“What do you have?” Roarke asked, jumping immediately back into business mode, incredibly good at mentally avoiding the fact that he just had sex with the woman sitting opposite him in the room. He needed to focus though, there were bigger things going on.
“Looks like we’ve got quite a few dirty cops,” he said. “Or maybe just stupid ones. She’s very good with her “poor me” act, your sister. She’s been staying with a few of the guys fresh out of the academy. They practically jizzed their pants over her little innocent act and she’s bouncing between at least three houses. As far as we can tell, none of them know about the others. She’s tricky.”
“We knew that,” Hanna mumbled from behind, arms crossed over her chest.
“So what now?” Roark asked.
“Now? We stop fucking around. We’ve got the house she’s at now surrounded with undercover cops. We’re going to haul her in and be done with this fucking nightmare,” James said.
“I’m fine with that but we’re doing it my way.”
“Your way?”
“No cops. My guys. You can blame us, do whatever. I’m already in hot water, might as well see how far it will take me.”
“Does that seem wise?”
“No, but we’re past that point, don’t you think? Besides, keep the cops out of this. All squeaky clean. We’ll take care of Isabelle and you can deal with your dumbass newbies,” he said.
They were staring each other down again. They were good at mental games played with the eyes. He was almost starting to like this guy. He’d miss having someone to glare at who actually glared back.
“Fine. But just to be clear, this isn’t ‘your way.’ This is me wanting to keep my department safe. Got it?”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sir.”
“Five minutes. Meet me outside with your gang.”
“Roger that.”
The cop left and Roarke was left again with Hanna, looking on edge again. She was watching him closely and he knew a lecture was coming. She wore her emotions all over her face and he wondered if she always did that or if his feelings made what she was thinking and feeling so obvious to him.
“You’re not stopping me,” he said, evenly.
“No. I am going with you, though.”
“No way in hell.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. Baby or not. This is my fight too now. You can either let me ride with you or I find my own way there. That’s the most control I’m giving you in this.”
“Hanna--”
“That’s what this is going to be like Roarke. I won’t be talked down to or told what to do and you’re going to have to get used to that. Now, you can be man enough not to be threatened by something as stupid as a woman making up her own mind. Or you can pout about it, do what you like,” she said. She had that power stance. The same one that drew him to her in the first place. It was no time to be hard but he knew he wasn’t letting her go anywhere away from him any time soon. And if that meant she came to what was likely going to turn into a shoot-out, then so be it. He wanted her everywhere he was.
“Alright. You’re the boss.”
“Damn right.”
***
They drove en mass to the house. There was no time to come with a plan, to think about how best to sneak in or lure someone out. It was just about showing up, knocking, and kicking the door in when they decided not to answer. Rick finally had a smile on his sourpuss face for the first time in ages, he was finally getting the chance at a fight he’d been craving and Roarke was more than willing to let him loose.
They followed the directions James gave them, moving through the streets, overtaking cars, and drawing the concerned looks from everyone they passed. Good. Roarke wanted them to know what was happening, he wanted Isabelle to know what was coming for her. They rode on like a pride of lions. They were Pharaohs after all. And Roarke had never felt that more than in that moment. When they neared the neighborhood where the house was located, they slipped on the Pharaoh masks, pulling them down and putting their bikes around the house, blocking any exits.
“The fuck you think you’re doing, boys?” a man said, stepping out of the house in pajamas.
Roarke guessed this was one of the police officers his sister had charmed. He looked just like the naive boyish type she’d manage to con. He tried to look tough, a glock in one hand and a badge in the other, like it was supposed to be a real shield. He smiled behind his mask and chuckled.
“Want no trouble Mr. Officer,” he called. “We just hear Isabelle Withers is here and we’d like to talk to her.”
“You can fuck off is what you can do.”
“Is that any way for a man of the law to talk, boys?” Roarke and several of his men let out laughs, pulling out their weapons. All the safeties were still on. This was just a show of force. An intimidation tactic.
“Don’t do nothing stupid,” the cop called back.
“I could say the same to you Mr. Officer. There’s way more of us than there is of you. Might want to be careful with those odds.”
“Piss off.”
“Easy now, kid.”
The tension boiled over. Roarke could see the boy was new. He might not even have ever fired his gun before outside of a training range. And here he was, faced with almost twenty gang members all holding loaded weapons, ready to blow his head right off and not blink about it even once. It was natural he was going to make a mistake and the one he made was a rather sizable one.
Rule number one, whether you’re the cop or the robber: always have on the safety until you’re ready to fire. And this kid was way too eager.
He got a shot off. Roarke didn’t see who he hit, but it landed in someone behind him. The sound of a bullet burrowing into flesh was one that was completely unmistakable. It haunted Roarke’s dreams the first time he heard it when he was just thirteen years old. And now it was behind him because some too-eager city cop wannabe decided to let a warning shot off with aim so bad that it actually hit someone.
