Page 73 of Up in a Blaze
We stepped into an open square area with containers surrounding it, except where we had walked through. It was like a little courtyard. My stomach dropped when I saw two other armed masked men standing near one of the cargo doors.
“Stop,” Greg ordered.
The boat crew watched us as their friend stepped forward with keys to unlock the large red door. He pulled both sides open for Greg to push Sawyer and me in.
I turned to see Greg grinning. “Enjoy your life, faggots.” He turned and walked away with the men he’d come with, leaving only the boat crew behind. Three of them, and they were going to lock us in.
The door started to close, but someone from deep within the container called out with an Australian accent, “Hey, hi, hello. Can I use the toilet, pretty please? I really need to go, and I don’t want to pee in here.” A young woman approached. I moved Sawyer out of the way. He pressed up against the inside wall, and I stood in front of him. The woman looked grimy with long, matted dark hair, big eyes, yet she was still smiling.
“Stop. No break,” one guy barked, pointing a gun at her. “Stay back.”
Another woman and man stepped out of the shadows from within, coming up behind her.
The woman who spoke thumbed over her shoulder to the others. “I know it’s early for a toilet break, but we really gotta go. We’ll be good.”
Before he could respond, she was in motion.
In one fluid move, her arm shot out, grabbing his wrist. With a twist of her body, she spun him around, using his momentum against him. Her foot slammed into his back, sending him stumbling straight into the man and woman behind her.
They were ready.
In a blur, they disarmed him—one wrenching the weapon from his hands, the other tackling him to the ground. He didn’t even have time to shout before he was pinned.
The small woman—faster than anyone had a right to be—was already moving. Like a streak of lightning, she charged the two remaining guards.
“Stop! I’ll shoot,” one of them shouted, panic edging his voice.
She didn’t break stride. She sprang at him, climbing his body like a jungle gym—one foot on his thigh, the other on his chest. Then her leg snapped around his neck, and with a powerful arch of her back, she flipped him off his feet and drove him into the metal floor. He hit the ground hard, choking and flailing as her leg cinched tighter around his throat like a vise.
The last man took a step forward, gun trembling.
She looked up at him, expression unreadable. “I don’t want to shoot you,” she said, breath calm, voice steady. “Drop your weapon.”
“Get off him! Stand down!” he barked back, his finger tightening on the trigger.
The man trapped beneath her thrashed wildly—clawing, slapping at her thigh, his face reddening. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as blink.
“I said drop it,” she repeated, her voice colder now.
She let out a soft, almost regretful sigh. Then, without a word, she pressed her palm against her own leg, tightening the chokehold. The man beneath her bucked once… then went still.
Unconscious or worse.
In the same motion, she reached down and retrieved his blade, yanking it free from the sheath at his hip. With barely a flick of her wrist, the knife spun through the air and sank into the final man’s hand.
He screamed, the gun dropping from his grip as he clutched his bleeding palm.
“Stay still, please,” she said, rising fluidly to her feet with the unconscious man’s gun in her hand trained on the only threat left. “Cal, take his weapon and watch him.”
The man nodded and moved quickly, stepping over the fallen guard as he obeyed.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Over and over, shots were fired, and screams started from deeper within the container.
The badass woman’s face pinched with panic. “We need to leave. Cal, Jenny, round everyone up.”
“Wait,” I called. Taking Sawyer’s hand, I rushed to her. “That will be my family. My man, he was here hiding with the Diamond MC and?—”
