Page 113 of My Retribution Too

I laughed, it hurt like the worst toothache mixed with period cramps, times ten.

“Please stop making me laugh. It hurts.” I mumbled, rubbing my chest and side.

Reed's eyes narrowed even more before he huffed out a breath and walked away.

I took that moment to realize I was no longer in a room surrounded by Miguel, Byron and their men. I was in another room, furnished. It looked to be a living room of some kind, a door separating us from what sounded like chaos.

The door suddenly opened and Garrett along with three of their security guys came inside. They closed the door behind them and locked it.

I instantly went on high alert.

“I think we need to keep our asses right here. It’s WWIII out there,” said one of Reed's guys. Reed looked over at us before signally his guys to follow him to the corner of the room. They started talking in hushed tones, guys shifted to the corner of the room, and I tugged on Ayana’s arm.

She looked down at me and smiled.

I asked, “How in the world are you guys here?”

Ayana sat on the coffee table in front of me. Noelle sat on the couch at my feet and I just realized she had her trusty shotgun resting in her lap. I moved to make room for her.

“It’s a long story,” Ayana admitted, a sly grin on her lovely face.

I glanced at the guys, clocking the dread in their body language, before bringing wide eyes back to Ayana.

“Wait, where’s Bryon and Miguel? They were with me in the room I assumed you found me in.”

Ayana and Noelle looked at each other, puzzled looks on their faces.

“I don’t know, babe,” Noelle offered. She shrugged. “When we checked the room, we found you lying on the floor. We thought you were dead.”

“Yeah, I called Reed to tell him we found you and we needed help carrying you out of there. We were on our way out of the building when all hell broke loose outside.”

My eyes went wide. “Okay, tell me everything. From the looks of the guys over there, we’re not going anywhere no time soon, so you have time.”

By the time she was done, my eyes were practically hanging out of my eye sockets. Damn this woman was my idol.

INTERLUDE 5: THE RESCUE

We arrived at our destination, some rather large mansion in the middle of nowhere Texas. I knew we were north of Allen, but if we were still in Allen, I didn’t have a clue. It took about forty minutes to get here. Well, it took Reed, Garrett and three of their guys forty minutes. It took me thirty. I broke every speed limit posted and then some the entire way here. Noelle didn’t utter a word as I drove, she held on to the ‘oh shit’ bar above the passenger door, her grip tight. She knew the situation was dire. We had to get to Phoebe and time wasn’t on our side. She had a head start on us. We needed to make good time.

My blood pressure was really high when we passed MJ's Maxima abandoned on the side of the road with Phoebe's smashed cell phone on the ground and the driver side window smashed. We feared the worse. We had no idea how long they had her. I was chomping at the bit waiting for slow ass Reed to arrive.

When he finally did, ten minutes later, I climbed out of my car and went to his truck. I waited for him and Garrett to get out before I started in.

“What’s the plan? When are we going in?”

The trunk door lifted and all five of the men huddled around each other, passing out gear, vests, assault rifles, night goggles.

“You two aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to be our eyes and ears outside. Make sure no one attacks our flank.”

“We can have your back by literally having your back,” I pointed out.

“No, you’re not going in there. We can’t do our jobs and protect you too. We need to focus on staying alive and finding and saving Phoebe. Besides, you two don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. You probably never shot your weapons outside of the gun range. This is not the job for amateurs. We’re professionals. This is our job.”

Noelle grabbed me and pulled me back before I punched Reed square in the mouth. Oblivious to the danger in front of him, Reed closed the trunk and followed his men to the side of the house. They looked as if they had some type of plan in place. I figured they made it on the drive up here. Yeah well, we did too.

Noelle and I waited for them to disappear before we checked to see if the trunk was still unlocked. It was. She and I put on the bullet proof vests we found and those nifty goggles. There weren’t any more assault rifles, which was disappointing. Reed was right, Noelle and I hadn’t fired a weapon outside of the gun range. But both of us had been working with Hatch on how to shoot. He had recently introduced us to the AR-15 assault rifle. I was hooked. I wanted to test drive the rifles Reed and his guys had, but they only brought toys for themselves. Stingy assholes.

We closed and locked the truck and stood in the dark deciding when we should go in. The moment we heard automatic weapons made the decision for us. We didn’t go in the same digestion as Reed and his guys. We ran to the front door. We figured it would be safer. They were drawing the attention to them, allowing us the opportunity to do a little snooping ourselves. As we ran, I wondered to myself, did Reed plan it this way? I was sure he knew we weren’t going to just sit out here and wait. Did he leave the rtuck unlocked knowing we would check it? And these vests were small, they fit me and Noelle like a glove. Did they bring these on purpose?

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