Page 396 of Rage

“I am not a damsel who sits in the car, so what’s the plan?” I ask, hoping for something more concrete now that it is understood that I will be going to get Lucy. Both men's jaws fall open and they just stare at me. I stand there, cross my arms, and raise my eyebrow, waiting for a response.

“Love, I won’t try to make you stay on the sidelines but I am begging you to stay by my side so that we can get both you and Lucy out of this situation in one piece. If you stay near me thenwe can jointly focus on getting your friend out of this with as little harm as possible. If you wander off, I will shift my focus to protecting you instead of finding the person that we came to get.” He cups my cheeks and stares into my eyes, allowing me to see his sincerity and the fact that every action he has done since we met has been to respect my wishes to the best of his ability. He has given me choices that no one ever had before.

“When this is over, I need to sit down and tell you why I would gladly lose my life if it meant saving her, but for now, let's go save my best friend,” I promise him and pull his hand toward the door. He is everything I could have asked for and more with his only flaw being his loveless marriage. We walk hand-in-hand to the parking structure and stop at his car. Gio opens the trunk and grabs something before heading over to us. Aldo takes the dark cloth items from Gio and it looks like a bulletproof vest. He opens the back door and sets one of the vests down in the seat before handing me one. I set my bag on the floorboards and examine the vest.

“Can you help? I have never put one of these on and I know you will feel better if you know that I am secured properly.“ As I finish my sentence, he laughs and it is a comforting sound that warms my soul. I pull my sweater over my head and throw it in the back of the car, leaving me in a camisole and yoga pants. The goal was comfort today after work, but luckily they will also work for the rescue without slowing me down. There isn't a thing in this world that I wouldn’t burn down for Lucy, and God forgive the people who stand in my way.

Aldo smiles at me in my more relaxed state before he slides the vest over my head, positioning it on my body before securing the sides and brushing my hair out of my face. He grabs my sweater out of the car and hands it to me with a soft smile.

“What they don’t know will surprise the shit out of them,” he says with a smile as I pull on the sweater over the vest. We climbinto the car and I grab the extra magazines from my bag and place them in my sweater pocket before I buckle into my seat. Gio takes the front seat to drive us to the location and we check our guns to ensure that they are loaded. It is a tenuous time traveling between the hospital and the meeting place, almost thirty minutes away, but Aldo holds my hand the entire drive, crazing the contact.

“I would pull you into my lap so I can keep you close but your safety will always be a much more prominent concern over my comfort,” he tells me as we come to a stop in the alley with the rest of the cars. When the door opens, he steps out and holds his hand out to me to join him. I slide across the seats and step out as the men gather around us and I hop down from the seat. I shut the door behind me and look to Aldo, ready to hear him lead his people for the first time.

“Listen up, the target here is to get to Lucy. She is five foot five with brown hair and brown eyes. This is Anna and she will be by my side for this; do not let anything happen to her or you will meet the Angel of Pain,” he instructs his people and I am in awe of the power that he commands every time he opens his mouth. This incredible and powerful man has been on his knees for me and while our connection is incredibly strong, we haven’t even had sex yet. Finding the hair tie at my wrist, I pull back my hair in a braid to keep my field of vision clear. I run through my mental checklist; gun: Loaded, magazines: ready in my pocket, vest: secured, laces are double knotted so I don’t trip over them. I don’t think that there is anything else I could do to prepare.

Gio leads the team into position and Aldo and I file behind him as we make our way from the alley to the warehouse where they are keeping Lucy. The walk is made in silence with the team communicating in signals without spoken words. Aldo keeps his hand in mine, making sure that I move within the safety of the pack, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I belongsomewhere. Lucy has always been family and I would rather die than give her up, but these men didn’t even know my name until minutes ago and here they are protecting my life without a question or second thought.

We stop around the corner of the building and Gio goes ahead to secure entry to the warehouse door. Everyone but him freezes when it swings open from the inside. He moves so fast that it is hard to make out each individual movement in the dark, but he takes out the man's windpipe first before knocking him to the ground and using him as a prop for the door. He signals us all to come to him so we can enter the building as a unit. My heart is beating wildly but I put all of my feelings and emotions aside to focus on the task at hand.

As we enter the first door the strobe lights and the smell of urine take over my senses and I force my body to focus. We make it down the hallway to the first door that we open to find a stained bed and nothing else. The second door on the other wall opens to two armed men at a desk. They stand up and draw their weapons but before they have them out of their holsters bullets fire from one of our men and they hit the floor. Sadly our time moving stealthily is over with those gunshots. My shoulders tense but I do not raise my weapon for fear of hitting someone on our side from this angle.

We hear whimpering coming from down the hall and continue to move in that direction when I see a large man standing behind her with a knife to her throat. It's Lucy, and the rage in my chest goes wild. All of those years of training to perfect my aim come down to this.

“Put the knife down and you might survive this,” Aldo booms from beside me as I raise my weapon. The ogre of a man has the audacity to smile like he has no control over what happens next. I steady my aim, breathe, and then fire. The bullet leaves the chamber of my gun, finds purchase in the center of his forehead,and blows the back of his head off. He falls to the floor as Gio and I rush for Lucy.

