Carefully, I cut away the blood-soaked fabric of her cargo pants, peeling it back from the wound in her thigh.“Lucky you, it’s a clean wound.All flesh.You’ll be fine.”
“It still hurts like a bitch,” she grunts.
“And it’s about to hurt more.”I pick up the tweezers and hold her gaze.“I’m going in.”
She doesn’t protest or ask questions, she just nods.
“Motherfucker!”she hisses when I dig into the wound, fishing for the bullet.
“Hang in there.”
She clenches her teeth and rides it out until I finally get a grip on the slug and pull it free.Once it’s out, I disinfect the wound and patch her up.
With a relieved laugh, she asks, “Why am I not surprised you know how to do all this?”
I pack up the items.“You’re welcome.”
Staring down at her neatly bandaged thigh, she expels a forlorn sigh.“Wherever my wife is, whatever she was doing, I just hope she’s alive.”
These two and their endless relationship drama.I couldn’t care less.“Has the villa ever been attacked before?”
“Never.”She shakes her head in emphasis.“We didn’t even have a plan for this.It’s…a first.”She rests her head against the column and looks up, eyes distant.“I didn’t even know we were at war.”
To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail.At the very least, there should be panic rooms.
My phone rings.I dig it from the waistband of my sleep shorts and answer, “Jenkins.”
“You were right, Raya.”His voice has leveled out now, clear of strained anxiety.“We’ve got the situation under control.The attackers outside retreated, and the ones inside are being neutralized.”
“Thanks for the update.”I straighten up from the floor.“Any luck reaching the bosses?”
“Negative.Still trying.”
“Okay.”I hang up and turn to Tazi.“One of the girls upstairs caught shrapnel.Get her help.I’m going to take a peek outside.”
She nods, weakly but with understanding.
The deceptively peaceful quiet of dawn greets me as I step out the front doors, a lie told in soft light.The sky is just starting to brighten, the sun yawning over the horizon.From here, at the top steps of the Pink House, it appears as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.Just another whispering dawn at Mirabella Villa.
I jog down the steps and hop into a golf cart.And it’s only once I’m on the move do the signs start to show.Shattered glass, bullet holes, shell casings, golf carts whipping by, Uppermen running about.
Quiet chaos.
Near the garden park across from Diner Hall, a cluster of Uppers surrounds four men on their knees.A fifth lies slumped on the ground, lifeless.
I drive up and hop out.
Sanders, the head of the Uppermen, glances back and scowls when he sees me.“Go back inside, Ray Ray.”
Ignoring him, I walk right up into their midst and take in the captured men, all in black tactical gear, unmasked and stone-faced.Defeat and defiance in their tightened jaws.
Guns pointed at their heads with growls and threats, the Uppers are trying their damnedest to shake a name out of them.But these are obviously trained professionals, not your average street soldiers.And pros don’t fold for amateurs.Ego, pride, experience, allegiance…it all runs too deep.
I’m proven right when one of the men suddenly starts foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back.Until he slumps to the side, dead.
“Fuck’s sake,” Sanders mutters.
“Cyanide,” I say under my breath.
