Chapter 26

I fell asleep wrapped in Marcus’s arms and feeling safer than I had ever felt. But when I woke up, I certainly did not feel safe. There were loud popping noises going off downstairs, and I heard screams.

There was gunfire downstairs, and Marcus opened the door to the office and stood there for a minute. He looked at me and then back at the stairwell across the warehouse.

“Get under the desk and don’t come out,” Marcus said as he closed the door and sat back down in the chair outside of the office.

For a minute, I thought it was already morning and the raid had started. But there had not been enough gunfire. Only a couple shots. I did as Marcus told me and went under the desk and waited.

“Where is the girl?” Rudy yelled from across the warehouse as he came up the stairs.

“In the office,” Marcus said calmly.

“Get her.”

“What’s up?” Marcus asked Rudy

“I found the mole; I’m going to kill her now.”

There was silence, and then I heard the door open. I stayed under the desk and tried not to move. I didn’t know how it would be possible to make it out of the situation alive. There was no sign of daylight outside yet, and I had no idea if the swat team would be able to get to us in time or not.

“So no torture?” Marcus said as he opened the office door.

“Naw, I killed that Ed kid after I found him trying to sneak out the back door. It had to of been him,” Rudy said.

Marcus stayed at the entrance to the office but continued to talk to Rudy. I couldn’t believe Ed was dead. I thought he was the redheaded guy from Marcus’s team, but I wasn’t sure. Why would he have tried to sneak out? I thought, but then remembered that was exactly what I had tried to convince Marcus to help me do only a few hours before.

“You think he was the only one?” Marcus said to Rudy.

Rudy was silent for a long moment, obviously contemplating the situation. I didn’t know where Marcus was going with this, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to start giving Rudy the idea that there was more than one mole in his group.

“Well anything is possible,” Rudy said. “Get the girl out here; I want to talk to her.”

Marcus came into the room and walked over to the desk. He pulled the chair out and leaned down.

“Get your sweet little ass out here,” he said.

“Oh, she’s hiding under the desk? That’s smart.” Rudy laughed.

“I know like we wouldn’t find her or something,” Marcus joined in with the laughter.

It was creepy how quickly Marcus was able to change from the man I had started to love, into this crazy creep that worked for this guy, Rudy. I looked at the two of them as they laughed, and I walked out into the main room.

“Alright sweet thing, was that kid Ed the man you know?” Rudy asked.

I just looked at him and shook my head no. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say. Maybe I should have just said yes since Ed was dead now. Maybe I was right to say no? I had no idea. When I looked at Marcus, I didn’t see any response from him.

In fact, when I looked at him, I didn’t really see Marcus at all. He had turned into Skinner and didn’t respond to me one bit. The way he held his body, even the way his eyes looked; Marcus did not look like the man I knew.

“So you know someone else in my group then?” Rudy asked.

Again I shook my head no.

Rudy reached up, grabbed me by the throat, and pushed me up against the wall. It happened so quickly that I didn’t know what to do. My hands darted up to meet his, and I tried desperately to pull them away.

“Listen here, bitch, I will kill you. Do you understand?” Rudy said as I nodded my head yes. “Now tell me who the fuck you know in the group.”

“Maybe we should bring her downstairs so she can show us,” Marcus suggested.

I nodded my head yes again.

Marcus appeared so calm and withdrawn from the situation. He didn’t react to Rudy strangling me, and he didn’t even make a motion to come rescue me. It was disturbing.

I didn’t know who I was going to show Rudy; I didn’t know what was next, but I did know that I needed his hand off of my throat.

I felt the pressure on my windpipe, and I couldn’t inhale. The pain increased the longer his hand was wrapped around me, and I felt myself getting dizzy as I went longer and longer without oxygen.

My eyes got bigger, and I looked from Rudy to Marcus and back again. Marcus looked calm and didn’t seem to care at all that I was in the midst of being killed by this man. He kept his cool and kept his attention on Rudy.

