the brothers fall in line following us, in position to fight for Greer with their lives. There’s war in the air tonight. I smell it. We’re almost to the homestretch when the bottom drops out of the mission in the form of an object projectiling through the air. People think a silencer doesn’t give off noise, but it does. And especially in the still dead of the night. I shove Greer into Vlad’s arms and whispergo.

Half the brothers break to protect Vlad and Greer. All this takes mere moments. A second shot pierces the night and I can’t pick out the direction it’s coming from, only that I hear Dark’s whispered cry of, “Shit,” and I know he’s been hit.

“Dark,” I bark, still whispering. “Dark. Status.”

“Shoulder. Sucks, but I’ll live.”

“Head for the truck,” I order.

Only his footfalls sound for the briefest moments before more silenced gunfire rips through the air. As we fight, we run, bent low, trying to keep the enemy from being able to see us.

It’s too late by the time I seehim, the slightest glint off the gun in the moonlight from the man peeking around a palm. I aim and fire right before the bullet strikes me between my neck and shoulder. I begin to stumble, shaking off the dizziness in time to see that my bullet struck true, plunging right between that fucker’s eyes.

He drops.

Sweat. Pain. The echoing voices of my brothers. I shake it off, determined to make it back to the truck on my own, although every step has me swallowing back the bile rising in my throat.

Dammit.I stumble the final steps and end up falling against the SUV. Vlad swings open the door. “Sarge,” he shouts, though he’s still whispering, and then there’s Greer hopping out of the back.

“No,” she cries. “No…”

It’s all I have to lift my hand to her cheek. I hurt so bad. She and Vlad help me inside the back.

“Lean against me,” she says. “There won’t be enough room for you to lie down.”

Roughneck has the truck started as we wait for the others to join us. One by one, the rest of the brothers emerge from the shadows. Besides Dark, Reaper got one in the shoulder and one in the thigh.

“Flesh wounds,” he says, though I can clearly see they’re not.

“He took the one in the thigh covering me.” Dark grits his teeth. He’s in pain, but I seem to have courted the worst of it.

“He’s bleeding everywhere,” Greer calmly tells Roughneck. “Get us to a hospital.”

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