“Alright, alright,” I interjected, waving him off before he could cross any lines. “No more talking about my wife.”
Benedikt chuckled and returned to his papers with a shit-eating grin. “All I have to say is, she must be one brave woman to get past that mean mug of yours.”
“Shut up, will you?”
Before he could say anything else, shouting came from the first floor of the warehouse, and immediate gunfire volleyed back and forth, echoing all around us.
Looking at Ben in confusion as the sound continued, realization set in, and we were both on our feet in an instant.
“For fuck's sake,” I muttered, drawing my pistol as we ran out of my office.
It never seemed to fail. Right when everything was operating smoothly and moving as it should, we still couldn’t seem to shake the constant interruptions.
“Who do you think it is this time?” he asked as he followed behind me, focused on the path ahead.
“Doesn’t matter until we stop them.”
We rushed down the iron steps and hurried through the warehouse, watching as our guys flooded out the bay door. With their guns raised, they fired at the assailants, shouting their usual commands and finding their places.
Given how often it happened, it was protocol to run through the necessary drills to make sure everyone knew where to go and what the main priorities were every time something of this nature happened.
Most of the action was outside, our men aiming for several men on foot as they ran back to their vehicles waiting on the lot.
By the time Ben and I made it to the open bay doors, it seemed the outsiders had been chased off with very little force, immediately making me feel suspicious.
The assailants who managed to get away shouted at their drivers to go once they reached the armored SUVs, and they peeled away. The others were either gunned down or tried to leave on foot, too.
But as one of the cars pulled out and sped away, I recognized the man sitting in the passenger seat firing back at our security, seemingly enjoying the action far too much.
It was Dante. Vivian’s brother.
Gritting my teeth, I watched as they rolled out, splitting up the moment they hit the highway.
“Send a group out to trail them!” I shouted as our guys pulled back and assessed the potential damages.
At once, several men did as I said and ran for the nearest vehicle, hopping in before chasing after them.
“What the hell was that about?” Benedikt asked, stepping out as he, too, looked around.
“It has to be Dante leading them,” I said, scrubbing a hand down my face. “I saw him.”
“Sure, that’s likely, but why? What did that possibly accomplish?”
“I have no idea,” I mumbled, walking over to where Kir was busy talking to one of our higher-ups with Ben in tow.
“What were they aiming for?” I demanded, angered by the hit itself, even if our forces defended the place easily enough.
“They snuck into one of our flatbeds. They waited until the truck came here, and they blew the back open, but as far as we can tell, they didn’t take anything or anyone,” Kir said dutifully, getting straight to the point. “Everything’s accounted for.”
At a loss, I looked around in disbelief. “Either they’re trying to distract us, or they’re really that dense. How many times are they going to try the same thing and keep underestimating our numbers?”
It wasn’t the first time the De Luca family tried to hit our warehouse, and while the first time they managed to get a slight gain on us, they didn’t accomplish anything this time. They hardly managed to take any of our men down, and they didn’t take anything.
They only succeeded in getting some of their men killed, and Dante threw away any doubt that he was involved.
“Do you think they’re trying to test our boundaries? Maybe they’re looking for a weak point,” Benedikt suggested, watching as our guys took care of the cleanup.
“There’s a chance that might be their angle,” I murmured, trying to connect the dots. “If they came in on one of our trucks, it’s likely they’re looking for an in. They got tabs on our operations and now they’re trying to find a fool-proof way to ambush us.”