Page 68 of Spyder
“Just be careful. As careful as you can. If you get yourself killed out there, I’m going to be pissed. You owe me a kiss,” I tell him, trying to sound light about it.
“And I plan on making good on that debt,” he replies.
Derek gets to his feet and leans over, placing a gentle kiss on the top of my head. He holds my gaze for a long moment and gives me a tight smile.
“I’ll see you after,” he tells me.
“You better.”
He turns and walks out of my room and I struggle to hold back my tears, trying to fight off the feeling that it’s the last time I’m ever going to see him again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Spyder
“That’s the last of them.” Nitro’s voice comes through the comm softly.
“All clear. Come on back,” I report back.
The world around me is cast in the eerie green glow of my night-vision goggles as I keep my eyes peeled. With me serving as his spotter, Nitro has been moving along the sparse shrubs along the road that leads into the warehouse, dropping a string of surprises to welcome Zavala into town. From my position on a small rise, I can keep an eye on and provide cover for him as well as survey the warehouse to make sure he remains unseen.
We waited until after the sun went down to start prepping the ground. We got word from Tarantula that Zavala is going to be here tonight. One way or the other, the war is going to come to an end. My hope is that from our elevated positions and with the surprises we left along the road, we can end this before Zavala’s men even know what’s happening. I want this done quickly because the longer the fight goes on, the more the advantage shifts to them. Surprise is our ally, and we need to make the most of it.
I want to put these fuckers in the ground and get out of here. I want to get back to Bellamy as quickly as I can, alive and in one piece. The look in her eyes when I left her hospital room is still tearing me apart inside. She looked at me like she was already seeing a ghost and it was breaking her heart. I could see she was trying to hold it together, but she was struggling.
And truth be told, it wasn’t easy for me, either. Seeing her in that bed, so fragile and damaged… it sent a lance of pain through my heart that continues to linger but also filled me with a white-hot rage. If she hadn’t made me promise not to kill Peter, he’d be in the bottom of a ditch with two in the back of his head right now.
Although I can’t even begin to describe the relief I feel now that I know she’s going to be all right and will make a full recovery, I get a small sense of what she must feel like when she sees her own mother in her bed…. powerless. You want to alleviate their hurt and pain, but there is literally nothing you can do about it. You’re completely impotent.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself then key open my comm. “Nitro, freeze. Do not move. Hunker down.”
Ahead of me, near the compound wall, a couple of Zavala’s men are leaning against the fence, talking and smoking. They’re not a hundred yards from where Nitro is hunkered down behind a tall rock. The cartel men linger near the fence for several long minutes before they crush out their smokes beneath their boots and head back to the warehouse.
“Okay, you’re clear,” I whisper into my comm. “Get your ass back here on the double, Nitro.”
I keep track of him cutting along the shrub line and up the rise toward me. I look back at the compound and see that the coast is still clear. I turn and look back at the higher rise and can make out the darkened silhouettes along the ridge, waiting for the signal to attack.
Moving quickly, Nitro drops down behind the scrubby brush on the rise beside me. The guy rarely smiles, but when he looks over at me, he’s got a shit-eating grin on his face. The prospect of this fight seems to be juicing him up the same way it does the other guys in the MC who’ve seen combat.
After running some of the ops with the club, I sort of understand it. But having never seen combat in a war zone, I don’t get quite as pumped as the rest of the guys. Mostly, I just feel nervous. My gut is tight, and my throat is dry, and my every nerve ending seems to be sparking with electricity, but there’s a sense of anticipation coursing through me nonetheless.
I look over at Nitro. “You sure those party favors are going to work?”
He gives me a frown. “Dude, I’ve got a degree in chemical engineering and I’m a demolitions expert. What do you think?”
“A degree in chemical engineering? Seriously?”
He nods. “Seriously.”
“Wow. Had no idea. I’m impressed.”
“You should be,” he says with a grin.
It makes me realize there is a host of things about the guys I don’t know. That’s something I’m going to have to remedy when we make it out of this fight. These guys are my brothers, I feel that deep in my bones. But the fact that I actually know so little about them is shameful. I don’t know why I haven’t made more of an effort to actually get to know them on a deeper level, but I vow to myself to change that.
As the thoughts go through my head, I realize what I’m doing is bargaining. It strikes me as similar to the way people pray to God, or whoever their higher power is, to help them get through whatever their situation is. They say they’re going to make this change or that if God, or whoever, gets them through whatever trials they’re facing.
I’ve never been a religious man, but in that moment, I don’t really care. I’m willing to take help from anybody and everybody right about now since I’m nervous as hell about what’s coming. We’ve planned it as best as we could and have made all of the necessary preparations. We’ve got the high ground and the element of surprise on our side.
