Page 52 of Savage Protector

He stared at the back of the van quickly disappearing down the long road. “No.”

“Then let her go. I promise the club will take care of her.”

He turned on Axel. “No one touches her.”

“I’m sick and tired of your shitty assumptions about the club.”

He grabbed Axel’s shirt and yanked him close. “No one. You got me?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

“Good, then let me go and get the fuck out of here before reinforcements get here.”

He released Axel and shoved him back a couple of steps. He was right. They couldn’t linger without risking another confrontation.

But there was a coldness seeping into his chest and it had nothing to do with the weather. The hairs at the nape of his neck itched. His instincts were rebelling. But he gave his word and that word was all he had left.

That. And the memory of a week with a woman who no longer existed...

“Oh shit! I’ve got so—he—.”

The ear piece he’d all but forced all of them to wear for this mission crackled in his ear with Zook’s broken voice. The brother’s name was actually Bazooka and he’d immediately understood why. Not only did his obsession and care for their armory border on the OCD, he also had a fondness for the large artillery that could blow shit up.

“Come again.”

“This building out back. It ain’t a garage and it ain’t empty. It’s a fucking bunkhouse and there are women in here.”

“Are you shitting me right now, Zook?” Axel asked over the comm. “Half the team and the van are already gone. It’s just you, me and Houston still out here.”

“Call em back. These kind of look like the girls we been looking for. Fuck—”

The comm crackled again for a second and then went silent. Shit. This mission had officially gone sideways.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Axel jumped off his bike and took off in the direction of the building they’d assumed was just a garage. Although just in case, he’d assigned Zook, Beast and Rainman to check it out and keep eyes on the perimeter of both buildings before they’d gone in the main house.

Beast and Rainman had ultimately helped secure the main building and then left to escort the van and this was the first they were hearing from Zook about any other people other than guards.

“Tel. I need an update.” He spoke into his mic as he followed Axel to the back of the house. “How long do we have?”

“Radar shows heat signatures of at least eight men converging on your position. This piece of equipment isn’t top of the line though, so it could be more. And you’ve got maybe three to four minutes, tops.”

Dammit. That was not enough time.

“Get that van back here now,” Axel growled over the connection.

“On it, boss,” Tel replied.

“I don’t think that’s a goo—"

“Hawkeye, shut up for once and do your thing. We need you to buy us some time. Can you do that?”

“For sure if I had some NVGs.” He didn’t much care for Axel ignoring his opinion, but he was right about one thing. They didn’t have time to argue.

“Well, we don’t have that fancy night vision shit so you gotta do this the old-fashioned way.”

He resisted a last second sarcastic response and peeled away from the front of the garage. It was his job once again to provide critical cover for the front line troops. Instead of going in with Zook and Axel, he headed for the rocky embankment to the left.

That small incline and bulky rocks would provide him cover from the approaching targets as well as the vantage point to pick those fuckers off. He would have preferred the roof, but he didn’t have time to change course. If they were bringing Izzy into the middle of this nightmare then he’d damn well find a way to get the job done and quickly.

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