Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
You'd almost think Hawthorne wasn't interested in visitors.
“What do we do?” I ask. “I bet this shit goes all the way around the property.”
Nitro opens the saddlebag on his bike and pulls out a piece of gray play dough. At least that's what it looks like. “I brought keys.”
Wraith and I laugh. “Nice.” Eagle-eye nods like he expected it all along, and the old fox probably did.
Nicholas eyes the lump suspiciously. “C-4?”
“Never leave home without it.” Nitro molds and bends it, shaping it to fit around where the two halves of the gate meet. I have to admit I'm a little skeptical watching him do it. I know C-4 isn't supposed to blow up easy, but that's enough of it to make just about anyone's day a really fucking bad one. I just have to trust Nitro to know what he's doing. Luckily, he does.
He jams a detonator into it and activates a little switch. A dim red light pulses in the darkness.
“Back,” he hisses, and we retreat well away from the gate. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and brings up an app with a red button. He taps it, confirms, and then the detonator goes off. The C-4 explodes with a flash of light and a loud boom, throwing the gates right off their hinges. Holy shit.
“Ding dong,” Nicholas sings dryly. I snort, I didn’t know Mafia types were allowed to joke.
“Let’s move” says Wraith and then we rev our bikes and charge down the driveway, Nicholas leaving the car behind to ride bitch behind Wraith. Neither of them are thrilled with it, but too fucking bad. I like this plan. Subtlety was never my strong suit.
As we come around the last bend, the mansion appears in front of us. I gotta say, it's pretty fucking swank. Not exactly the cottage I expected. Doesn't fucking matter, as long as we get Kaylee outta here.
Almost immediately, guards pop out from doors and start shooting from windows. More people here than I figured too. Maybe it was good we brought the Mafia boy after all, if he knows what the fuck he's doing.
The driveway's lined with marble statues, like something out of a historical movie about the ancient Greeks or Romans or some shit like that. Tacky as fuck, but they make for decent cover. We abandon the bikes to get behind them, spreading out.
Wraith fires, and someone screams from inside. Already a promising start. The Mafia guy picks one off too, and then we're moving forward.
I get as far as almost to the garage when I have to throw myself down and take cover behind a corner of the terrace. Some fucker opened the garage door and is taking potshots using the wall for cover. I fire, duck, he pops up to fire back, and Nitro takes him right in the face. His scream cuts off halfway as he falls back, dead as a fucking doornail.
When I'm sure no one else is shooting from in there, I roll and make my way inside. “Going in!” I yell.
“We'll keep'em busy!” Eagle-eye yells back, his hand cannon booming like fucking thunder.
In a place like this, I'm assuming there's at least one door connecting to the garage, and the dumbass guarding it gave us an opening. I rush to the back and find it. The door's locked, but now we're getting to my specialty—breaking shit.
I slam my shoulder into the door, and it tears right off its hinges. This place looks like a palace but it’s built like a McMansion. Did Hawthorne think nobody would find him? He'd better not have fucking hurt Kaylee, that's all I'm fucking saying.
Just as I come around a corner, a guard is coming the other way. Before he can even make a sound, I grip him by the neck of his shirt and slam his face into the wall. He drops like a fucking bean bag. Nice. I hadn't expected this to be so fucking easy.
Now where did they put her?
The place is like a fucking maze. I push through a couple doors and emerge into a big kitchen, the kind the owners never see because it’s for the staff. There's a frying pan on the stove with a single egg sizzling in it. Acting purely on instinct, I dodge and another frying pan barely misses my face, hitting my shoulder instead. My arm goes numb and my gun hits the floor.
Fuck.
It's fucking Anderson with a frying pan in one hand and a big ass chef's knife in the other. “And here I fucking hoped we killed you,” I growl as I get in position to fight him while looking around for something I can use for a weapon.
“I'm afraid the kitchen's off limits,” he says as he approaches. His lines need work, but he's moving like he knows what he's doing. If he gets that knife in me, I'm fucked.