Page 33 of Tyrant Blood

Cole read the message twice, just to make sure everything was clear in his head. It was time to go. It was time to put the bloody final touches on this chapter of his and Joaquin’s life…

After watching Rohan and his men enter the warehouse, Cole and Joaquin snuck out from the truck and headed straight to the alley at the side of the warehouse. After quickly rummaging through the industrial trash can, the pair of them took out a metal suitcase that contained their arsenal.

‘You sure you don’t need a quick tutorial?’ Cole asked, watching as Joaquin locked and loaded his shotgun.

‘I’ve been in enough situations to know what’s up,’ Joaquin replied. ‘And my grandfather with a big gun guy too. I should be asking you if you’re all good, Mr. Hockey.’

‘Right,’ Cole said, smiling.

Joaquin’s sassy humor never failed to amuse Cole, and even in a situation as stressful as the one they were in it was good to see it still shining through the darkness.

Without wasting a single further moment, Cole and Joaquin made their way from the alley toward the basement steps that would lead them down toward their entry point. Dante had secured the building and made sure that the pair of them could enter without detection as long as they held their nerve and didn’t make any undue noise.

Cole could tell from the look of icy focus on Joaquin’s face that he was absolutely ready to do what needed to be done. But what Cole didn’t know was whether Rohan Katsen and his men would be ready to fight back. Even taking into account Dante’s presence and that of his bodyguards, there was still a chance that things could go wrong. However it was a chance that simply had to be taken.

‘Quietly,’ Cole hissed as Joaquin made his way up from the dark basement toward the internal lobby.

‘Sorry,’ Joaquin whispered, carefully treading over some loose metal poles that were scattered across the walkway. ‘Over here, it’s the window Dante told us about.’

Cole nodded and the two of them crept across the elevated lobby and peered through the small window down onto the warehouse’s main unit. With Dante and three guards on one side and Katsen and his men on the other, it looked like the odds were stacked in Cole and Joaquin’s favor.

All they had to do was hold their position, line up the targets as agreed, and then Katsen would be the last man standing for them to take down. Everything had been planned in advance and as long as they all played their positions, there wouldn’t be any trouble finishing Katsen off.

But just as Cole was leaning over to whisper into Joaquin’s ear, the boy made a sudden movement and dashed toward the staircase.

‘J! What the fuck! Come back here!’ Cole snapped. ‘Fucking come back here right now!’

Joaquin was running down to the warehouse floor and there was nothing that Cole could do to stop him. He’d either been unnerved at the sight of Katsen and his men or was experiencing some kind of flashback to what they’d put him through. Either way, Joaquin was running into a certain death unless Cole did something to protect him.

Cole knew that the next move was likely to be the riskiest play of his entire life – and it could also be the last move he ever made too. He had to make a distraction, and it had to be good enough to draw everyone’s attention away from a soon to be visible Joaquin running directly into the line of fire.

‘Up here motherfuckers!’ Cole bellowed, smashing the window with the butt of his shotgun and firing down onto the warehouse floor. ‘I see you Katsen! And I’m gonna kill you.’

Katsen and his men immediately returned fire on Cole and he dropped to the floor, unsure whether he had been hit or not. But after a quick glance, Cole could see that he was okay, save for some shattered glass that had cut and grazed his arms.

But while Cole may have been fine, he had no idea what the situation with Joaquin was – and with guns letting rip like fireworks, the answer could have easily gone either way.

‘You missed!’ Cole roared, jumping up to his feet and firing off a couple of shots from his elevated position before making his way toward the staircase and closer to the gunfight.

Joaquin was still alive and shooting out from behind a large metal container.

Dante and his men had taken cover and were carefully placed near the entrance so that there was no escape for Katsen.

This truly was a full-scale shootout.

And as the bullets ripped and the bodyguards fell, blood splattered across the warehouse floor and a stalemate developed. One side had to make a move and risk it all to get the kill. It was only a matter of time before the police arrived, and Cole knew that they were in the realm of life with no parole should things play out as expected.

‘Dante, cover me,’ Cole bellowed, rolling out from his cover and downing one of Katsen’s thugs before picking up the thug’s gun and using it as an extra weapon. ‘J, make your move!’

With that, Joaquin and Cole burst forward together and wiped out Katsen’s two remaining bodyguards with shots to the chest and the head.

Only Katsen remained standing…

‘You dirty sonsofbitches,’ Katsen said, a manic grin on his face as his own thugs’ blood covered his white shirt. ‘You really gonna kill me? A couple of amateurs like you? Dante… why don’t you tell them about our agreement?’

Cole and Joaquin exchanged a look.

Surely Dante and Katsen didn’t have some kind of alliance together. Or did they?

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