Page 50 of Micro
Stitch shrugged, clearly having given that possibility some thought too.
“Plan stays the same. We get the rest of the guys to finish them off, extract the ladies, and we patch them over by force.”
Twenty-Eight
Itwasagroupof grim faces on the former brothers who were waiting for us. Rocket and Stag looked like they didn’t know whether to say hi, or gut punch me, and Has, Torch, and Ryder looked wary, but I think they were more concerned about the kid we were here to rescue. Has and Torch must have left as soon as they dumped me with Reacher, since they were still stripping off their cuts, and locking them in the van.
“What’s the plan? You seen the kid?”
Has glared at me, and opened his mouth to yell something, but Ryder waved him down.
“Ordinarily, I’d be the one taking the lead here, but you’re the expendable one, so let’s see what you’ve got.”Expendable. Yeah, I think I’d figured that one out already, but thanks for the reminder.
“Eyes on the fucking kid?” I hissed at him in response, squeezing Soph’s good hand. I’d wanted her to stay in the van, but she was a stubborn goddess, and wanted to stay with me. And hell, I didn’t want to think of it like this, but her sister would need her, hopefully only as a familiar face, but who knew at this point.
“They’ve been keeping her out in the open by that fire pit, but they’ve been taunting her or something, because she’s crying.”
“And you left her there?”
Has took an aggressive step in my direction, but Torch halted him, with an arm across his chest.
“Focus on saving the kid,” I heard him murmur, while Ryder stepped closer to me.
“We’ve got Nick closer up with a scope, watching them. They’re not hurting her, but we need to move fast. We couldn’t go in before, because there were too many of them too close to her, but there are more of us now, so we have a better chance of subduing them.”
“Shoulda asked the fucking mafia bastards to send a guy with a sniper rifle,” I said off handedly, as I turned to the weapon stash in the van, and palmed a couple of knives.
“Sniper rifle?” Soph gasped, and I turned to comfort her, but she looked intrigued rather than upset.
“Babe,” I started, but Ryder interrupted again.
“Two problems with that idea, smart-arse. First off, the mafia care more about violence and winning than they do about rescuing one girl, and secondly, they’ll take over after, and we want the club.”
I hesitated, and he smirked. “You clean it up, burn it to the ground, and we’ll let a decent club rise from the ashes.” Fucking hell. A new Phoenix fucking club, that’s what he’s talking about. It was all he could have meant by that.
“They all die,” I declared, and he shrugged, like it wasn’t that big a deal.
“There are still twenty of them, and there are only six of us going in, with Tommy holding the van, and Nick staying in watch position.Here.” He handed me an earpiece, and one to Soph, and I raised my eyebrows.
“Been learning from Rossi?”
He ignored me, and turned to talk to the others, so I helped Soph insert the earpiece, and immediately we heard Ice’s fucking unpleasantly snide voice, right in our damn ears where we couldn’t escape it.
“They’re moving inside, but two are holding the girl outside. Could be a trap, have you fuckers been made already? You had one fucking job!”
Nick’s voice followed.“They’re unloading some shit into the building, I think it’s just a delivery.”
Soph frowned at me. “I haven’t made a delivery, so they must have another supplier of whatever that is.” Shit. That could mean another whole fucking enemy here, but we couldn’t worry about that right now.
“We move now,” I said firmly, “and I’m taking the lead. I will make these fuckers bleed. Soph, you bring up the rear, and you get your sister out, but that's all. Are these ear things two way?” I pointed at my ear, and Ice responded.
“No, we bought the budget version, fuckhead. Ry, check your phone, I’m sending over a map of the area, there’s a fence and a route alongside that building that looks clear. I can’t see cameras from the overhead view, but who knows.”
Overhead view? I frowned at Ry, and he snorted.
“Drone. We’ve gone high tech since you faked your death.” Faked my death.Asshole.
Still, the time for talking was over. I tucked several knives into my pockets, my cargo pants being the ideal choice for my well armed body. There were even a few handguns waiting, and ammo, but I preferred the sneak and bleed approach. I grabbed Soph, and slammed my lips against hers, kissing her hard, in case this would be the last time.
