Page 30 of One (The Towns Syndicate #2)

Ally

O ur crew was outfitted in fatigues, masks, and enough ammo to invade a small country.

It was weird to be dressed like I've seen King and Boogie dressed when they saved me, and it almost felt like we had come full circle.

It was four days before Christmas, and it literally felt like we had just celebrated Halloween.

I looked around at all the men who wore my emblem on their masks. When the triplets put theirs on, I thought that might be it, but every single person put theirs on. I didn’t want to say it made me feel funny or good, but dammit did it make my heart flutter.

It took us four hours to get up to this small compound, and at first glance it looked abandoned, but every so often a patrol would walk the perimeter or we would see a light flashing. They were waiting for us.

“Team One, make your way to the North end and Team Two get ready to cut the power out.” Winchester held out his map. “I’ll make a countdown to cut the power, and when the lights go off, we all move in.”

“Ts and Noelle will rescue the package,” he said, looking around. “Arthur lives, got it?”

“Mars and Roman, gather data,” Winchester said. “I want to know every asshole who worked with them.”

“Got it,” they said together.

“Does everyone understand their assignments?” Winchester asked, looking at all of us.

“Got it,” everyone responded.

“Team One and Team Two out,” Winchester ordered.

The teams moved out as it started to snow. I stayed close to Maverick, as instructed, watching the teams move into position. Mars was lingering closer to me, and I knew he was worried about me being here. He didn’t say it, but as I got ready, he kept giving me worried looks.

“Team One in place.” A voice came through the comms.

“Copy,” Ruger said.

“Team Two in place.”

“Copy, Team Two, let us know when you are ready to cut the power,” Winchester said as Ruger and Maverick checked their weapons.

“Disarming shots, unless you are in danger,” Maverick said calmly.

I nodded. “We need answers and the more bodies we have to interrogate, the better.”

“Ally, please be careful," Mars said.

“I will.”

“Boogie and King?—”

“They lost their say in anything that had to do with me the moment they locked me away in a room,” I said, as calmly as I could.

“That doesn’t mean their love stopped,” Mars replied.

I laughed, “Boogie and King don’t love me. They see me as property, as a possession. You don’t lock up someone you love, especially knowing their history.”

I checked my ammo as I felt all of them look at me.

“We were partners, lovers and instead of locking me away, they should have worked with me,” I said, releasing the safety. “Except they treated me like every other man, took away my freedom and left me in a room. If that's their love. I don’t want it.”

“Power ready to go out,” Team Two said on the comms.

The triplets, Mars and Roman stared at me.

“We can leave them here,” Winchester suggested.

Roman scowled and Mars glared.

“No, we rescue them,” I said, not wanting to say what happened next. “Boogie and King rescued me, now it's time for me to return the favor.”

“Ok, let's get this show on the road,” Winchester sighed as he did that weird no-talking triplet thing. “Go for Team Two, cut the power.”

“Cutting power.”

Winchester waited a few seconds while he navigated the shadows.

I was sandwiched between Ruger and Maverick as we made it to the house.

The first shots were fired, and this finally felt real for me.

I grabbed my automatic, keeping an eye out as four men ran up the stairs.

The triplets had them off the floor before I could shoot one bullet.

“Mars and Roman, find the files,” Winchester said, before a barrage of bullets came at us.

Ruger pushed me down as he returned fire, and I fired off two shots at the men running up the stairs. From the plans Maverick had acquired, there was a whole underground living space, and I needed to get down there before someone did something stupid like kill King and Boogie.

I killed two men as I ran down the stairs. Each pull of the trigger was easier and as I looked down the hallway, I took out two more men. I felt myself getting into the right mindset. I lied down, waiting for more men and just like I predicted, a few more men came running out of the last room.

That had to be the room that Boogie and King were in.

I waited a minute before getting up and slowly made my way down the hall.

I checked the rooms as I passed them, all empty.

My gut screamed that I was walking into a trap, but I couldn’t leave King and Boogie.

I was livid with them, but they had put their lives on the line for me over and over again.

This was my payback, this was to keep my conscience clear.

Because at the end of the day, I still loved those fuckers, I just couldn’t be with them anymore.

I peeked into the last room and there they were, tied to chairs, heads hanging down, bloody and beaten.

Anger burned in me as I looked around the room, feeling like this was too easy.

I glanced behind me, expecting to see someone, but I was alone.

Ruger or Maverick had to have seen me come down the stairs.

Fuck it, maybe we didn’t have a lot of time before someone came for us.

The room was small, but I made sure we were alone, every glance at them made my heart hurt. They didn’t move and the only chest moving was Boogie’s. Once I cleared the room, I went to King immediately.

“King,” I whispered, as my lip trembled.

I pushed my fingers into his neck looking for a pulse, and it was faint, he was also burning up. He groaned slightly as I let out a shuddering breath, inspecting his wounds. It looked like he had two gunshot wounds that they had tried cleaning up, but hadn’t done a great job.

“Ally,” Boogie groaned.

“Hey,” I said, turning to inspect him.

His blonde hair was matted with blood, one eye was swollen shut, and as my hands traced his body, he flinched. I think he had just gotten the shit kicked out of him.

“Please tell me you're real.” His one good eye was searching my face.

“I’m here, so are the triplets, Mars, Roman and a few of your other men,” I said, pulling a knife out of my thigh and undoing the zip ties on his feet, his arms, and hands.

