Breaking Hammer (Motorcycle Club Romance) (Inferno Motorcycle Club Book 3) (37 page)

Manny and Squid
walked through the hotel room door.  Eddie looked up from the table, where he sat with Axe, looking at the blueprints for the finishing school.  "How's it look?" he asked.

Squid
sat down, out of place with Manny in their tourist ensembles, compared to the rest of us, clad in all black.  He and Manny had just returned from casing the finishing school for the past couple hours, trying to get a handle on security.

Blaze and I hung back on the sidelines during this part of things, watched while the others strategized a plan of attack.
 Axe had experience with this kind of thing, as an ex-Marine scout sniper and reconnaissance platoon member.  He understood the planning involved in a raid, and I could tell he thought Benicio's men, all former special forces from a few different countries, were capable.

Squid was one of the guys from the MC.  I didn't know him all that well, but Blaze vouched for him, said he was with one of the Navy's Special Boat Units or some shit.  Whatever that meant.  I hoped to hell it meant he knew what the fuck he was doing.

Squid cleared his throat.  "The place is surrounded by basic concrete walls, nothing special, eight foot it looks like.  Easy to scale, but be advised there is the standard glass painted into the top.  You guys going directly over the walls will want reinforced gloves.”

Benicio's
man, Javi, pointed toward the corner of the room, and Squid nodded, then continued.  “Only looks like four guards, and they like to take long breaks. They don’t look to be highly motivated or very well trained.  Probably paid in peanuts, but it's still a bad idea to take them lightly.  The North and Western walls are lined with trees that overhang the walls, easy ways to drop in for those hitting the rear. They also provide good coverage from the adjacent buildings if anyone should happen to snoop.  There’s only basic video surveillance- CCTV cameras that are stationary and focused on points of entry into the compound"  He leaned over the table, pointing to several places on the blueprints.  "Security cameras I could see here, here, here, and here."

Eddie
looked up at Manny.  "We need to take those out first."

"Go in after nightfall, disable the power."

"They'll have a generator," Squid said.  "It's Thailand."

"Yes,"
Eddie
said.  "In the back somewhere.  Whoever goes through the back takes it out, one of the first things."

He paused, and I waited.  Then he finally spoke.  "Okay, just like we've discussed before.  Let's make sure we're straight.  Axe, you're going to be the one most exposed.  Your position on the roof of the adjacent building will potentially leave you exposed to the windows of the high rise hotel here."  He pointed to the map.

"No problem, man," Axe said.  "I'll be under a tarp that looks like just another roll of asphalt.  I won't be visible unless someone steps on me."

"Good," Eddie said.  "Send a confirmation key on the radio when you're in position and have a clear view of the layout.  We want to hit the power at exactly 0300 hours while everyone is asleep.  Manny, you and Diego will kill the generator first, then the power.  Squid, you get the grapple on the second floor balcony and wait for Manny and Diego to catch up with you.  You guys have the second floor to clear.  Photo-lume the door as soon as it's cleared.  Wait for us to sweep the first floor and meet up with you before we head up to the third floor.  Axe, you've got the best view of what we assume are Aston's quarters.  Once we kill background lighting, see if you spot any signatures on the infra-red scope."

"Roger," Axe said.  Manny, Diego, and Squid nodded their agreement.

"Javi, I hope your blades are sharp," Eddie said.  "Yours is the diciest.  You're heading down the road from here, where the street lights are nonexistent.  Once you turn the corner, you stick the guard and hit the latch to open the front gate."

"Si," Javi said.

"
Hammer and Blaze, you're with me.  Once Javi turns the corner, we're moving across the street from the alley here."  He pointed to a spot on the map.  "We go through the front door and clear it, then meet up with the second team to hit the third floor."

Eddie paused and looked up at everyone.  "Questions or concerns, gentlemen," he said.  "Speak now or forever hold your peace.  We hit it at 0300.  We need to be out by 0320, considering potential police response."

"There's a lot of kids inside," Diego said.  "This Aston guy might use someone as a hostage."

"Need to make sure it's not Meia or her kid,"
Axe said.

