Page 53 of Lake's Legacy

“Lose the kuttes. Ray may trust her brothers, but there’s no sense leading them right to our doorstep. Levi, play the brother card to explain your reason for stepping in to help.”

“Got it, Prez,” Levi and Jack say together. They remove their kuttes and hand them over to Dixie to keep.

Once they’re gone, we focus on our prisoners.

“Abra, if you’ll do the honors,” Hex says.

Abra finds a bucket and fills it with water. He dumps the bucket over the middle guy, whom we determined to be the leader. He sputters awake, his eyes narrowing on Hex.

“You fucking bastard. You’re fucking dead.” He lets out a groan of pain when he shifts to sit up. His complexion turns green as we all step back in case he spews.

Hex chuckles. “Big talk from a man with a broken dick.”

“Just wait. Your fucking days are numbered spic.” He spits toward Hex.

“You are fucking clueless, aren’t you? I don’t have time to give you a lesson in genetics or geography. You’ll figure it out in prison. Why the fuck are you kidnapping women?”

“I’m not telling you shit.”

Hex nods at Abra. With the quickness of a snake, Abra lashes out, slashing a deep groove from his eye to his mouth. Blood gushes from the wound as the no-longer cocky bastard screams.

“Unless you want him to match it on the other side, fucking talk. Why were you kidnapping women?”

“Money,” he manages to say after spitting out blood.

“Someone paid you to kidnap women after disabling their cars?” Hex asks, getting a nod. “Who?”

“Don’t know names. Two doctors.”

“Where do you take them?”

Before he can answer, the asshole’s phone rings, Abra reaches into the guy’s pocket and pulls it out. He glances at the display. “Money Doc,” he says. Then he holds the phone in front of the mangled face of our prisoner. I’m surprised when it unlocks the phone.

Abra hands it to Hex before yanking the prisoner’s head back by his hair and placing the knife against his other cheek. The message is clear. Don’t make a fucking sound, or he’ll resemble Heath Ledger’s Joker.

“Yo,” Hex grunts into the phone. He listens for a minute before ending the call with “On it.” He hands the phone to Pirate. “Seems like the doctor is ready for his delivery. Where?”

The man clamps his lips shut, so Abra digs the blade under his eye. His intentions are clear. Give up the address or give up the eye. It’s his choice. Unsurprisingly, he rattles off an address.

Hex checks his watch and nods at Abra, who slams his gloved fist against the wound, knocking him out.

“Rey and the others should be at the hospital by now, so the cops will be here soon. Let’s ride. We have a couple of doctors who are about to lose their licenses. Permanently.”

Piling into the SUV, we take off with Zip driving.

“Shit, that was close,” Zip says, looking in the rearview mirror. We all turn to see three cop cars pulling up to the garage. The lights flash and light up the building. No one is chasing us, so that’s good.

The address the asshole gave us is for an abandoned restaurant. It sits on the river, surrounded by trees and an empty parking lot.

“I know this place,” Abra says. “I’ve eaten here before. They had seating on two floors and the back deck.”

We park on the road, out of sight of the building. Under the cover of the trees, we surround the place. The building has a Victorian look, complete with window shutters. Whoever was inside closed the shutters, but we could still see the light filtering through. The shutters work in our favor because we can approach the building without anyone inside seeing us.

Zip and I cover the sides while Dixie and Pirate cover the front. Hex and Abra are at the back, where Abra works to open the lock. The front door opens as we get Hex’s text letting us know they’re in. Two men in suits step out. Another pair of men follow them, wearing cargo pants and carrying military-grade weapons.

“They should be here soon,” the suit says. “Three women. Two are ready to pop. They won’t be a problem. The third is only four months along. Get them all inside and strapped down. Carver can check them out then.”

Dixie sends a text letting Hex and Abra know what’s happening outside. Hex replies with an order to take them out. The four of us converge on the men. Zip and I take out the muscle by slitting their throats. We let them drop to the ground just as Dixie and Pirate have the two suits face dirt in the mud with their wrists zip-tied behind their backs.

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