“In the images there were several vents and four skylights to this place. What are we gonna hit?” I asked him.
“We’ll know when we get up there. Give us a ten-minute head start before you go in. We’ll set it up.” Micah handed Cruz an earpiece. “We’ll talk through this.”
Cruz held the small device up, then put it in his ear. “Go,” he ordered, and Micah and I took off around to the back of the building.
There was a fire escape that was rusted and worn. Micah didn’t wait a second. He bent at the knee with his hands cupped in front of him. I stepped my foot in them and jumped up to the ladder. Reaching down, Micah grabbed my hand instantly, jumping as I pulled him up.
It was so natural for us. There wasn’t a sound as we moved up the fire escape. There were three floors, and it didn’t take long for us to get up to the top.
Micah got close. “You take that half and see if you get visual on them. I’ll do this side.”
I nodded and moved stealthily to the skylights first, staying in the shadows. There was nothing. Putting my ear to the vents, nothing there either.
Micah lifted his arm and made a fist. He had a target. Moving to him, I kept an eye on our surroundings. One never knew what would happen or who could be lurking like we were.
Micah pointed down to an old rusty exhaust fan that luckily wasn’t working. Peering down, there was a long table with chairs on both sides. Jett was looking at his watch and pacing, not exactly showing the confidence he did on our first encounter.
Getting my backpack off, Micah handed me the long spool of wire. Inside my bag I grabbed the camera and attached it to the end of the wire while Micah pulled up the feed from his laptop that he'd taken out of his backpack.
We didn’t need much to make shit work, that was for damn sure.
Micah’s hand motioned down, giving me the go-ahead to start pushing the wire down through the fan. It was the width of a writing pen, and the small camera was the same.
The fan began to spin, not with power to it, but with the wind. I pulled back as the men below us looked up to see what the hell was going on. Fuck.
“Now,” Micah called, and Cruz must’ve heard.
In perfect timing, Cruz, GT, Cooper, Rhys and Deke came into the room, diverting the men’s attention away from the fan.
Knowing better than to stick my hand in it, I looked around the roof only seeing rocks. Inside my backpack, though, was an ink pen, and I quietly jammed it in the fan to stop the oscillating.
The loud voices beneath us caught my attention as I fished the camera down.
Micah handed me a pair of headphones. “What the fuck?”
“The camera has a microphone,” he said quietly.
No shit. Well hell. I put the headphones on and listened.
“What the fuck do you have runnin’ in my territory?” Cruz asked angrily, which wasn’t a surprise. He was pissed he had to come here in the first place. Even more pissed these men were stepping on Ravage’s stock.
“Come sit,” Jett said, moving around the table to sit in the center chair.
Cruz’s brow quirked, and Cooper chuckled. “You don’t seem to know how this shit works.” Cruz put his knuckles on the table and leaned into Jett. “You give me information, and you live. You don’t… Then we got problems.”
Jett held up his hands. “It seems we got off to a bad start.”
“Ya think?” Cooper asked beside Cruz.
“Don’t like people comin’ unannounced to my place,” Jett barked back.
“Don’t like bein’ summoned,” Cruz bit back. “Now where are you gettin’ the guns?”
“You think I’m tellin’ you that?” Jett smiled and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it. “I wanna know why you’re in our business.”
Cruz stood and crossed his arms over his chest. “You got your wires crossed, man. This is Ravage territory. Sumner, Rebellion, and everything in between. You are in between.”
Jett tapped his finger on his chin, and that was when I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye. Lying flat on a floating heater was a sharpshooter. His focus on Cruz.
“Micah.” I pointed to what I saw and pulled out my gun. He needed to be taken out now.
“Trap. Shoot,” Micah said into the earpiece, and all hell broke loose.
Two shots and the sniper was dead. One to get through the fan, the other hitting him between the eyes. His gun fell to the ground, then his body followed.
Shots went off all over the room as I looked at the screen Micah was holding. Then more shots came from outside.
“Fuck. Them or us?” I asked him.
“Them. Looks like Cooper got a graze, but Jett and his men are down. By the sound from below it’s the same.”
“What the fuck?” I asked Micah. “That was too easy. Way too fuckin’ easy.”
There was still something here that we weren’t getting.
“Do you think…?” Micah asked, and I knew what he was thinking.
“Get everyone out now,” I ordered, grabbing my backpack, putting the shit in it and moving to the fire escape. Micah was hot on my heels, barking our suspicions into the head piece.
Down the first ladder and onto the second, it happened.
Everything exploded. My body flew from the ladder and landed on the ground with a thud. There was no doubt that fall gave me a concussion because of how dizzy I felt.
Micah laid next to me groaning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving to him and inspecting him for blood or broken bones.
“Fuckin’ landed on my back. The computer did not break my fall.”
I stood up, feeling a little bit of a spin, but I held out my hand and helped Micah up.
We moved fast to the front of the building, climbing over debris. The Ravage men were starting to get up from the rubble as we approached. The warning wasn’t enough.
“Where’s Cruz and the guys inside?” I asked, looking at the building and ground to see if I could spot them.
Rhys sat up, the concrete and bricks falling off of him. His entire body was covered in dirt and ash. “What the fuck was that?”
“Cruz?” several barked at him.
“I’m good,” Cruz said, stepping out from behind Rhys. He too was covered in dirt and ash. He also had a cut on his leg that was bleeding. “Everyone accounted for?”
There were several groans and would be some seriously sore bodies tomorrow, but as I counted, it came up right. “All here.”
“Let’s get the fuck outta here before the cops show up. We need to get home and regroup.”
He wasn’t wrong. That was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, and my fucking body ached.
But my thinking now was if Jett was the ringleader, why would he be in a building that had exploded. He wouldn’t have had time to get out like we'd warned Ravage.
Maybe Jett wasn’t the monkey running the show. Maybe he was just a puppet.
9
KATIE
“What is up with you calling me over here in a tizzy?” I asked Ensley as I walked into her door. This was the second time in the last few weeks she’d done this to me. Since the last time was a set-up to spend time with Dryerson, I couldn’t help but be skeptical.