Roarke sprang into action. The copper boy took off and went to lock the door behind him but it was no match for the rage-filled stop of Roarke’s boot on the front door, sending it splintering in and knocking the boy in his pajamas with a gun and a badge back and into the hallway behind him. At this point it seemed like the boy was ready to piss himself and Roarke was more than willing to let that happen.
“What the fuck is going--”
That familiar voice stopped when its owner caught sight of exactly what the fuck was going on. Roarke slipped his mask off and looked into the eyes of his own personal Judas who had betrayed him with so many kisses over the years. She didn’t deserve to wear their mother’s face. To misuse her kindness and her soft eyes the way she did. He hated her for it. He knew then that he hated her. He wanted to see her suffer. He wanted her to be afraid of him like she pretended to be in her sob stories to the police.
“Sit the fuck down,” he said, pointing the gun at her and removing the safety when he saw her make even the slightest move.
She obeyed, putting her hands up.
“Put your fucking hands down, you’re not fooling anyone.”
“Brought your girlfriend?”
“Looks like you did too,” Hanna said, nodding to the whimpering police officer on the floor.
“We’re going to talk,” Roarke said carefully. “And I mean really talk. No beating around the goddamn bush, no tricks. There’s no cops, no reporters, no witnesses. You’re going to give this crap to me straight, right here, right now.”
“Why should I?”
“Did you ever give a fuck about Amber? About mom? Do it for them. Prove you’re not 100% a monster.”
“I’ll talk you if you agree to let me go afterwards without dodging your fucking goonies out there.”
He really had no intentions of letting that be the case. His gaze to her said as much. He wasn’t going to let her just walk out of the house with no consequences. The whole point of this was to bring her in, make sure she got justice.
“Your call,” she said. “But I’ll tell you right now you’re running on a tight clock. You want those girls who are an hour from being sent out of the country, right?”
He clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might shatter under the force of his bite. She had him there. He was caught between places, finding those girls and getting them somewhere safe or hauling his sister’s ass into custody and being done with the entire affair. He wanted so badly to see her in chains, it practically made him see red. There was a litany of grievances just waiting to be thrown in her face. It was such a hard tide to ignore. He had her right where he needed her, right in the corner he planned on trapping her in. He couldn’t let that go.
“Roarke, the girls,” Hanna said behind him.
“She’s right here,” he growled. “We can end this.”
“And abandon all those girls in need of help. We have a chance to save them,” she said, grabbing his arm a little too intimately in front of Isabelle.
“If we get her now and end this we can prevent future--”
“Or you can satisfy your need for revenge, right? That’s what this is about,” she said, tugging him off to the side but his gun still stayed trained on Isabelle. “What if you have a daughter?”
She was asking cryptically but he felt the shiver and his eyes involuntarily moved to her stomach where hid the child that very well could be a girl waiting to be born. His daughter. He knew what she was asking. He imagined his daughter-to-be, a girl with Hanna’s strength, her beautiful eyes, and his stubbornness. He imagined her locked away, far from home, about to be shipped even farther away. He imagined her fear, watching those strong eyes turn weak and scared.
“Fine,” he forced out through tight teeth. “Tell us where they are and you walk free.”
“The San Manolo car factory,” she said. “Abandoned, which makes it a great place to store cargo.”
“That’s almost an hour away.”
“You better get moving then. Those girls won’t be making a return trip.”
He stared at her long and hard. He thought about pulling the trigger. In a way, he’d be keeping his word. He wasn’t taking her prisoner or turning her in. And he’d be rid of her. But he couldn’t do it, not with his mother’s familiar face lingering just there, hints of fear around the edges of her eyes as if she could sense what he was thinking about doing.
The situation was too far gone now. So he turned and left at Hanna’s instance, in a race against time.
***
It was like a race with the air rippling around them. They were speeding down the highway. And on a hog that felt like ten times faster than it actually was, no matter the speed you were travelling at. Roarke wasn’t about to let losing his chance at taking down his sister be in vain. He would get to those girls in time. He would win that much out of this day, out of the entire ordeal that felt like he was losing at every step he took.
They raced down the highway, following his lead. He knew the warehouse. The Caracals had used it before to bring in coke from Mexico. It was right by the port and, rumor had it, used an underground transport system to connect the two. The original car dealership was shut down for ferrying drugs into the country that way. And now the Caracals were using it to ferry real, human people.
He thought of the daughter that might be growing inside Hanna. He thought of her scared and alone, miles from home, ready to be shipped off to who knew where and let her life and the world swallow her whole.
He pushed his bike harder. He’d stop this if he had to swim out to the boat himself and pull some sort of comedic cork inside the hull of the boat.
The warehouse was in sight. And the closer they got, the more bikes they could see littered outside of the building. There was a lot of Caracals there. The entire gang wasn’t there, but there was enough that this was going to be something of a fight. Roarke was itching to put a few bullets in these bastards, though he was wary the mother of his child was with him. She would insist on a gun as well, he knew. He wondered how it would feel to her, killing men that had once been her brothers and partners.
“We got a plan?” Rick shouted, riding up alongside Roarke.
