Page 94 of Twisted Obsession

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Ansel

“Five miles,” came D’s voice in my earpiece. We’d left the congestion of the city about ten miles back. The dark stretch of highway we’d turned along led us into an area I’d never ventured into before.

It was a smaller outlying area on the outskirts of the city. The view outside my window provided no comfort, only bitter darkness. A still darkness cast in shadows that had me thinking the worst.

When Aaron had been fighting for Megan, I’d assumed I’d understood what he’d been going through. I believed I’d been sympathetic to his feelings. However, it was only now that I understood the fight, the passion, and the motivation that drove him.

When the life of someone you cared about hung on the brink, you’d do the unthinkable to save them. I’d do anything and was ready to kill any and everybody if they stood in the way of my getting Regina back.

I rode shotgun as Aaron drove with Rob in the backseat. Marcus, Scott, and D led the way in one of the two Chevy Tahoe’s we’d borrowed from the parking garage of the Rembert hotel.

The mood I was in, the tone I’d taken, none of the men spoke a word to me unless it was necessary. They knew me well enough to know I’d reached the point that talking was the last thing I wanted to do.

We hadn’t positively identified who’d taken Regina but based on the men we’d encountered at the crash site, they were likely associated with DG6. Heavily accented and speaking Spanish, they were similar to the crews we’d encountered that had been deployed to track down Megan.

The Dominquez family was known for being bad people, but I had no intention of letting any of them live if they hurt Regina.

My eyes focused on our dark surroundings as Aaron slowed the vehicle when the guys slowed ahead of us.

“Three minutes out,” D’s voice sounded. The area we’d arrived in was a large business district. The streets were aligned with hotels and large office complexes. I’d expected Regina would have been taken to a desolate area surrounded by trees. If Regina was here, was her captor arrogant enough to think he’d gotten away?

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Aaron asked as his head turned in my direction.

“Yes. They are either setting us up, or they believe they are in the clear.”

The sound of sliding metal filled my ears as I twisted the silencer on my weapon. The click, clack, and clink of weapons being readied sang into my earpiece. Since we were in an area that had lurking eyes, this mission would have to be a silent one.

The darkness swam over the lights on the telephone poles, making them cast a dim, eerie glow. The moon peeked, the stars stared, and the atmosphere buzzed with the anticipation of our impending mission.

When the vehicles slowed to a crawl, my neck swiveled. We had driven to the end of the street where a train track separated us from a cozy neighborhood beyond it. An interstate overpass crossed the tracks and provided enough noise to help drown out whatever havoc we were about to cause.

“The abandoned restaurant,” D’s voice pointed out. Thick trees and shrubs separated the restaurant from the hotels and offices. The place appeared to have been shut down for years. The tall weeds in the empty parking lot were noticeable from the highway. A chain held up by lopsided poles prevented vehicles from turning into the empty lot.

There weren’t any visible cars in the parking lot, nor was there any visible light inside the building that indicated it was occupied. It was one of those large all-you-can-eat buffet style restaurants. The building stood alone in the middle of the lot, a large L-shaped whitewood finish that nature had taken its toll on.

We moved past the restaurant and headed over the tracks to find a place to park. We turned onto the first side street and parked along the side of the road like the locals had, facing the exit. No one uttered a word as we prepared to go to war.

Three guns, two knives, and five extra clips of ammo were what I’d strapped to various parts of my body. Without seeing any of them, I knew that the rest of the crew was as heavily armed. We didn’t exit the vehicles at the same time. Scott and Marcus exited the lead vehicle first. A few minutes later, D exited the lead vehicle, and Rob exited our vehicle before they joined and faded into the darkness as a team.

The last thing a nosey neighbor needed to see was a gang dressed all in black tactical gear that appeared ready to take on the Taliban. They’d have had the cops on our asses in a heartbeat.

I sensed Aaron’s gaze on me as we waited in the dark vehicle. A lazy breeze through our cracked windows broke the silence. The leather seat groaned beneath him and called my attention before my gaze landed on the dark profile of his fist. My fist bumped his, and we kept them together.

“They die,” Aaron stated.

“Or we die,” I finished. Those words caused a faint smile to trace my lips. They meant everything. They meant my cousin had my back no matter what. That we were going to rescue Regina or blow up every room in hell until we got her back.

Aaron and I exited the SUV. In stealth mode, our background was harmonizing insects, the distant booms of the train’s boxcars being connected, and the overpass traffic roaring above us. Over the tracks, in a patch of shrubs, the rest of our crew waited. Their dark clothes and silence left them blended into the night.

The concrete foundation of a building that once stood on the patch of land we converged on was scarcely visible due to overgrowth. The solitary light on the pole next to the slab of concrete provided sparse lighting for the area. Near the restaurant we targeted, a telephone pole stood against the darkness without light. Nine times out of ten, the light had been conveniently shut off.

Its white color gave it visibility, but most of the building was cast in darkness. No sound or obvious signs of life came from that direction. I wanted to question D’s tracking skills but knew first-hand that he was one of the best at what he did.

“Regina’s tracker signal is strong. I’m also picking up multiple heat signatures,” came D’s low tone. Now, we were getting somewhere. “I sent you all the blueprints of this building,” he announced. How the hell he’d gotten blueprints of an abandoned restaurant was beyond me.

“I see two strong heat signatures, but there appears to be more that are dim as fuck like they’re half dead,” D stated, not talking to anyone in particular. I inched closer to D, rustling the tall grass as I moved.

D’s face was so close to the lit face of his phone, he may as well have been kissing it. I glared at it, taking in the dim heat signatures. I pointed at a few more spots on the screen.

“What’s that? I asked D as my gaze remained on what may or may not have been more dim figures.

“I don’t know,” D answered, squinting at the screen as he batted away an insect that lingered near his face.

“This is more than likely DG6. If so, that could well be people underground,” I stated as the blurs of faded orange light on D’s screen danced before my eyes like floating ghost. My statement drew us all tighter around D.

“It sure the fuck could be,” D stated as he glanced around the group. “I hope you strapped on extra ammo. If what we see are men, there are at least twelve of them in that building.”

I didn’t care how many were down there. There would only be one left alive—Regina.

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