I shove at his chest, slamming his head back against the wall. “And Ezra’s fucked if we don’t help him! Don’t you fucking get that, or is that too much for your fucked up head to understand?”
Rev pulls out Ezra’s forgotten gun, and for a second, I wonder if I’ve finally pushed him to the edge. Instead, he slaps the gun down in my palm. “You were supposed to sleep through the operation. Alaric just found the church. He pieced together information Ezra had previously given him on his abuser. He’s some priest at St. Peter’s Catholic Church. Salem, Rorik, and their teams, plus a few others, are headed there now.”
“Fuck. Why is there always a religious figure involved in these rings?” I grit out, tucking the gun into the front pocket of my hoodie. And this sick fuck in particular seemed to be in charge.
He needs to die. As much as I want to be the one to rip him to shreds, his soul belongs to Ezra.
Rev helps me hobble out of the hospital room. Greg, our go-to ER doc, yells at me to lie back down. Rev just waves at him. “All good here, Greg. You know where to send the bill. We’ll see ourselves out.”
“See you back here when he rips those stitches,” Greg replies with a shake of his head.
Rev loads me in the passenger seat of his silver truck. He retrieves my AR-15 from a utility box fixed to the bed of the truck and drops a comm piece in my palm.
“Yeah, I’m always prepared for worst-case scenarios,” Rev says when I give him a surprised look. He whips his truck onto the street. “Why does this feel like it’s about to be completely unhinged?”
“Because we usually have a solid plan in place when we do this kind of shit, and right now, we don’t.”
In no time at all, Rev swings his truck into a parking spot across from the church. It dominates an entire block, its stone towers and sharp spires aspiring to penetrate the heavy clouds.
Definitely well-funded.
“We need to reach out to our government contact,” I say. “Something tells me we’re just scratching the surface of a much bigger organization.”
“Agreed.” Rev nods, tucking his dual pistols into their holsters. “Can we kill some people first, though?”
“Oh, we’re going to kill a whole bunch of people first.”
The arched doors at the front of the church crack open, and two rough looking men in leather jackets step out to light up cigarettes, their breaths visible in the chilled air.
I grit my teeth. Is the entire church on this priest’s fucked up payroll?
Hopping out of the truck with a grunt of pain, I glimpse shadowy figures darting around the side of the church. Salem, in all of her vampiric glory, leading her silent team to the back doors.
Rifle cradled in my hands, I limp toward the church, prepared to raise fucking hell on holy ground.
Two rounds of a sniper rifle crack, dropping the men at the front before I can fire off shots. I search for the gunman and spot Isaac on the roof of a grocery store about a hundred yards away. He gives me a salute. At that moment, I feel a surge of pride.
Yeah, I love my brothers. Might need to get better at showing it.
My teams flood the building from alleyways and neighboring buildings. It’s a beautiful fucking sight. Had I not been so worked up over Ezra’s kidnapping, I might have basked in the moment. This rush of adrenaline used to keep my heart beating.
Spurred on by the need to get my arms around Ezra, I limp up the church steps. Rorik appears at my side to sling my arm over his shoulders.
“Boss, you need to stop pushing your limits and start paying attention to your health.”
“We’ll all take some time off when this is over,” I lie. “Company party or something.”
Rorik snorts and helps prop me against a column in the entryway of the church as bullets erupt from all directions. Where you’d expect people engrossed in worship, there are only criminals wielding guns.
“Even the fucking nuns?” Forest exclaims.
Sure enough, I watch one of them withdraw an assault rifle from her robes and fire over the pews.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Rorik mumbles, peeking around a wall to drop the nun with a perfect shot to the temple.
“Filthy animals,” Forest adds, and Rorik flashes him a wide grin.
I pick off a guy creeping toward the pew Forest’s ducked behind.
