Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3) (20 page)

My body makes full contact with the top of the Camaro.

“You on, for Christ’s sake?” Briggs barks at me.

“Yeah, I’m fucking on!”

“Grip something!” Briggs shouts as we fishtail right onto Iberville Street.

There is fucking nothing to grip!
I think, then find that Briggs rolled the windows down. Relieved, I fold my fingers under the topside of the door’s window frame. I tuck my chin beneath my shoulder until the vehicle straightens out. When I lift my face, I see the Escalade right in front of us.

Briggs’s tone is almost desperate. “911, there’s a shooter in the French Quarter at the Toulouse Station! We need an ambulance and police immediately!”

“Briggs?”

“Concentrate, Axman!” he demands of me.

I have a sickening feeling that Bryan is down.

Bullets careen past my head and skim over the steel roof I’m draped against.

Too close.

The next shot shatters the windshield.

“Briggs!”

“I’m good.”

I can’t fire back, I’d risk hitting Farrington.

“Get me closer!”

“Got ya, boss.” Briggs pulls directly behind the Escalade, bumper to bumper.

With my Glock in hand, I run down across the Camaro’s hood and vault myself onto the roof of the Escalade. With a death grip on the ski rack, I swing my torso over to the side and smash in the driver’s window with the handle of the Glock.

“We’ve got a white Escalade tail, and since it’s smacking into my rear end, I’m guessing he’s swinging for Miguel’s team.”

The Escalade I’m holding onto veers onto Tulane Street and into oncoming traffic. Cars swerve off the side of the road while drivers lay on their horns.

“They’re headed to I-10,” Briggs deduces. “Incoming!”

Before I can figure out what incoming means, the Camaro smashes into the Escalade just as hot lead rips through the metal roof about two inches from me.

“Fuck!” we both curse simultaneously.

Briggs isn’t liking getting pushed around, and I definitely don’t like bullets two inches away from my body!

Briggs warns, “If we let them on I-10 your safety quotient is going to drop fast.”

He’s right, a lot of people could get hurt.

I hang from my right arm and leg over the side of the roof and shoot with my left hand. The driver slumps over as the passenger lunges for control of the wheel.

Then a shot rings over my head.

Peering over the side of the Escalade, I discover Officer Douchebag acquired a motorcycle and is now in hot pursuit. He lifts his pistol for another round of target practice.

I leap, twisting my body onto the Escalade’s hood. Not a position I want to stay in—I’m completely exposed to the guy on the other side of the windshield.

Fuck it. I clip the passenger in the shoulder. He recoils fast from the steering wheel and clutches at his arm.

Farrington screams a warning from the back seat.

Another shot zips past me—it would have been through me, but that’s when the Escalade begins its flip. It pitches wildly, and the left tires catch air as the vehicle careens over onto its side. I hold on as long as I can before I’m thrown into the grass on the side of the onramp to I-10. The air is knocked hard from my chest and it takes me a moment to recover. Briggs brings the Camaro alongside of me like a shield, brakes and slides out the passenger door as the cartel crew riddles the side of the vehicle with ammo.

We both listen, dicks to the dirt and guns drawn at the ready, as the tires of the Camaro are popped and the air whistles free.

When there’s a break in the firing I peer up to see them lugging a kicking and screaming Farrington into the white fucking Escalade that had been chasing us. Quickly, I send out two shots; the first hits one of the guys holding onto Farrington in the back of the knee, and he folds like a house of cards. My second shot blows out the vehicle’s front tire.

More shots force us to retreat. Briggs gives me a frustrated look as our backs lean against the disabled Camaro. When there’s a pause, I pull back up and watch Eduardo Miguel smile at me triumphantly from the passenger side of the vehicle.

I lift my gun and aim then hear a voice behind me: “Drop it.”

“Do it,” Briggs warns.

I hesitate; I don’t have a clean shot as the white Escalade pulls into the stream of traffic and up the onramp to I-10, headed God knows where with Rachel in the back seat.

Slowly, I turn around. Officer Douchebag has us covered. His motorcycle is laying on the side of the road.

“I’ve already called for backup. I’m guessing that gives me about five minutes to decide your fate,” he claims smugly. “I could turn you in and have you arrested for kidnapping and obstructing justice, and maybe we can even make it look like you killed Rachel Farrington. Or I could just shoot you now and say you drew your weapon on me.”

“It won’t make a difference what you decide, you’ll still be goddamn ugly and a lousy shot,” I taunt.

“You know, I think I’d really like to kick your ass,” he tells me. “You.” He indicates Briggs. “Come over here slowly.”

Briggs stands up with outstretched arms and empty hands. When he gets close enough, Douchebag smacks him in the side of the head with his pistol. Briggs drops like lead.

“Get ready to die,” he sneers.

“I don’t have time to die,” I answer. “You think you’re a badass, but you’re really just an ass—a shitass, dirty cop.”

“You know your man on the streetcar cried like a bitch when I shot him in the neck.” He smiles through smoke stained teeth, reminding me that I’m glad I quit. “Get up motherfucker, I’m going to sweep the ground with your ass.”

This is the best possible scenario I could have hoped for—the pride-puffed Guthrie wants to fist fight. He tosses his gun into the grass and puts himself into a fighting stance.

“I had a feeling we’d meet again, but I don’t have time for a movie fight.”

