Page 58 of Ravaged and Ruined
He doesn’t speak. Not right away. Cholla walks up first, all jitter and sweat. I swear I can see his knees shaking from here.
Hashtag tweaks the gain on the long-range mic allowing us to catch pieces.
“The shipment… it was hit.” The man in the suit doesn’t flinch. “We—we don’t have the product. We didn’t know you’d come for it this fast.”
Cholla stammers on, something about getting the product back. His voice pitches higher the more he talks.
The man in the suit takes a final drag of his cigarette, then flicks it near Cholla’s boots. His eyes drift to one of his own men and he gives the faintest nod. Two others step forward. One raises a pistol.
Crack
The gunshot echoes up the valley like thunder.
One of Cholla’s guys crumples, his brains painted across the front quarter panel of the truck. No warning. No threat. Just a message delivered in blood.
Cholla backpedals like a dog that just realized its leash snapped. The other freezes.
The man finally speaks, his patience is gone. “You had one job. No product, no profit. That makes you useless.”
Three of his men break off and head toward the plant. Weapons drawn. I can only assume they’re going in to see if Cholla’s bullshit checks out.
Grizzly shifts beside me, his fingers twitching near the grip of his rifle.
“Say the word, Prez,” he growls. “I’m ready to end this.”
“Not yet,” I murmur. “Let them see the empty nest, Then we take them.”
I watch Cholla squirm.
The three men reappear minutes later and say something to the boss. Can’t make it out, but the body language’s clear, they’re confirming the stash is gone. No girls. No guns.
“You show up empty-handed, and still expect to breathe?” The boss says, his voice more lethal than his gun.
That’s our cue. I signal with two fingers and rise.
Backdraft tosses a flash bang between the vans. The blast sears the dark with white light and thunder. Then the field ignites.
We move like a pack of wolves cutting through the brush. I rush down the slope, boots tearing through gravel, rifle up.
Grizzly’s the first to fire a suppressed round to the temple of the man closest to the car. He drops without a sound.
Padre drops a second one before they regroup. Pike and Rancor sweep wide, cutting off their escape.
One of them fires back with military precision, nearly tagging Surge before Pike takes him out from the flank.
I slide between the vans as one of them lifts his gun too slow. I raise mine first and put two rounds in his chest. I feel the kick of the recoil in my bones. He jerks back, blood spraying across the van as he crumples. I shove his body aside and move on. My eyes hunting for the next target.
These men trafficked women. Tortured them. Sold them like cattle. They don’t get mercy.
What’s left of the men scatter, but they’re boxed in. Pike opens fire with the AR, cutting down two by the van doors. Rancor finishes another with a knee to the throat and a bullet to the chest.
The buyer’s trying to crawl toward his car, dragging a shattered leg behind him. Surge catches up. No words. Just a boot to the face. Bone cracks.
Grizzly tackles a man in a tailored suit beating him with the butt of his rifle until the guy stops twitching.
Silence follows. Bodies lie everywhere.
They never saw us coming but they sure as hell knew we arrived.
