Page 23 of Murder & Mayhem

When he speaks again, his voice is a low, angry growl. “We can’t go into this on impulse, with a half-baked plan, just because you refuse to deal with your fucking emotions.”

Oliver rarely goes against me, and if he were anyone else, I’d chew his fucking head off for the way he just spoke to me. His tone still makes me bristle, but I work to release some of the tension from my shoulders, knowing he only has the best interest of the Rejects in mind.

“I’m not,” I snarl—okay, so maybe the fact that he’s calling me fucking emotional is grating on me. “We’renot. We’ve been planning this for the better part of a week now. Why wait? Red isn’t having any luck, so maybe this will spur one of them into going to the club.”

His lips are still pressed into a tight line, but he knows I have a point. Nothing will drive businessmen to check on their assets more than sabotaging one of them. His eyes drill into me for a long moment, and I know he’s trying to get a read on me; to confirm this isn’t a purely emotional move I’m making. Eventually, he gives a sharp nod. “Alright, but we need to be smart about which of their businesses to target.”

In agreement, we head to my office, where I have a list of various Antonelli clubs that Red was able to get for us. I’ve gathered intel from Mac and Ian—two men I have working undercover in the Antonellis—on the various comings and goings of some of the clubs, plus Oliver had the smart idea last week to send men to check out their warehouses by the docks. Marcus and his team found large quantities of anything and everything illegal—drugs, tommy guns, even Cuban cigars, beluga caviar, and black-market antiquities. I always knew the Antonellis traded in far finer illegal goods than us mere gangsters, but the vast range of what they had stored down at the docks was eye-opening. It must be millions of dollars’ worth of goods—billions even. All sitting, stored in a couple of buildings with what appears to be minimum security… just waiting for any opportunistic criminal to steal or destroy.

“We need a targeted approach,” Oliver states, lifting the page with the list of other clubs and scanning his eyes over it. “Something that will be immediately obvious that it was no fluke or accident. They need to know they were deliberately targeted and we need to give them a reason to check up on their clubs.” I don’t bother responding. It’s clear he’s only thinking aloud as he continues to scrutinize the list. “We could hit two or three clubs at once. This one is closed for renovations”—he points to a name on the list—“and if we can evacuate another one and get inside…” He trails off, still staring intently at the page.

By the time we’ve fine-tuned the plan, and each of us has gathered a small team of men and supplies, it’s dark out. I clap Oliver on the shoulder, wishing him luck before we head out. I direct my team to one of the Antonelli clubs on the periphery of their territory—La Puttana. It’s one of their cheaper establishments—less of a club and more of a brothel—so financially, it won’t be a big hit to them, but it also has less security than their more upscale clubs.

As we head across town, I fill my team in on the plan, so everyone knows their roles by the time we pull up a block over from the club.

Climbing out of the car, I fix my gaze on Rampage and Bones. “You two know what you need to do?” I check. They both confirm that they do, and I hand over a wad of cash to each of them. Enough that they look like two rich idiots that don’t know better and just want to get their dicks wet.

Grinning at each other, the kids take off across the street. I’m more than used to their excitement when it comes to jobs like this. It’s what they’ve been trained for, and despite their upbringing, they love getting out in the field. Where most people might walk into that club fretting with nerves and immediately draw the wrong kind of attention, I know any of the kids I recruited will be able to walk in there and instantly look like they belong.

While they implement their distraction plan, I walk around to the trunk, where the other two men I brought with me are already standing. Opening the duffel bag, I reiterate, “Place these on exterior walls at each corner of the building,” as I hand them over five C4 explosives. “Dax, you take the ground floor. Razor, you take the first, and I’ll take the top floor. As soon as you have the explosives placed, get out. Got it?”

They both murmur their agreements, and we wait in silence for the kids to do their job. We aren’t left waiting for long before the blaring of the fire alarm screams through the previously quiet night air, and a minute later, people start spilling onto the street from the club. We stand and watch from further down the block, waiting until we’re sure everyone is outside. When I spot the kids exiting the club, looking more disheveled than when they walked in, and staring around in panic, I pull the balaclava down over my face. Dax and Razor do the same, and the three of us use the shadows to hide our approach.