“I found them downstairs,” I said into my mic.

“Couldn’t follow the plan could you woman?” Winchester growled into the mic.

I smiled.

“Last room down the hall,” I said, cutting the last tie.

Boogie slumped forward too much, and he fell out of the chair.

“Shit, sorry!” I rushed to push him to his side.

“I haven’t eaten in a few days, and my arms have been tied back for a while.” He looked up at me with such tenderness in his eyes it made me uncomfortable.

“Sorry, I should have thought about that,” I said, trying to help him onto his feet, but he cupped my face.

This was not supposed to be a tender moment.

“Ally,” he whispered.

“Come on, Boogie, we have to get King out of here,” I said, as he tried to kiss me.

Where the fuck was my murderous boyfriend?

He growled, yanked me down and kissed me.

The taste of copper invaded our kiss. I wanted to melt into his kiss, forget the world, imagine he hadn’t betrayed me.

I wanted to revel in everything that was Boogie, that made me love him, that brought me back to life, but the sound of footsteps snapped me out of it.

Boogie huffed as I pulled away, attempting to help him up, trying to forget my moment of weakness. I had him standing in front of King as I cut his ties. As he slumped forward I saw his back was drenched in sweat and blood, I worried even more.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Winchester said, as he walked into the room. “Jesus Fucking Christ.”

He rushed to King, assessing him as they laid him on the floor.

“Shit, we need to get him to Doc now,” Winchester said, looking as worried as I felt.

“Oh fuck!” Maverick and Ruger came into rushing to King.

“His wounds are infected, he’s septic, we need to leave now,” Winchester snapped. “Grab his?—”

Ruger grabbed King's upper body before Winchester finished speaking.

Maverick was on the phone with Doc as we left the room.

He was on call, but this was more urgent than we thought it was going to be.

Boogie and I brought up the rear as we rushed upstairs.

It was like I could feel our worry. It was palpable, suffocating and I think that's why I didn't get my gut feeling.

King and the triplets had just exited the house as Boogie walked out. Just as I was about to get on the comms and ask a question, a hand covered my mouth and a knife stabbed my shoulder.

The door slammed shut as I was dragged back and Arthur followed us. I struggled as he pointed a gun at me, and all I heard were gunshots.

“No!” I elbowed the guy, retrieving my knife and stabbing him in the knee as Arthur fired off a shot that I barely dodged which landed in his own man. I grabbed another knife, throwing it at Arthur, grabbing a gun and shooting the guy that was holding me before training my gun on Arthur.

“Call off your guys.” I winced as pain throbbed in my arm.

“No,” he grinned, as a gun was pressed against my temple.

“Hand over the gun, lass,” a thick accent said.

I stilled not from the gun, but from the familiar voice.

“Nic?” I gasped.

“You do remember me,” he purred, stepping in front of me, standing shoulder to shoulder with Arthur.

Their familiarity hit me like a freight train, and I didn’t know how I never noticed it or how I didn’t remember Nic. Fear clawed at me as memories assaulted me. Nic and I in a room together, me sitting on his lap, and bile burning my throat as I remembered it wasn’t Kris who stole me, but Nic.

“Aww, there it is, lass,” he said, grabbing a handful of my hair. “I was wondering if after all these years you would forget me after that fucker took you for himself.”

“Father, we need to leave,” Arthur said looking back at the door. “Those men won’t hold them back, especially Boogie.”

Nic rolled his eyes, “You should have just killed them when we had a chance.”

“Risk the wrath of the Mayor?” Arthur scoffed.

“We are already killing her so what does it matter?” Nic said, grabbing me, hitting the knife that was lodged in my shoulder, and pushing the gun in the middle of my back.

“She’s fair game for sixty days," Arthur argued, as we walked to the back of the house.

“They died in the crosshairs,” Nic shrugged, opening a door and the gunshots got louder.

They pushed me out first.

“Look, I would?—”

The moment the gun left my back, I moved to the side and pulled out another knife I had on me.

Nic fired off a few shots, but he was sloppy and hit Arthur.

I threw the knife, hitting Nic in the eye and he fired off more shots I wasn’t ready for.

A burning pain sliced through my head, cheek and chest as I hit the ground.

Nic shouted in pain, continuing to shoot until the clip was empty. He fell on the floor, howling as I got up, blood was coming down my eye like a river and it took everything I had in me to stand up.

Arthur tried to scramble for the gun that was in between us, but I reached it first. As much as I wanted to kill him, I paused and hit him with the butt of the gun until he passed out.

I could barely see with the blood running down my face, but Nic’s yells led me to him. He was flailing like the bitch he was.

“You stupid cunt,” he yelled at me, but his voice was getting softer.

“Yeah, this stupid cunt you stole off the streets and molested for years is the reason you die today,” I said, before aiming at his dick and shooting until the clip was empty, which was surprisingly a lot of bullets.

I looked at the man who had taken me from my life and wondered why I had forgotten about him.

Damn, I really needed therapy and I think a doctor since I was getting lightheaded.

The snow at my feet was deep red, it was such a beautiful color.

I felt a peace I hadn’t expected from killing Nic, maybe my nightmares would finally go away.

Maybe this was my salvation, I took a deep breath and smiled, yeah… this felt like my salvation.