Chapter Thirty-Two
Jarrett
The house is right where that piece of shit told us it’d be.
Except it ain’t much of a house. Squat, a few boarded-up windows, and a door that clings for dear life to its hinges. Calling it a drug den would be a compliment.
The two of us take up position about a half mile away. We park my bike and walk the rest of the way, keeping to every shadow we can find.
Hunched in a hiding spot, we scout the place out. There’s five men there that I can see — which is more than either of us are comfortable taking out with a kid around. One wrong move and they’ll kill him.
“What now?” Selena says.
The blood’s still sticky and fresh on her hands. Her face is fury and her eyes are vengeance. She’d turn this whole thing into a bloodbath at the slightest excuse.
And as much as I want to help her in that, we’ve got to play this smart or Jake is going to get hurt.
I grunt. “Going in the front door would be a mistake.”
“Tell me something I don’t fucking know.”
“Fine. You’re scaring me right now,” I say. “Even though the whole blood and murder thing is sort of hot.”
“Scaring you? What, a soldier afraid of a little violence?”
“More like a soldier afraid of losing the woman he loves. This isn’t something you can just come back from. Trust me. Even when I don’t want to — even when I fight it with everything I am — I can see so many of their faces. Fellow soldiers, civilians, enemies. And it fucking changes you,” I say. “Do what you have to do to protect your son, but don’t lose the person you are. Jake needs you to still be his mom when all this over.”
“Don’t think I’m going to let them off easy.”
“I’m not saying that. But when it comes to the heavy stuff, let that fall on my shoulders, alright? Let me carry that for you. I’m down that road far enough that it ain’t going to matter.”
“I don’t want to lose you either, Jarrett. Because you mean something to Jake, and, if we make it through this, I want you around.”
I kiss her. “I love you.”
She kisses me back. “I love you, too.”
I keep a watch on the men inside. Every part of me screaming at me to head in there, to take out these sons of bitches who have threatened my family. It takes all that I have to restrain myself. Every so often, one of them will come by the window, but never enough of them to get a clean shot. As if I could fucking snipe with a pistol.
Once, I get a glimpse of Jake crossing the room, being dragged by one of the Jackals. That sight sets my blood on fire.
A bloody death is better than these pieces of shit deserve.
“We can’t go in like this,” I tell her. “One wrong move and they’ll kill him.”
“I’m not going to just sit out here.”
“I know. We need to draw some of them out. I’ve got an idea.”
I pull out Ozzy’s cell phone and dial up Gunney. It rings twice before he answers.
“What is it?” he says.
“What’s your location?”
“Five minutes out. You find the kid? Is he ok?”
“For now. They’re planning to sell him, Gunney.”
“Fucking Christ. Selling a fucking kid? You sure?”
“Yeah. We picked up a prospect and asked him a few questions.”
“We? You mean you’ve got your woman in on the fighting, too?”
“It’s her son, Gunney. No way I can keep her out of it. Listen, I need a favor. I’ve got eyes on the kid, but there’s at least five Jackals here at this stash house where they’re holding him. They’ve got to be guarding something more than just the kid. But I can’t make a move without risking them hurting Jake.”
“What do you need from me?” he says without any hesitation.
“I think I have a plan, but it’s gonna take a bit of precision. You think a fucking jarhead like you can follow some complicated instructions?”
“Talk to me, Jarrett,” he says, then before I can answer, he starts in. “You know, I fucking hate calling you by your goddamn name. I fucking hate it. I don’t want to look up at the wall in our clubhouse and see fucking ‘Jarrett’ underneath your ugly mug. It’s a stupid fucking name.”
“Can we figure that shit out after we get our guns back, save our family, and earn our fucking hazard pay for this business deal from hell?”
“No. That’s it. If you die, we’re putting ‘Hazard’ on your tombstone.”
“Hazard? Come on. Take it back.”
“No, it’s either that or I’ll ask Bear’s daughter to give you a nickname. You know she’s still watching Frozen after all these years?”
“Seriously?”
“Take your pick: Hazard or you can be named after a character from that Ice Princess movie.”
“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You can call me whatever the hell you want if it’ll get you to shut up and listen.”
“I’m all ears, Hazard.”