Page 32 of Edinburgh Escape (Brotherhood Protectors International #5)

They moved out, clinging to the shadows of the buildings. Callum led the way around the back. During the day, the area was busy with forklifts, booms and trucks moving cargo from ship to shore. At night, most dock workers and longshoremen went home, leaving the area in a ghost-like hush.

The men moved silently from building to building, ever closer to the one containing the Kholdov Coalition and the woman Callum could fall in love with, if he let himself.

Hell, he was already well on his way there, despite his vow to stay away from relationships until he could control his nightmares.

But his feelings weren’t important. What mattered was freeing the woman and child before they were harmed. They deserved a chance at a long, healthy life. He’d do his bloody damnedest to see they got that.

Callum stopped when the warehouse came into view. He peered into the shadows, searching for any guards positioned on the back side of the building.

A movement caught his attention. A shadow moved as a figure detached itself from the dark side of the building. A man holding a rifle stood straight and still as if listening.

Callum froze, afraid he’d made a sound that had alerted the man.

Then the guard turned away from where Callum pressed against the corner of a building with Ewan, Atkins and Fearghas behind him.

Another guard stepped out of the shadows at the far corner of the building. He waved to the other and started running toward the guy at the center.

“We have a guard standing in front of a large overhead door,” Callum reported. “Another on the far corner, moving quickly toward him.”

“Three bogies on the front,” Ace said. “They were leaning against the building. Now they’re alert, weapons at the ready. Makes me wonder if they saw us coming. No. Wait. Headlights are coming toward us and the warehouse. They’re moving fast. Damn.”

“What?” Callum asked.

“They skidded to a stop in front of the building. It’s a truck, and men are pouring out.”

The pop, pop, popping sound of gunfire erupted.

“I believe the Donchenko Bratva gang has arrived,” Ace said. “Any chance of entering through the rear?”

“Yes, if we move quickly. Right now, there are only two guards back here, and they’re heading into the building. We’re moving in.”

“Jack and I will back up, swing around and cover you from the rear,” Ace said. “We’re leaving Ramsey and Dax to cover the front in case someone makes a run for it with the hostages.”

“Ewan, Atkins, Fearghas, let’s go.” Callum led the way, submachine gun poised and ready.

The guards who’d been outside moments before had disappeared through a smaller door next to the overhead doors. The muffled sound of gunfire inside the building made Callum’s gut roil. He hoped Maggie and Bryce were lying low, out of the line of fire.

As Callum reached the smaller door, the two guards who’d gone in burst through it. When they saw Callum, they raised their rifles.

Too late. Callum released a short burst of rounds from the submachine gun. The men jerked, dropped their rifles and fell forward.

Callum stepped past them, ducked low and slipped through the door, moving quickly to the side.

A man hiding behind a stack of wooden crates, leaned around the corner every so often to pop off a round with his handgun. He didn’t notice Callum as he slipped up behind him, hooked his arm around the man’s neck and squeezed tightly.

The man fought, but without air, he couldn’t call out.

Fearghas grabbed the gun from the man’s hand as Callum dragged him out the back door.

“Where are the girl and the little boy?” Callum asked. He loosened his arm enough for the man to respond.

He coughed and said something in Russian.

“He just called your mother a whore,” Atkins said.

Callum tightened his hold around the man’s neck and lifted him off his feet. He kicked his feet and clawed at Callum’s arm, but Callum didn’t relent, adrenaline pumping through his veins, his temper growing shorter.

As the man’s attempts to escape slowed, Callum loosened his hold barely enough to allow the man to breathe. “Last chance,” Callum warned him.

“In the van,” he gasped in heavily accented English.

Callum shoved him toward Fearghas. “Shoot him, stab him, turn him over to Donchenko Bratva, I don’t care.

Just don’t let him leave until I get Maggie and Bryce out.

” Callum entered the door again and took up the position the Russian had held long enough to study the dimly lit interior of the warehouse, where a turf war was in full swing, bullets flying indiscriminately.

When he spotted the van, he let out a quiet curse and spoke into his radio headset.

“I’ve spotted the van Maggie and Bryce might be in.

It’s halfway across the building. It appears the two gangs are divided in the building, shooting at each other.

