The man spilled what he could.
Again, he wasn’t leaving.
“He has a building inNew Orleans. No one knows it’s there,” he said. “His home base is here. That’s why we’re here,” he stated. “And to get that code.”
He needed to know.
“How many people have you pieces of shit killed?” he asked.
“Five so far. We killed Hemmingway in a crash. We set it up to make it look like we were taking fire from insurgents, and he went down in it to save all of us. He was dead before we jumped.”
Holy shit.
“BlackStonecalled out the hit on him?”
He nodded.
“Von Donore made the call when his code went missing. Hemmingway told us to fuck off, and he was the only one who wasn’t working for Von, so we had no choice. We threatened to kill him to get it back for Von, and he still wouldn’t play ball. We broke his neck, so it looked like he snapped it going down. We thought maybe he gave it to someone in the group, or he lied. We’ve been trying to find it for years. Finally, we found out about his brother, the doctor.”
Oh, this was bad.
They had a mercenary on their ass.
A company of them.
In that moment, Gamble knew one thing. He had to get out of here and back to Poe. He was the one in danger. They were definitely going to have to haul ass to civilization in the middle of the night.
There was no choice.
“Thank you for the intel. Oh, and fuck you,” he said, snapping his neck, and dropping him into the stall with his friends. Then, he grabbed his pack, and went outside. It was going to be a long hike back with Rufus. He only hoped the dog would stay quiet.
The second Rufus saw him heading his way, his tail started going, thumping on the ground. He had to be in pain, but he still had hope.
That was the story of Gamble’s life when Poe found and fixed him.
He checked out his leg, and he whimpered.
“Come on, boy,” he said, untying him.
The poor dog was a mess. He had a broken leg from heavy rocks being dropped on him, and cigarette burns all over him. Oh, he wanted to beat those fuckers into puddles of mush for doing this to his dog.
And he would.
You didn’t fuck with a man’s dog.
“I’ll carry you, Rufus,” he said, keeping his voice low. “But I need you to stay quiet for me,” he whispered, picking up the dog carefully.
That’s when the worst thing happened.
He heard a radio not far away come to life.
“Dan, this is Franklin. Time to check in. Is everything good out there?” he asked.
Oh, shit.
They had scheduled check-ins.
That meant one thing.