“A what?”

“You know, where the two strongest square off at the climactic scene. See, you’re not that guy—you’re the in-between dude that gets put down fast.”

He doesn’t like that and comes at me with all he’s got. I dodge his attack and give him a roundhouse kick to his spine. But like I said earlier, I don’t have time—all I can see is Rachel’s defenseless frame at Miguel’s mercy.

“I need your phone,” I tell him.

“Fuck you.” He spits.

“It’s easy. Don’t think, douchebag—you don’t have good judgment. Examine your present situation, and it’ll be obvious you haven’t made a right decision yet,” I explain as we square off on the side of the road. “You hurt innocent people who you’ve sworn to protect. You’re nothing but a stain. Now back off and give me your fucking phone.”

He throws a poorly aimed fist. I catch it and keep it in my hand.

“What’s wrong with your fingers?” I ask.

“Nothing.” He pants as I twist his arm at the wrist, and he falls to his knees.

“Sure there is, they’re broken.”

“They’re not broken.”

With three swift maneuvers, I hear the bones in four of his fingers snap before I bend his wrist back until it pops. To make sure he stays put, I put a firm boot against his neck and pull until his arm dislodges from its socket. He screams in pain.

“They’re broken now. You cry like a bitch, douchebag,” I let him know. “Have fun in prison, prick—just wait till you’re roommate says lights out.”

At that, I lay a kick to the side of his head and render him unconscious. My fingers lift the cell from his back pocket. While I’m looking through his calling history, I go over and carefully nudge Briggs.

“Are you dead, or are you going to wake up and pull your own weight around here?”

He groans and cusses at me.

“Good, you’re alive.”

And there it is—MASON DIRECT. I hit redial.

“Did you take care of the problem?” the heavily accented voice asks.

“I’m working on that.”

There is a pause as he figures out my voice isn’t the one he was expecting, and then, “Is Guthrie dead?”

“You mean Officer Douchebag? No, but once he wakes up, he’s going to wish he was.”

“Who are you?”

“The guy who’s going to make you wish you never fucked with Rachel Farrington.”

He laughs, low and sinister. “Really? I don’t see how that could be. I have the woman—I kept my word and set the child free—even though Ms. Farrington obviously didn’t keep her end of the deal.” Miguel tsk-tsks. “She will have to pay for that. I can’t allow my soldiers to think that I allow such actions.”

“You’re missing the big picture, Miguel, or Mason—whichever you’d prefer—either way you won’t harm a hair on her head.”

“And why would you think that?”

“Because I actually have something you care about.”

“I care about no one.”

“I bet you care about the two hundred million dollars in cocaine you stole and hid from Cruz and then tried to pin on Drew and now Rachel.”

He falls silent.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say, so let me give you just the main points: 12,000 pounds of cocaine and a stockpile of cash and weapons. Ring a bell?”

I can hear him sucking in air violently through his teeth.

“You’ve been busy, Miguel, amassing aliases and power along with an army and a fortune so that you could overthrow Cruz’s cartel reign and be king of the hill. You’re poised and positioned to own the Gulf drug corridor. And not only do I
know
it all, I’m able to
prove
it all—and, now, here comes the part you’re really not going to like—I know where you
hid
it all. The only thing I can’t decide is, should I just turn it over to my fed friends in DC, report you to Cruz, or blow the entire monstrosity to hell? I think you’ll fare better if you make a deal with the feds. I mean, think about it, prison time would be a cake walk compared to surviving Cruz’s butcher blade after he finds out what you’ve really done, am I right?”

“You’re bluffing!”

“You know I’m not. The drugs are sitting in two specialty cargo containers you have tucked away in your secret storage unit under yet another alias that no one knows—Vincent Gomez.”

“How did you—?”

“I’m that good,” I insist. “And by the way,
Gomez
, I also know about the others who had
accidents
after working for Mason Industries when they uncovered your true identity.”

“I’ll kill you
and
the woman!” Miguel roars.

“No you won’t. I already have a timed email that will go out to my contacts, telling them exactly where it is. I’ve included copies of the evidence I’ve gathered and the locations of all the hefty bank accounts you’ve opened under other aliases—the accounts you’re living on, since the feds didn’t know about them to freeze them. And I even have direct line to Cruz.”

“You lie!”

“Try me.”

“You are nothing!” I hear the spittle crackle from his mouth he’s so furious. “I don’t even know who you are. You like to talk big—would you like to tell me your name before I extract it from your girlfriend with a switchblade?”

“Axton. Ryder Axton. And pay attention because this is the most important part of the entire conversation. There are two hundred and six bones in the human body, and I’ll snap half of yours like twigs if there is so much as a bruise on her when I come to get her. You may not know me now, but if you hurt her I’ll make it so you’ll never forget me.”

“You’re good at threats.”

“I’m better at carrying them out,” I say. “Now listen carefully; I’ll meet you in half an hour at Mason Shipyard, upper level section C. Have the girl.

Rachel

Ryder’s smooth, commanding voice laced with arsenic and threats lingers in the vehicle. Eduardo Miguel sits in the passenger seat next to his driver while I’m secured between two muscled men who, I have no doubt, are prepared to tear me to pieces. My arms are duct taped against my sides, and I’m still attempting to steady myself, despite the overwhelming terror thrumming through my heart.