"She's talked about Aston,"
Manny said.  "You got any idea whether he'd be keeping her close to him?"

I shook my head.
 "He didn't exactly keep her on a leash back in Vegas," I said.  "Not at his house, and from what I saw when I followed her, his guys tailed her pretty randomly."

Blaze shot me a look.
 I knew what he was thinking when he heard me say I'd followed her- that I was a fucking psycho or something.  "On the other hand,” I said.  “He's fucking obsessed with her, and probably pissed as shit she got one over on him and got together with me.  He's probably keeping her close."

"Preference is, we bring Aston back alive,"
Eddie said.

"So we just need to take out the guards; extract Meia and her kid from a psychopathic human trafficker; avoid the attention of the Thai police; rescue thirty or so kids from their lives of slavery; and make sure a trafficking rescue organization gets to the kids before anyone else does.
 That about sums it up, right?"  Axe grinned broadly.

"You got anything better to do on a Friday night?"
Blaze asked.

"Fuck, no,"
Axe answered.  "Let's do this shit."

I didn't know what time it was, but it was dark.
 The tiny slivers of light that had pushed their way through the metal shutters that covered the windows were gone now.  Aston was gone as well, after he had groped me, violated me with his fingers, and threatened more, until a phone call interrupted him and he left.

He promised he would return.

This time, I would be ready.

He probably had someone watching a camera feed in my room, I knew that.
 So I needed to perform.

I gave a convincing performance of being ill, I thought, wiping sweat from my forehead, and moaning while clutching my stomach.
 The ceramic bowl was still on the end table, and I bent over it while I pretended to dry heave.  I laid back on the bed for a while, before getting up to walk across the floor with the bowl, where I sat, my back against the wall, close to the door, my head in my hands.

The ceramic bowl was the only weapon I had in this room.
 I would wait and swing at him when he opened the door.  It was the only thing I could think to do.

A suicide mission is what it is,
I thought.  But I forced the concern out of my head.  I
needed
to fight.  I
would
fight.  If I didn't, I would be dead anyway.  And so would Ben.  At least this way I had a chance.  Even if it was remote.

I moved along behind Eddie and Blaze.  The alley across the front of the compound was only about forty feet away, and from our positions in the shadows we could see the outlines of the guards, their lit cigarettes clear as day in the darkness.

"Go," Eddie whispered, the command communicated through our earpieces.

On cue, Javi appeared around the corner.  Before the guard was even aware of Javi's presence, Javi had inserted one of his knives into the guard's eye socket and was drawing the other across his throat.  Then he disappeared from sight.

Eddie whispered to us.  "On me, let's move."

A few seconds later, we were at the gate.  Javi reappeared, the gate to the compound now retracted just enough to walk through.  He wordlessly closed it, stepping behind me.  We paused when Axe's voice came through our
ear buds.

"Eddie," Axe said.  "Guard walking toward the front door."

Eddie clicked the radio, and Javi once again moved on Eddie's signal.  As the guard stepped out onto the landing, Javi dispatched him with brutal efficiency.

"Front clear," Eddie whispered.  "Heading in."

"Last man on hook," Squid said over the radio.  I remembered what Eddie had said earlier; that would mean they were all on the second floor now.  I looked down at my watch - 0304.  We were moving fast.

These guys were definitely good.

Two guys down and at least two more to go.

But how the hell were we going to find Meia and Ben in all of this?

In the darkness, I waited.  I crouched, perfectly still, every one of my muscles tensed up, coiled to spring.  I imagined myself as a tiger, waiting for its prey.  Hungry.

The only thing that would satisfy me, the only water to quench my longing now, was vengeance.
 I had to kill him, the man responsible for my sister’s death.  The man who had kidnapped my son, who intended to sell away his childhood like mine had been sold.  The man who thought he owned me.  The man who believed he had bought my loyalty, who thought he had bought my soul.

It was my destiny.

He might possess my body, but he would never own me.

He could never possess my heart.

That honor belonged to another man.  A man I left behind when I was ripped from the life I’d carefully constructed, the life I had built, brick by brick, from nothing.  A man who would not recognize me now, who would not know the monster I had become.