Page 141 of At Her Pleasure
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He swept it across the handful of men. They lived by violence, and he couldn’t give them time to rally and return fire. He heard the Walther and saw one drop who’d stumbled from the AK but hadn’t gone down. Cyn had made sure he fell.
Pain seared through his shoulder as Hector hit him with a shot from the ground. Even with several bullets in his torso, the tough bastard wasn’t out of commission. No surprise on his face at Mick’s betrayal, nothing but dispassionate reaction, get the job done. It was the life he lived.
No longer. Hector jerked backwards as a bullet punched a hole in his forehead. Cyn was at Mick’s left side, her hand on his shoulder and eyes alive with fury.
That was his Mistress. She responded to fear with rage.
“I’m all right. Shit.” Smelling smoke, he realized the gunfire outside had prompted the men to start the fire inside. They probably thought the cartel had arrived. “They’ll be coming out to help Hector and the others. Four of them. Be ready.”
He barely had time to speak the words and back off, her at his shoulder, before the men burst out. They were already firing. Gun fights were way faster than in the movies.
Mick used the AK to take down two. He hit the third when the fourth fell from Cyn’s tight cluster in his chest, but the third man had had a chance to fire before Mick’s repeat fire ended him.
Mick’s heart choked him when Cyn stumbled back, blood blooming on her thigh.
“Cyn.” He was at her side in a blink, supporting her around the waist before she could fall.
“We’re good. If I can move, it’s okay.” She was grimacing, but the bullet had hit a couple inches above her knee and to the outside. Likely muscle or bone impact but no major arteries. Still, he tore a section of his shirt and quickly tied it above the bleeding wound, ignoring the snarl of his own shoulder wound. He refused to cut it any slack. Not when our Mistress is hurt. Shut the fuck up.
Cyn was looking toward the building. No visible fire yet, but the acrid smoke smell was unmistakable. “Come on, we don’t have time.”
Mick bent to Hector’s body and fished out the bulge of keys he’d noted there earlier. He hoped to God one of them belonged to the tractor trailer. He handed them to her. “Get to that truck and move it away from the warehouse. Keys might be in it, or on this ring. Be ready to load them up. I’ll open the cells.”
“I’ll help—”
“Help by getting the goddamn truck,” he snapped. “Do you know how to drive one?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Get ready to convince a bunch of scared people to get into it.”
“The cartel—”
He tossed her his phone, handed her the AK and his guns. “Look for Orchid Master, and text him 911. It’s our best hope, and it’s a goddamn slim one. Look in the trunk and pull out the rest of the weapons there.”
He headed into the warehouse without looking back.
The smoke drifted past the equipment and dumpsters, white tendrils. The bastards had started the fire in the area of most importance to them. He ran toward the supply closet.
The outer door was closed. He tested the knob and found it wasn’t yet hot. However, when he yanked it open, way more smoke billowed out. They hadn’t closed the door to the cells. He heard panicked screaming and charged through, greeted by flame and human terror. They’d doused the walls, the newspaper bales and guard’s desk, but they hadn’t sprayed the people, the easiest way to ensure there was no salvageable “cargo” for the oncoming cartel.
Possibly because they’d heard the shots, thrown down a match and come running to the aid of their fellow thugs.
And though they’d kept accelerant and fuel on standby, and probably gone over the steps, they’d either never run through an actual drill on how to set and start a fire so it burned everything up fast, or it had been so long they hadn’t remembered the basics.
The oversight would give him valuable minutes, but only minutes. The flame was working its way up portions of the walls.
The men’s cell was closest. The dead man had been moved to a corner, hands over his breast in a semblance of dignity. Mick met the gaze of a man who looked like he still had his wits about him, and spoke in rapid Spanish. “There’s a truck outside. We’ll get you out of here and somewhere safe. I swear it. Go out the door I came through and head for the front.”
As the man answered with a startled nod, Mick was moving to the wall. He engaged the master release on the cell locks. As he shouted out what he’d told the man, to exit out the front, people started streaming forth. Ones afraid of the building flame were ushered through the fiery obstacle course by stronger, more determined companions. Heat was building, joining the smoke in filling up lungs and throats.
After the “inspection,” the younger women and teens must have been tossed a pile of clothing, because the boys were wearing jeans, the girls in loose dresses that hung on their bodies. They gathered the skirts close or covered their mouths with the hems, some sharing the cloth with the boys, coughing into it.
He kept calling out the same direction, like a macabre flight attendant, until someone started screaming. His gaze snapped to the middle cell. Through the thickening smoke, he realized it wasn’t empty. A young woman was crouched at the back. An older woman hovered protectively over her, trying to get her to her feet.
The young woman was the one shrieking. “The monsters are here. They’re here.”