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Unclenching her balled up fist, she holds out her hand and in her palm lies the flash drive in question. The one that harbors the secrets of our enemies.
“Holy shit baby,” I whisper, “Riot, you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Calling Zeke right now!” he jumps up from the couch, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and retreating to the kitchen.
Smiling, I lay my head back into the cushions. Turning my head to look at Spencer, I see the worry written all over her face. She’s scared of what’s to come.
“Babygirl,” I whisper, as I tuck her hair behind her ear and cup her cheek. “You did good. You did really fucking good. Her entire body relaxes, and I feel the tension leaving her all at once. Lying slack against my chest, I listen to her breathing and stroke her hair.
Riot reappears in the room ten minutes later, and motions to me that she’s knocked out. Good. I feel like she hasn’t been able to rest in so long. She’s tired. Tired of being a punching bag. Tired of putting on a happy face. Tired of looking over her shoulder and wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. I swear to fucking christ, I’ll make sure she gets free and lives the life she deserves.
Even if it kills me.
“We have guys watching the perimeter of this building 24/7,” Arsenal starts off, “ two snipers, one on the north side, one on the south side. Men on foot blending in to the city. If anyone tries to get into this warehouse - they’ll be in for a hell of a fucking fight.”
I nod my head, “Thanks man.”
“Zeke, what’s the update?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and meeting his gaze.
“I’m tapped into the feed for all 6 safe houses. Here’s the problem though. They have fail safes built into the software, so I can only be in for a few minutes before it alerts their hacker. The idea of taking the houses all at once, that’s out because we won’t have a big enough window. We are gonna have to hit them one by one with all our power.”
I nod, “Okay got it. We can make it work. That way when they are headed to the house they were alerted to, we can swoop into the next one. It’ll work. We got the ear pieces?”
“Right here,” he sets a small black bag on the metal table.
“Ok what about the blueprints, can you get them for each house so we don’t go in blind?”
“Already got em’, check your phones,” Zeke says as he taps a few keys on his laptop.
Whipping my phone from my pocket, I pull up the message he sent to the group and there’s a blueprint and 3D layout for each of the safe houses.
“Alright, so I was thinking we work in two teams. Arsenal, Blaize, you guys will head in the back of each location with Hannah, and Riot and I will take the front. Shoot first, ask questions later.”
Tapping the screen of my cell phone, I send a message to the group. “Here’s what Grant Maddox looks like. You see this face, you shoot to injure, not kill. I want the motherfucker alive. Got me?”
The brothers nod in unison.
“I’ll catch Riot up later. Zeke you have the van setup?”
“Almost. I need to secure a few more screens, and I want to get some additional controls for Spencer. It’ll be done before nightfall.”
“Good. One more thing,” I reach into my pocket and pull out the flash drive that Spencer had been holding on to. “This contains the Syndicate information that Riot called you about. Secrets. Fuck, I don’t know what all is on it, but I need you to find out for me. See if it has anything we can use.”
“On it,” he mutters as he grabs the drive from my hand and plugs it right into his laptop.
“We have guys watching us set up at both safe houses. If you can get some of your guys to cooperate with some of ours, we can spread a few crews out for ground level surveillance of the area,” Arsenal cuts in.
“Done - Zeke send a message to Riot to round some guys up that he thinks we can count on.”
“On it.”
“Have you heard from Hannah? She was gone when we woke up and her phone is going right to voicemail,” Blaize asks with a furrowed brow as he pockets his cell phone.
“Yeah, she’s uh, actually doing me a favor. She’s working with Riot, teaching Spencer to shoot and handle her weapons.”
“You’re letting your girl get involved?”
“Fuck yes, she’s tired of being helpless. Besides, she’s not running into the building with us, guns blazing, she just wants to know that she can protect herself if I’m not there next to her. She’s brushing up on defense, not offense. It’s your girl that’ll probably be the first one running into the building, so kinda hypocritical don’t ya think?”