“Yeah, let’s just bring her downstairs and let her point out the guy. I’m sure by this time she is ready to cooperate,” Marcus said as he inched closer to Rudy.

I didn’t know if he had intended to actually do anything if Rudy continued to strangle me, but luckily, Rudy released me from his grip.

My body collapsed to the ground, and I gulped in air as much as I could. I grasped onto my neck and felt the sharp pain that rushed through me as I tried to fill my lungs back up with the sweet oxygen that they had been deprived of.

“You better not fuck with me bitch,” Rudy said as he walked toward the stairs at the other end of the warehouse second floor.

I now knew why he was such a feared man. His kindness toward me at first had only been an act. That man was clearly willing to murder me without a second thought. I searched Marcus’s eyes for some sort of help or understanding as he grabbed me and pulled me to my feet.

For a second, I thought I saw something, but then he turned back into Skinner and pulled me roughly toward the stairs.

“We need to stall for about twenty more minutes, do the best you can. I promise I’ll keep you safe,” Marcus whispered as we moved down the stairs.

There he was; there was the Marcus I knew. Now I just had to figure out how to stall a killer for twenty minutes.

When we reached the bottom floor, no one was asleep anymore. I saw the body of Ed, and it was the redheaded guy who worked with Marcus. I wasn’t sure what his real name was, though, only that in this undercover job he had gone by Ed. His body was near the door, and it looked like he had a gunshot to his head. I looked away quickly. There was no time to be sad about his death—that would have to come later.

“Line them up,” Rudy said to the man who stood next to Marcus.

Everyone lined up quicker than I had hoped, and within a moment, they were ready for Rudy. Marcus still held onto me as Rudy moved toward the line of people.

“This is over; I’m going to kill the girl if you don’t step forward,” Rudy said as he looked at the group of people.

I saw Zed, and he looked at me and then at Marcus. I was so relieved that he wasn’t the one who had been shot. I didn’t know who the third guy was that Marcus said was undercover. I also didn’t know how on earth I could stall this situation at all.

Marcus and the other guy who Rudy seemed to trust brought me up to the line of people and stood me next to Rudy.

Rudy held onto me and Marcus, and the other guy let go and stepped back.

I felt more unsafe than I ever had.

Rudy clearly had no concern for my life at all; he didn’t care about me or anyone else in the room. He just didn’t want the mole to continue to feed information to the police.

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me down to the first person in the line. I still felt like I could hardly breathe. I sat dizzy and nauseated. Sweat was pouring from my brow, and I wiped it away while I looked at the man in front of me.

“Do you know him?” Rudy asked.

I shook my head no.

We stepped to the next in line. He wasn’t wasting any time at all. I was terrified that this was going to go by so fast that whoever Marcus was waiting for wasn’t going to get there in time.

“Do you know him?” he asked again.

I again shook my head no.

I felt relieved, though; if this was how it was going to go, we would easily take twenty minutes, and the raid would be here by the time we got to the end of the line. One at a time, I just needed to deny each of them one at a time.

But I wasn’t that lucky. After about ten people, Rudy got frustrated and threw me onto the ground. He clearly wasn’t a man with patience.

“Just tell me which one of these guys you know,” Rudy yelled.

Marcus, and the other man working next to him, came and picked me up from the floor. I looked at them in desperation. I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t draw this out until someone arrived to him, there was no way.

“I know her,” Zed stepped forward from the other end of the line and said.

His eyes were filled with sorrow, and I felt so bad for him. Zed was such a sweet man, and he literally stepped forward and was willing to get killed in order to save me. He didn’t care about the mission or anything else; he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t hurt.

I looked at him with urgency; I couldn’t understand why he had stepped forward. Why would he put himself at risk if he knew the raid was coming?