The van is near the middle of the battle. ”

“Getting to that van would be suicide,” Fearghas said. “What’s your plan? I’m in.”

“You’re right, there’s no way a sane person could get to the van by just walking over to it. But it’s faced forward, with an overhead door directly in front of it. If we could get to the van, we could ram it through the door and out into the street.”

“Callum, you’re not getting to the van,” Atkins said. “There are so many bullets flying, you’ll have lead poisoning before you can get inside it and drive it through the doors.”

“I might not have to get inside it.”

“How else will you crash it through the doors?”

Callum stared at a giant forklift near the back overhead door. “All the rest of you have to do is cover me while I get to that forklift.”

“Callum, you’re fucking crazy,” Ewan murmured through the headset.

“You got a better idea?” Callum asked. “I’m listening.”

“You know how to drive one of those things?” Atkins asked. “If you don’t, I do.”

“I worked in my uncle’s bottling company for three summers and on weekends,” Callum said. “I know how to drive a forklift. Cover me.”

“We’ve got your six,” Ace’s voice came through the headset. “We’re right behind you.”

Callum glanced right, then left and then aimed for another stack of crates across an empty space.

Hunkering low, he sprinted, tucked the submachine gun into his belly and dove behind the crates as bullets splintered the wood over his head. He came up on his knees and aimed toward the source of the bullets, letting loose a burst of fire.

Behind him, his team added to the gunfire, giving Callum the chance to make it to the next stack of crates, several feet from the forklift.

“Moving forward. Right behind you,” Fearghas said. “Keep going.” His guys laid down suppressive fire.

Callum ran for the next stack of crates and ducked behind them.

A man dressed in back leaned around the stack.

Callum was ready. He unloaded another burst of bullets.

The Russian slid to the floor.

Callum burst out into the open, running full tilt for the forklift.

Gunfire rattled around him, the sound so loud it was almost a roar echoing off the rafters of the warehouse.

Bullets ricocheted off the metal casing of the forklift as Callum leaped up onto a ledge and dove into the driver’s seat. He ducked low, his hands feeling around the controls in the semidarkness to find the key. He twisted it, and the engine chugged for a second and died.

“Start, you bloody pile of junk,” he yelled and twisted the key again.

The engine chugged and then roared to life.

Callum shifted the gears, sending the forklift lurching forward. He dared to look up long enough to aim the tines of the machine toward the van at the center of the conflict and moved slowly forward.

His team had moved close enough to provide some suppressive fire as the forklift closed the distance to the van.

As he neared, he slowed even more and slid the tines under the chassis right before the forklift bumped into the back of the van.

He increased the speed, pushing the van faster and faster toward the overhead door.

If he could get it going fast enough, the weight of the van, combined with the speed at impact, should allow it to burst through the sheet metal out into the open, free of the showdown between the warring Russian mobsters.

That was his plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had. A bullet whizzed past his head, bounced off the metal roll bar and hit his shoulder.

Callum barely winced. Hyped up on adrenaline, he had one goal in mind: get the hostages out of the middle of the Russians’ gunfight.

He glanced up in time to see that the van was nearing the overhead door.

He increased the speed for one final burst of velocity before he’d have to stop the forklift to let the van smash into the door and push through with its own forward momentum.

If he tried to push the van through with the forklift, he risked smashing the back of the van where Maggie and Bryce were likely held, killing them in the process of an attempted rescue.

For a split second, doubt consumed him. He quickly brushed it aside and continued moving forward.

Suddenly, a man appeared near the overhead door. He slammed his palm against a big button on the wall, and the overhead door rose upward. The man who’d hit the button jerked, twisted and fell to the ground as bullets cut him down.

Though the door continued to rise, it wasn’t quite fast enough for the van to clear it. The front of the van slammed into the door, catching it in the middle of the windshield and shattering the glass, but not crushing the body of the van.

The sheet metal of the overhead door crumpled, allowing the van to keep moving forward.

Callum stayed with it all the way out into the street, even managing to turn it slightly, taking it further away from the warehouse and closer to where they’d parked their cars.

Ramsey and Dax jogged alongside the forklift, weapons at the ready.