Page 49 of Sweet Revenge
“I would’ve agreed with you, Gino, if I hadn’t seen it for myself.” Janis sighed and shook his head slowly. “We’ll let the boss determine where he’d like to keep the prisoners once the enemy arrives, but for now, we need to make preparations.”
“Is that something we can get started on without Daemon?” I asked, eager to do whatever I could to help the cause.
“Yes, of course. Let’s start checking the weapon inventory and see how many cameras we have available to us,” Janis suggested. He headed toward another closet in the back of the warehouse, and several of us followed, including Tilda and me.
Janis pulled out a key and opened the door, and I had to take a step back. The room seemed to be brimming with weapons of every kind. From revolvers to semiautomatic death machines to some I couldn’t even recognize, I knew we definitely had firepower in our favor.
“You guys playing with my toys without asking?”
Daemon and his brothers joined us. He had a smirk on his face and didn’t actually seem to mind Janis had gotten a head start. I was just relieved to see he was okay after giving his loyal brothers the bad news.
Looking from Daemon to Vin and Mikel, I tried to determine if they actually were loyal. In this line of business, who really knew? They both looked a little shell-shocked, though, which made me think they truly had no idea Dezzy was a rat. Nevertheless, when Daemon started pulling out guns and making assignments, Vin and Mikel were right there to do whatever needed to be done.
The warehouse we were staging as the showdown area, Warehouse K, or “the killing warehouse,” was right next door to the place where we had been staying, so it wasn’t too difficult to transport the guns and cameras. We made sure that Alex and Dezzy were heavily guarded at all times as we moved everything over and got it set up. Daemon had particular ideas about who should be where and what everyone’s role should be, and every single one of the men listened to their assignments carefully, leaving no question that they chose him above anyone else to lead the family.
When Daemon mentioned he needed one more team to go place cameras outside of the building along the roofline, Tilda didn’t hesitate to raise her hand. “I’ll do it,” she told him. “You know I’m the best climber.”
Daemon grinned at her. “Okay, but how are you going to get that big heavy ladder out there?”
“I can do it.” She folded her arms beneath her chest and raised her chin, daring him to say she couldn’t.
“Go for it, Tilda.” He chuckled and went on to the next item on his mental checklist.
As soon as he walked away, she turned to me. “Can you help me with this fucking ladder?”
“Me?” I guffawed. “Are you serious? Why not get one of these burly guys?”
“Because… girl power and all that shit. Besides, we can handle it. It’s not that heavy.”
I wanted to agree with her, but when I looked at the ladder, it seemed heavy to me. It was one of those industrial-sized ones, not the kind I might use to change a lightbulb in my apartment if I had to. “All right.”
We hoisted the ladder up and moved it out to the location where Daemon had pointed out earlier that the first camera needed to be attached. Then, despite the winter chill and the wind, I stood there without a coat and steadied the ladder while Tilda climbed it. She really was a good climber, but not the tallest. She had to go nearly all the way to the top to get it done. When she was finished, we moved the ladder over a bit and hung another camera. I wasn’t sure how she managed the drill when it seemed to weigh as much as her, but Tilda was a beast.
Between installations, I got a chance to speak to her. “Everyone here is so loyal to Daemon despite his mother being on the other side.”
“Of course, they are. Just like me, these people owe Daemon a lot. He’s always treated us with respect, given us opportunities to better ourselves.” Tilda brushed an unruly clump of curls over her shoulder, but the wind just blew them back into her face. With one foot on the ladder, she continued. “When he first met me, he could’ve treated me like just another sex worker, but he saw me as a person. All of us who had been rescued from the Savages got a fresh start because Daemon is a good guy. You can be a crime boss and still be a decent human being if you want to be.”
She climbed up to hang the last camera, and I went over her words in my mind. She was right. We all had choices in life. Daemon and I might’ve been born into crime families, but we didn’t have to be complete assholes to everyone all the time because of it. All it took was a little kindness and understanding to make a world of difference for other people.
Tilda took a few steps backward and flung the drill around for me to take so she could descend the rest of the way. Since I wasn’t paying attention, it almost hit me in the face. Laughing, she said, “Sorry. You were almost our first casualty of the night.”
She was just joking around, but her words made me nervous. Something big was about to go down, and there would be casualties.
We walked back inside, lugging the heavy ladder, the drill tucked under Tilda’s arm, and I immediately began to search the area for Daemon. I found him up in the rafters talking to some of his men.
I needed him. My body longed for him, but not in a sexual way at the moment. My soul called out to his, begging for a few more moments of solitude before the chaos ensued.
His eyes caught mine across the room, and a small smile fell into place on his handsome face. Once I’d set the ladder down, I lifted a hand to wave, and he waved back. When I beckoned for him, he said something to the man on his right and then headed back to the ladder he’d climbed to get up there. I cut through the crowd to get to him.
“What’s up, baby?” he asked, hopping down from three steps up. “Everything all right?”
“Everything’s as good as it could be,” I admitted with a shrug. “But I’m nervous.”
Daemon took my hand and led me a few steps toward the back. Before we reached the door where we were headed, Vin appeared from amongst the crowd of soldiers. “You make the call yet, Daemon?”
“Yeah, I did.” His lips drew into a thin line. “La Rosa will be here in about an hour. Spread the word. I want the snipers on the rooftops of the surrounding warehouses and everyone else in position as soon as possible, in case the asshole tries to pull something over on us—which he will.”
“You got it.” Vin’s face flexed into a huge grin as he spun around and practically skipped away. God, that fucker loved killing.