I broke free from Marcus and the other man holding me and tried to cause a commotion, but Rudy was there quickly and grabbed me by the hair and pulled me toward him. I fell to the ground, and he yanked me back up by my hair and stood me in front of him.

His face was only a few inches away from mine, and I could smell his breath. He was a disgusting man with horrible breath and poor hygiene. I just had to stall for a little bit. Anything to make the time pass so Marcus and Zed weren’t hurt and got this guy behind bars.

“You’ll be dead in a few minutes, sweetheart; no running away now.”

His eyes were cold and void of any emotion. I felt the fear as it took over my body, and I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stand the thought of him killing the guy that worked with Marcus. I closed my eyes and felt Marcus and the other man grab onto me again.

This was it; it was all going to be over in just a minute. Zed was going to get shot and then Rudy was going to turn the gun on me. I just knew it was going to end, and there was nothing left for me to do.

Rudy made his way toward Zed with his gun drawn; he passed in front of Marcus and I and then the other man who held onto me. I closed my eyes for a moment as I thought Rudy was going to shoot Zed, and I didn’t want to see it happen.

Then suddenly, the second man holding onto me let go and wrapped his arm around Rudy’s neck. Marcus grabbed the gun out of his hands, and Zed took the gun and held it toward the long line of people.

I could see the shock on everyone’s faces. Not only was their boss being held in a headlock, but the two men that were closest to him were the ones doing it. The two men that he had not expected at all were the ones who had turned against him.

Luckily, none of them had their weapons anymore; since Rudy had suspected them all of being possible moles, he must have had their weapons taken from them. A few of the people looked like they might try to rescue their leader Rudy from Marcus and the other man who held him, but there wasn’t enough time.

Within seconds, there was a swarm of swat team people that broke down the door and screamed as they entered the room. I stood still as the men forced their way into the crowd and moved right past me. Each man grabbed one or two people and pressed them to the floor as I heard them shout.

“Put your hands up,” they yelled. “Everyone on your knees with your hands in the air.”

I looked at Marcus and the other man that had been holding me. They had control over Rudy and were moving him to the ground. It all had happened so quickly. I just stood there and took a step back as I watched the whole scene unfold.

It was chaos as each person was held to the ground and searched for weapons. There was screaming and plenty of swearing as Rudy’s men put up a valiant fight against the police force that was arresting them.

I continued to move back farther and farther from the scene until I ran into the wall on the other side of the room. Then I slid down against the wall and started to shake as I realized the whole thing was finally over.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and covered my face as I was overcome with emotion by the whole situation.

Then suddenly I was swept up off the ground. I looked up and saw Marcus. He had me in his arms and walked with me out of the warehouse. I expected he would set me down in the parking lot outside, but instead, he just kept walking.

“Where are you taking me?” I laughed, and he continued to walk farther and farther away from the warehouse.

“Somewhere beautiful,” he said.

Marcus adjusted his grip and continued to carry me. It reminded me of the night we first made love and how he had carried me from the forest where I had been taking pictures all the way back to my house.

I let my head rest on his shoulder as the determination in his steps brought us farther and farther away from the horror of the warehouse. The sound of the police sirens began to get drowned out as we moved closer to the city and farther from the crime scene.

The sun was rising as Marcus finally sat me down on a bench overlooking the shipping yard. I could see the whole city of Chicago behind me and the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen right in front of me.

“I wish I had my camera,” I whispered as I looked out over the water.

Marcus leaned down and kissed me. The gentle loving kiss of a man who had finally finished the hardest job of his life.

“Some moments don’t need a camera to be remembered,” Marcus said. “Are you coming?” he yelled behind us.

I lifted my head to see Zed running up to us. It was over. The horror was over, and as Marcus set me down and the three of us watched the sunrise, all I could think about was how happy I was to have Zed and Marcus in my life and how I couldn’t wait to get home to Stanley and even Rob.

The love of these four men was certainly more than I had ever hoped for. I was excited to see what our future together would look like.