Page 69 of Tear Me Down (Descent to Darkness Trilogy #2)

Chapter twenty-eight

Damien

‘Reincarnate’ – Motionless in White

We’ve got them.

We’ve fucking got them. I know it. I can feel the certainty run through my veins.

The moment Carter told me that the moles gave us a location for this meeting, I slipped into a fog of hatred—somewhere so dark and depraved that I could barely see anything else.

Even as I held her against me, I could feel the rage bubbling beneath the surface.

I hate her being alone tonight, even with the guards at the house since they don’t interact with her, but this is necessary.

Once they’re handled, everything else will fall into place.

I’m determined to get them all back to the Attic, alive .

One reason is so I can string Hugo up the way I’ve imagined the past few weeks, and the second reason is so my father can have his revenge on the traffickers.

He’s never talked about them, not even after the meeting where we discovered their identities, but I could see the look in his eyes.

The one that gave away who they really were to him.

They’re the ones that abducted my mother all those years ago.

They have to be.

In my twenty-eight years of life, I have never seen my father overtaken by such hatred, and I understand it completely.

My hatred for Hugo knows no boundaries, and he hasn’t done anything near what was done to my mother.

If this anger consumes me this thoroughly already, what would happen if Ashia were in the same situation?

What if she were beaten half as badly as my mother was?

God, don’t think about it…

I’m not sure how we missed this warehouse over the past few days, because there’s a huge amount of activity here.

Guards stand along the outside and secure the perimeter, multiple vehicles—including vans and trucks they use to transport the goods—occupy the lot, and the lights and electricity are working, even though this building has been vacant for two years.

These are all of the signs of a normal warehouse operation for Dust, and we missed it.

Carter says it’s because we’ve been so focused on the pharmacies creating this new ecstasy and BTX mixture that we’ve slacked on the other drugs they continue to make, and while that might be true, they haven’t used warehouses this big in a while.

I assume it’s because they’re trying to create even more drugs to drive the crime rate higher, but the ‘why’ doesn’t necessarily matter in this moment.

The only thing that matters to me right now are the five key players in this corruption .

As much as I want to go in and immediately start shooting, we’ll need to do this quietly.

I don’t want to risk Jeremy, Darren, or Bradley, and if we make too much noise before we can get to Hugo and his pals, they’ll run like a bunch of cowards, and I’ll lose track of those parasites again.

This has to be done methodically and strategically.

All I can truly focus on is being able to go home and tell her it’s over, that I kept my promise and she’s safe now.

I’m not entirely sure that I’ll feel comfortable enough to take the security detail off her quite so soon, but we’ll be able to slowly advance towards a place where I can, or that I’d at least think about it.

We could finally keep the security camera in our bedroom turned off, instead of me having to turn it off every time I want to touch her.

Of course, I’d ask her to keep it on while she’s home and I’m not, but that’s only for my selfishness of needing to look at her beautiful face every chance I get.

She could go to the store and not have to have Zeke or someone else trail at most five feet behind her, and she would feel better not having someone watch her like a hawk while she works.

Hell, she could go pick out any sexy outfit she wants without her brother sitting in the car outside.

I can imagine how free and secure she’ll feel, and then maybe she’ll be more open to being seen.

Once the doctor clears her and this problem is out of the way, I can get her off that bullshit prescription.

I can move past my insecurities, and we can focus on us.

Our impending marriage, starting a family…

“D? Do you copy? Everyone is in position,” Carter interrupts, breaking through the static on my earpiece.

I internally groan, hating that the thought was disrupted, but it’s a good thing.

I was getting a little too carried away, and I have to actually pull this off for any of those thoughts to become reality.

“Yeah, yeah. All good. Snipers at the ready,” I command, raising my own to access the targets.

This operation starts off much like when I displayed Cooper’s body to be seen by the whole city, but the end result will be much different.

There won’t be any mile-high fires for the city to witness, or bodies on display.

Just a silent show of victory. Once the first guard is in my sight, I press my finger on the com, ready to get this show on the road. “Snipers engage.”

I watch as the first few drop from my scope, and then I act—taking two out myself before confirmations start to ring through my ear.

Zeke and Alex, who are leading the other two zones of our operation, confirm that the exterior targets have been eliminated, so I signal that the perimeter is secure, and it’s time to move in.

We’re entering at three different points.

One through the office on the side of the building, the second through the back, and the third through the main doors in the front.

Three exits, and we’re covering them all.

It did cross my mind that this could be like something out of a movie, and a helicopter could land on the roof to fly them away, but then I realized how ridiculous I was and moved on.

Every possible way they could escape played through my mind and I didn’t move everyone into position until I was sure this was the best course of action.

Filing in one by one, we make our way to the entry points, waiting for confirmation from Alex and Zeke before storming inside.

The warehouse is surrounded by brick and metal, both cold and contradictory to the heat outside, even at night.

The building is clearly worn, and the neglect from the past two years of inactivity is not missed.

I can’t help but focus on the rust and dents in the metal as we wait for the others to get into position—watching and listening for any possible movement or noise that’s out of the ordinary.

The moment they signal they’re ‘a go’, we open the doors gently and quietly make our way in.

We’re prepared for the initial breech at least, thanks to the thermal images we gathered before we started the operation.

The equipment couldn’t get much through the thick walls, but showed a few guards patrolling the hallways towards the outside, so they were easier to detect.

Once we get past the initial walkways, we’re going in blind, but I have every bit of confidence that we can pull this off.

Once I hear shuffling up ahead, I signal the men following me to stop and wait for the moment he turns the corner.

When he does, I act quickly and withdraw my blade.

My grip is harsh as I wrap my arm around his neck and pull him in.

I hold onto him with an iron grip as I shove my knife into his throat and pull away harshly.

The ripping of his skin and gargling sounds sends a tingle down my arm, but I don’t revel in it yet.

I toss the body behind me to my men and let them heave him to the side so he can bleed out alone.

I can seep in the carnage once I have him.

More confirmations of death ring through my ear, signaling the disposal of one guard after another, and the anticipation grows deep within me. Just a few more steps, maybe a few minutes of gunfire, and he’ll be right where I want him—held in my grasp and begging for mercy.

I’ll watch as his eyes widen and then fall as he thinks about the things I’ll do to him.

He’ll conjure up countless scenarios of how I’ll torture him, and maybe I’ll just let his mind spin for a while to build the expectation and fear.

The thought sends that familiar warmth coursing through my body, and I feel as charged as ever to get this over with.

After quickly disposing of another guard, my mood is instantly soured, crashing and burning from the electric feeling before.

Something isn’t right. The air is too clean, void of the harsh chemicals we normally encounter in these buildings.

It’s also cold, like a stale cold, that’s only present with the absence of life.

Perhaps I’m thinking too much into it. The moles have never steered us wrong before, and the activity was clear from the outside, but I can’t just ignore this feeling.

We have to move forward, but we need to do this differently as we approach the main working floor.

I raise my hand in a fist to signal my team to halt before I press into the earpiece.

“Proceed with caution, something doesn’t feel right.”

“Copy,” Zeke and Alex reply one right after the other, and we move forward.

This place is too quiet. There are no radio feeds, machines whirring, and while warehouses like this typically don’t have air conditioning, I don’t hear the sound of a fan running—even though it’s mid July now.

That could be because they didn’t want too many distractions during this meeting, but there’s about to be a lot more commotion than they wanted.

We stop outside the swinging doors to the working floor, and I wait for everyone to signal that they’re ready.

My heart races, and I know that the importance of this is holding steady over my head.

This is it. This one last fight, and everything will be okay.

I just have to keep telling myself that.