Page 57 of Graves & Griggs
We’ve already studied the blueprints of the house and found that there’s a small cellar door on the northeast corner. A quick pickof the lock, I slip in, cut the gas lines, then leave this handy-dandy twenty-pound C4 brick Dom linked to an app on my phone and… boom.
Honestly, I don’t even know why they came with. I could do a job like this solo in my sleep. Maybe it makes them feel important.
As we approach the private drive, my excitement over my angel’s pregnancy becomes the sole focus in my mind once more. There wasn’t time to ask questions like how far along she is or how she’s been feeling. All things I’ll have addressed as soon as we’re out of here. As soon as we’re done, we can go home. We can all settle in back in Seattle and resume our life pre-Beatrice Volkov’s death.
Again, I get it. My bad.
Dom parks the car a few hundred yards away from the beginning of their driveway before turning the engine off. Together, we slip on our skeleton masks before turning to see Griggs pull a black hoodie over his head.
I laugh. “We’ll need to get an honorary one made for you, Griggsy.”
He pins me with an unimpressed look before flipping me off. I smirk as I look to Dom, who’s readying a gun in one hand and the brick of C4 in the other. He passes the brick to me and nods.
I nod back before we all open our doors as one. Our feet crunch against the frozen ground, one step at a time, and we never let our eyes stay in one place for too long. Our heads move like they’re on a swivel as we each assess our surroundings. Good thing we do too, otherwise we might not have spotted the two guards standing just inside the gated wall surrounding the property.
I reach up the brick wall and feel a slightly protruding brick that will do the job. Clutching the edge, I lift myself up as high as I can before grabbing another and another. I’m almost to the top when I see Griggs already up there, waiting for me. Show-off.
Looking down, I see Dom is right beneath me, so I perch myself on the edge of the wall as Griggs does the same. Together, we waitfor the two guards to walk beneath us before we leap. I land on top of the guy to the right at the same moment Vincent does the man on the left. A startled gasp escapes my target as we fall into a roll on the ground. I quickly wrap him up, holding his body in place with my legs as I reach for my knife. A few quick jabs to the neck and his struggling gasps are silenced. When I check how Griggs is doing, I see his target has a knife embedded in one eye and his neck is broken into an unnatural angle.
I raise my hand to him for a high five. Griggs stares at me incredulously for a moment before obliging with the lamest high five I’ve ever seen.
Dom lands beside us with a soft thud then before fully rising to his feet. He grabs one of the bodies and tosses it over his shoulder before gesturing to the other one. “Grab him. We’ll toss them in the basement before we blow the place.”
Griggs nods and lifts the limp body over his shoulder before we begin walking. The buzz from the kill has already started vibrating from the tips of my toes to my fingers. Combine this excitement with the giddiness of my angel being pregnant and I feel as if I’m about to burst. I wish I could channel this energy the way I crave, but I know this job isn’t one to get up close and personal on. The Volkov brothers are too much of an even match for us, and we need to come back home to our wife and kids.
We sneak across the back lawn as Dom hands me his phone with the surveillance cameras pulled up. I flick through each screen until I find them. The pieces of shit are sitting around a fire, drinking a bottle of something like it’s their goddamn job. I watch as Desmond claps Dennis’s shoulder, forcing him to stumble, then they both seem to break out into laughter.
Pieces of fucking shit.
They sit here and get drunk, laughing like a couple of hyenas while holding a hit out on my family. Sending people after my children, my wife, my brother. We’ve killed their two closest friendsand their sister, and yet they laugh it up without a care in the world. As if they’re untouchable, unreachable.
I move to the cellar door, pull out my tools and quickly begin picking the lock. It takes hardly any effort at all before it gives way. I push the door open all the way, gun drawn in anticipation for company. If they were smart, they’d have hadsomebackup inside at least.
I crawl into the cellar and head for the gas lines while Dom and Griggs dump the bodies on the floor. After hopping up onto an old steel box, I go to cut the lines—then freeze.
“Dom,” I say.
He comes over to see what I see. Steel-enforced casing, even around the wiring. I could bust out an electric saw, but the risk of the spark catching the free-flowing gas and blowing us to hell along with the Volkov’s is strong.
I look over my shoulder to see him shake his head as Griggs speaks.
“Just place the bomb on top of the gas main. That’s all you can do at this point.”
Dom shakes his head. “There’s no guarantee it’ll catch. We need these fuckers charred.”
Vincent shrugs. “It’s the best option we have.”
He’s right, and as much as I hate to leave things messy, we don’t have a choice. I place the brick on top of the gas main, then the three of us turn to head out of the house, but a figure appears in the doorway. He’s staring at his phone and seems just as surprised to see us as we are to see him. What the fuck? Where did this guy come from?
He drops his phone in an instant, pulling out his gun to shoot Griggs. I sweep my foot across the ground, dropping the kid before I pull a knife from my side and send it through the air. It embeds itself in his throat, and his eyes widen in shock as a gargling noise escapes him. In the same instant, a bullet from Dom’s gun burrowsright between his eyes, dropping him to the floor. I look to my left to see Dom unscrewing the silencer attached to his gun before looking at Griggs, who’s still on the floor.
“Have a nice trip?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything as he pushes to his feet. I pull him up the last foot until he’s balanced.
“Goddamn, kid, with how many times I’ve saved your life, we’re going to have to start up an account or something.”
“Who said I couldn’t have handled that guy on my own before you tripped me?” he scoffs.
