Page 76 of Tank
It’s a question, a statement, and a resignation all in one; I don’t blame him. I was supposed to be on a simple recon mission. He thought I was just here to scout, not open a bakery, live out a dream, and fall head over heels in love.
I sigh. “Got anyone near Boise?”
“Havoc, Mayhem, and Diesel are an hour out in Ontario. I was already suspicious since you’d gone dark, sent them out just in case. Didn’t expect this level of clusterfuck. Who the hell trained you?”
“Only the best and brightest in the United States Government,” I say. “And don’t just send those three. Send everyone. This is gonna get messy.”
“I’ll call everyone,” Rabid says. “You’d better be worth the mileage.”
He hangs up, the line going dead like a final judgment, his words still ringing in my ears — maybe I’m not worth the mileage, who the fuck knows, but Bianca Moretti sure is.
I look at Ricky, sitting there pale but steady, gauging the determination in his eyes as something solid and fierce. This kid will not back down. He’s in it until the fucking end.
“What now?” he says. “We have to get Vanessa and Bianca out of there. We have to save them. How long till backup gets here?”
“Not long. But you and I aren’t waiting.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, challenging and fierce. “I’m not afraid to die if it means saving Vanessa.”
I nod. “Good man. But before we go in, you’ve got to ask yourself one thing.”
He lifts his chin. “What’s that?”
I dig around in one of my cabinets, searching through the clutter until I find a spare leather cut. It’s unadorned, a leather-working project I’d kept around for those times where my hands got busy and I didn’t feel like baking. It ain’t much, but it’ll do. This one’s for him. I hold it out. “Do you want to die as Ricky DeMarco, former dealer and current apprentice baker? Or do you want to die as part of a brotherhood?”
Ricky stares at me for just a moment before he nods. Then he takes the vest. Slips it on. “You want me to prospect?”
“I can’t patch you in. But you make it through this — I’ll be proud to call you brother.”
He nods, a determined glint hardening in his gaze. “Then let’s go to war, brother.”
Chapter Forty
Bianca
Vanessa’s body contorts next to me, seizing with violent tremors. She’s shaking in a way that sets my heart to panic. Foaming at the mouth. Her limbs thrash uncontrollably, and I know — I goddamn know what’s happening. A gurgling sound fills the air, wet and terrifying, as vomit spills from her lips. I gasp, frozen for an awful second as I watch her whole body riotously shut down. Her skin pales until it's a ghastly gray with sick shades of blue. Her eyelids flutter rapidly, then slower, then not at all. Her breathing is a ragged, stuttering mess. It sounds like it’s tearing her apart. It sounds like it’s stopping.
I scream. Her name. A wordless cry. Anything. Fuck, I can’t think. I’ve got to do something. I thrash against the ropes, cutting bone-deep into my wrists.
“Vanessa!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Victor, you motherfucker! You fucking monster! You goddamn sicko!”
Victor stands a few feet away with the same detached indifference he has for everything. Casual and calm as ever, like he’s watching a comedy show instead of murder.
“She’s dying!” I shriek, each word shredding from my throat. “You killed her!”
He just smirks. It’s the same smug, reptilian smirk he wore when we were kids, the one he always had when he got away with something. Like that time he stole my favorite doll, chopped off the arms and legs, and lit the torso on fire with the lighter fluid he broke out of our dad’s zippo lighter.
“Relax, little sister. I’ve got Narcan in my jacket.”
I freeze in mid-scream, the sound stuck in my throat.
He taps his chest pocket. “So do most of my guys. Can’t run a stable full of talent without keeping the emergency meds close by. Girls like Vanessa… they get sloppy sometimes. Just because they might wear a nurse’s uniform on the job, doesn’t mean they’ve got a nurse’s injecting skills, you know?”
I feel my stomach twist into a knot. Nausea rushes up, and I think I might vomit. If he were closer, I swear I would, just to see the flicker of disgust on his face. Just to see something human other than the smug look of a sick, twisted killer getting his kicks.
“Then give it to her!” I scream, straining against the chair until my muscles feel like they’re on fire. Every inch of me aches.
Victor walks slowly, deliberately, to Vanessa’s body and crouches down beside her. His hand brushes a sweat-slick strand of hair away from her face. He watches her like a kid examining a frog in science class, like there’s an answer he needs to find before he bothers to save her.