No one is paying us any attention as half-naked women huddle together, staring at the building as if they expect smoke to start pouring out of it at any second. Quite a few of tonight’s customers bolted as soon as they got outside, most likely not wanting to be caught outside a brothel, while some still hang around, hoping they’ll be allowed back inside soon so they can finish getting their money’s worth.Tough luck, men, you won’t be getting what you paid for tonight.

When we’re a building away, we slip down a side street into an alley that runs along the back of the club and quickly cover the remaining distance. There’s not a soul in sight, the scant security too busy ensuring the building has been cleared out.

We find a door at the back of the club propped open with a brick, and I throw up a mental thanks to the kids for their quick thinking as I pull it open and peer inside the empty interior.

“Quick in and out, boys,” I remind them before taking off up the stairs. I can hear Razor behind me, but his footsteps fall away as I continue up to the top floor, and soon the only noise is my labored breathing and the soft thud of my boots against the floorboards with each step I climb. My senses are on high alert as I step onto the landing and glance around, and I don’t waste any time as I move to the front right corner of the building. I’m not sure how long we have until First Responders arrive. I’ve no doubt that they’ll have been notified of a disturbance at an Antonelli property, making it a top priority, and I sure as fuck don’t want any of us to get caught by anyone on the Antonelli payroll.

Once I’ve stuck the first stick of C4 to the wall in the corner of a small room that smells of too much perfume and sex, I move on to the next corner, doing the same again. I’m into the home stretch, placing the last one, when a sound behind me has me snapping my gaze over my shoulder.

“Who the fuck are you?” A burly man—clearly security—demands.Shit.His gaze flicks past me to the obvious C4 attached to the wall, and his eyes widen. In a burst of movement, he whips out a pistol from the belt at his hip. My reaction is just as quick, and I palm my gun a split second before he does, pulling the trigger.

My bullet lands squarely in his chest, but not before he lands a shot of his own in my shoulder, and I hiss out a pained exhale as the force of the shot knocks me off balance.Fucking hell, that hurts.Righting myself, I keep my gun trained on the security guy as the blood drains from his face, and he stares at the openly bleeding wound in the middle of his chest before crashing to the floor.

With my gun pointed at him, I move closer and put a bullet in his head before glancing around the room. I spot a belt left abandoned on the bed and quickly snatch it up, wrapping it around my shoulder and pulling it tight. A grunt of pain escapes me, but the blood slows to a trickle, assuring me I won’t bleed to death before I get the fuck out of here.

Hoping no one else heard the gunshots, I keep my weapon in my hand as I head downstairs.

“Shit, boss, you’ve been shot,” Razor exclaims, striding toward me as I reach the first floor.

“No, shit,” I grumble, not slowing my pace as I continue down the stairs, despite the fact that my vision blurs in and out several times and my head already feels woozy. My shoulder hurts like a bitch, and I have a sinking feeling that the bullet is wedged in there, meaning I’ll have to get someone to dig it out and hope it hasn’t left any lasting muscle or nerve damage.

It’s only when we’re outside that I slow down. “Did it go out the back?” I ask Razor, who steps closer to get a good look at the back of my shoulder.

“Nope, ‘fraid not.”

Fuck sake.

Giving him a terse nod, we make quick work of getting back to the car, and I blow out a breath of relief to find the kids and Dax already there. I toss the keys to Razor as we approach. “You drive.”

I climb into the front passenger seat and dig the detonator out of my pocket. I cast my eyes over the building one final time, hoping the remaining lurkers are far enough away that they won’t get hit by the blast before I press the button. The five of us watch as a loud boom thunders through the air, followed by a rush of pressure that rattles the windows, and the whole building starts to crumble before our eyes. Dust fills the air, quickly blocking our view of people running and screaming, but we don’t wait around to see much more as Razor puts his foot to the pedal, and we speed out of there.

Adrenaline races through my veins, and all I can hear is the rushing of blood in my ears as we head back across the city toward the clubhouse. I try to get a better look at the gunshot wound, but the intermittent light from passing streetlamps isn’t nearly enough for me to accurately determine the damage, and I soon give up, resting my head against the headrest. I’m not sure if I fall asleep or pass out, but when I next wake, Razor is pulling into the parking lot at the clubhouse.

My door is pulled open before I can get to it, and my head spins as someone helps me out of the car.Fucking blood loss. “Where’s O?” I bite out as my good arm is thrown over someone’s shoulder—Dax’s?—and he maneuvers me into the building.

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