“Kick their asses and find the girls,” Roarke shouted back over the wind and the roar of their machines.
“Sounds perfect to me.”
The Caracals would hear them coming. Even if they wanted to try to pull some surprise nonsense, they wouldn’t be able to. It was nothing but desert around them, nothing to pick up the echo or muffle the sound. And if the Caracals were in that warehouse, there was only one reason they’d be hearing a tidal wave of bikes headed their way. He didn’t doubt that they’d be firing the first shot. He’d let them have that.
They pulled up to the gate, crashing right through it, breaking the feeble chains meant to hold it closed. They raced in with a jet stream of dirt behind them to let everyone in that building know they were here.
They killed their bikes and jumped off, replacing the sound of engines with the sound of several guns loading and cocking. And then the first shot went off.
They took cover behind their bikes. Hanna was tucked in right next to him. He silently slipped her a glock and she gave him a thankful smile. She quickly checked the magazine and cocked it, taking the safety off all in one fluid motion and he’d never been so turned on his life. It shouldn’t be so hot to see the mother of his child handle a gun better than he ever could, but he wasn’t going to complain for one second. She was an amazing woman and if their child was half of what she was, he would be grateful.
“We can’t stay crouched out here all day,” Hanna said. “They’ll just pick us off one by one and the girls will be long gone.”
“Got a plan?”
“Get your trigger happy lap dog to draw their fire and we can move in. We need to get visual on those girls,” she said.
He wanted to object. He didn’t want her getting any closer to danger. But he also knew out here would be just as bad. Even if they could use their motorcycles for cover all day, one wayward shot on a gas tank and whoever was crouched behind it would find themselves well done in a matter of seconds.
He turned and signaled to Rick who nodded with a psychotic grin. He was a nut for violence, always had been. It was finally going to come in handy here. In a matter of seconds he was up and firing wildly at the spots where the Caracal fire was coming from. They took the bait, chasing him in a flurry of bullets.
“Now,” she hissed.
They moved quickly before they could draw attention to themselves. They went only a few yards, dropping behind another motorcycle. They could only go so far at a time to avoid bringing the flurry of bullets back on them. They moved across the lot that way, hopping from motorcycle to motorcycle. Eventually they got to a service door that was locked. Roarke went to point his gun at the handle and shoot the lock off but Hanna stopped him. The noise would alert them. Instead she grabbed a nearby rock and slammed it down on the handle with as much power as she could. It bent it crooked, denting it a good deal. She raised the rock and brought it down a second time, now knocking it to the point where it hung on bent hinges. Roarke took over, knocking it the rest of the way.
They pushed the door open and moved in. Once inside, the sound muffled, it turned into a work of espionage more than a warzone.
“I’ve always wanted to have an MI moment,” Hanna whispered with a smile clear on her lips, even in the dark.
“MI?”
“Mission Impossible.”
“Never seen it.”
“Well the first thing we’re doing when we get out of here is marathoning those movies because that is awful.”
He snorted. They moved through the hallways, chasing the light that was visible in other rooms. They stayed close to the wall, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. They weren’t exactly sly, but Hanna seemed to have a gift for hiding against the wall and checking corners each time they turned. He wondered how he never heard of her before now. Usually the Caracals made a point to boast about their members. But it was possible she stayed quiet about it, after all, this was the first time he was seeing her in action since they met months ago.
“There,” she whispered, pointing.
He followed the sightline of her index finger and sure enough a group of girls was rallied together, two men pacing around them with rifles. The rifles were going to be a problem, as was their proximity to the women sitting there. They didn’t exactly have the ability to snipe them and any indication they were here would be a one way ticket to getting their insides blown right out by assault rifles.
“Plan?” Roarke asked in the dark.
“We need to get them away from the girls,” she whispered back. “We also need to see how trigger happy they are.”
She slid forward carefully, grabbing a piece of debris from the floor, an old car part. She carefully tossed it, sending it sailing several yards away and letting it cause a clang on the floor. Both men spun around on their heels and immediately fired at the spot where the sound had come from.
“Idiots,” Roarke said. “I’d beat their asses for crap like that.”
“Well, we know they’ll be easy to trick.”
Both men were still staring at the spot where the sound had come from, inching closer slightly towards the area, moving with each step farther from the girls. Hanna took aim, both eyes incredibly intense and poised, her arms were steady, elbows locked. She was the picture of someone who was confident in what they were doing as she carefully aimed. She fired.
The one closest to them dropped instantly, crying out. She’d got him in the stomach. The other, however, moved quickly, pointing his gun at their hiding spot and getting ready to fire.
Roarke saw it slow motion and moved as fast as he could. He pulled Hanna, yanking her down as the sounds of gunfire went off. He moved to cover her body with his own, planning on taking every bullet for her that he possibly could. He heard her grunt as they both hit the ground. Her heard another shot go off from her gun and heard the sound of another body hitting the floor behind them and the gunfire stopped.
He looked down to see blood on his jacket and Hanna gripping her shoulder.
Then he saw red.