Chapter Nine

“This woman is akin to the air that I need to breathe”

Aldo

“Down!” I shout, hoping that they all hear me as I aim and fire three shots into the man, my heart rate increasing as the flash from his muzzle sends more panic into my heart. The man slumps to the floor but I turn away while my men deal with the fallout and I rush to find my girl crouched next to her friend clutching her arm and I see red. I blink and find myself next to her, grasping her arm to inspect the wound.

“It's a graze Aldo, I'll be fine. I have had worse.” She attempts to comfort me, but now I’m mad that he died too quickly. I want to bring him back and force him to meet the Angel of Pain, but that isn't how life works. It takes an enormous amount of effort for me to ensure that my grasp on her is soft even with all of the anger coursing through my veins. While I may be a monster, I will never be her monster. Focusing on my breathing, I see that Gio has taken off his jacket and placed it over Lucy since she was almost naked and bruised when we walked in here. The delicate way that he zips her into his jacket and is careful not to add pressure to any of her wounds is heartwarming and genuine.

“I will go home with her, pack a bag, and keep her at my house until we get to the bottom of this and she is safe,” Gio informs Anna with a reassuring smile. He places his hand on her shoulder before looking into her eyes.

“I promise I will do everything in my power including laying down my life for Lucy. Please let him take care of you and I will worry about her. We will check in after the doctor comes to my house to examine her and ensure she has what she needs to heal,” He says looking directly into her eyes, unwavering in his admiration. She assesses him for a moment, weighing not only his words but also his body language before picking a response.

“That’s fine with me if Lucy agrees, but understand this, Gio. My aim is spot on, and I protect those I love even against an army.” My woman wows me yet again with her response, and I am ready to fall to my knees again for her. Her devotion to the people she cares for is unwavering and something to be admired. I nod at Gio, communicating that the only way to clean up this many bodies in another territory is fire.

“Baby, do you and Lucy want to burn this place to the ground as retribution?” I ask with a glimmer of excitement in my eye and the mischievous grin she responds with is indicative of her choice. My men start by dumping bottles of vodka all over the warehouse and ensuring that no one else here is left standing. The backdoor is open and one of the men might have escaped, but they will know that we wiped them out without any losses on our side. We walk out of the room together, my men flanking the women that we came here for, and stop at the exit. Everyone leaves us at the door and form a protective circle around the outer door, watching our backs.

“Okay, we are going to hand each of you a butane lighter. We will count down from three and then when we say ‘drop’, you drop them in the spill leading inside and allow the liquor to do the rest of the work. Are there any questions?” I go throughthe plan, making sure that both Lucy and Anna understand the instructions before we move forward. Both of us hand over a lighter to each of the girls.

“Light it up, Fighter” Gio whispers to Lucy and I do not miss the light in his eyes aimed towards her. Once his eyes connect with me and he nods, I know that we are ready. The girls maintain eye contact as they ignite the lighters.

“Three….two…one… drop.” As the last word leaves my lips both women drop the lighters into the spill and the liquor ignites. We quickly leave through the door and shut it behind us, forcing the fire farther into the building. Quietly, we all walk back to the cars, watching for reinforcements or any additional problems. As we get to our vehicles we pause. Lucy hugs Anna and promises to contact her regularly and to see her as soon as she feels up for travel. With that, Anna and I get in the SUV that we arrived in but in the front seat instead of the back, and Gio uses the car next to us. Since our destinations are different, it is easier to travel separately instead of delaying the doctor seeing Lucy,

Our drive is quiet back to her place but we hold hands the entire time and I park in a guest spot near the door. As I put the car in park, our seatbelts unbuckle and we climb out of the car, the adrenaline starting to ebb. I walk quickly to her side, unwilling to be separated from her for even for a moment longer. We move quickly from the garage to the apartment, needing more skin-to-skin contact. She gets to her door and reaches into her bag only to frown.

“Fuck,” she utters defeat evident in her voice. “I gave my keys to Gio which includes my apartment key. I refuse to stash one out here for safety reasons but I have no way into my apartment.” Her voice starts to waver and I reach into my pocket and pull out my keys. I run my thumbs through the keys, finding the shiny new one that I had cut a few days ago, and slide it intothe lock. She stands there too stunned to speak as the door opens for her.

I gesture for her to enter first and much to my chagrin she unholsters her gun and prepares to clear her apartment even though the door was locked and I could not be more proud of her. Unholstering my gun and following her inside, I lock the door behind me. We clear the space in under a minute before she sets her gun and holster on the table and takes off her sweatshirt. I am by her side in a flash when I hear her audibly hiss at the movement.

“Please let me take care of you?” I ask, and even though every bone in my body wants to demand, I know that type of behavior will get me nowhere with her. She stops moving and nods while clenching her jaw. My hands find the edge of the material and gently glide it the rest of the way off, careful to avoid her wounded shoulder. Once the wound is uncovered, I am able to see that it is a bit deeper than I would like but manageable at home.

“My medkit is in the closet in my bedroom, top shelf on the left side,” she answers my unspoken question without missing a beat. I walk into the room and aside from the unmade bed, the room is tidier than someone who lives alone. None of her furniture matches, but none of that matters to me. I feel more at home in this apartment with her than I ever have in the opulent family home that I inherited. I walk over to the closet and slide open the left side, ready to grab the kit and see the dress that she wore to the benefit. There is a small bag exactly where she said it would be and I quickly head back to the main room and find her on the couch.

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