Page 27 of Drowning in the Deep
Dezzy arched an eyebrow, but he knew better than to argue with me. Mumbling under his breath, he fished a flashbang out of his pocket. “Fuck me,” he said. “This is a really bad idea, brother.”
“It’s better than Vin’s idea,” I argued, not having the time to stand around and explain. “Thanks.”
With the flashbang in hand, I headed back to Vin, knowing that the closest tree to the porch and the window I needed to access was about where he was standing.
“What the fuck are you going to do?” he asked me, similarly to Dezzy.
“I’m going to run up there and throw this through that broken window,” I explained, adrenaline coursing through my body as I prepared for such a dangerous task.
“Are you shitting me?” His eyes were so wide, I could see the whites glowing in the moonlight. “That is about the most dangerous fucking thing I’ve ever heard you say. Do you want me to do it?”
For a moment, I thought of Elisa at home, waiting for me to call. I pictured Yuri’s wife, standing next to his coffin, holding their child. Would Elisa cry for me the same way Yuri’s wife had?
“Nope, I’ve got it.” As dangerous as this was, and as much as I didn’t want to leave Elisa behind, I couldn’t ask my brother to do something like this, despite the fact that he got off on this sort of thing. He’d probably rather do this than fuck two women at once. “Just make sure you and the other guys cover me, okay? And don’t fucking shoot me.”
“I can only speak for myself,” he said with a chuckle, shaking his head. “Still, I’m fucking jealous, you asshole. Hey, if you die, I’m going to try next.”
Pressing my lips together, I stared at him, slowly twisting my head from right to left and back again. “You asshole.”
Vin laughed, but I didn’t have time to continue to stand there and banter with my brother. We needed to get this shit over with before the Latvians came up with a way to get out.
With a deep breath, I started moving toward the window in question. Immediately, the gunfire picked up again, though mostly from behind and beside me, not from inside the house. Every time one of the Latvians started to duck into that window to shoot me, they fell back, pushed away by gunfire from my guys.
The sharp whir of a bullet flying right by my head got my attention. I had heard that sound enough times before to know that was a fucking close call. Rather than serving as a deterrent, the threat spurred me forward. Before long, I was in position to toss the flashbang through the window.
I pulled the pin and tossed the cylinder through the broken window, not standing around to see if I was successful. I knew my throw wouldn’t miss. I just hoped it would go off fast enough that none of those assholes would have time to pick it up and toss it back at me.
Just like when I’d run away from the shed before it blew, I turned and ran back the way I’d come, counting. When I hit five, I covered my ears and closed my eyes, praying I was far enough away from the target that I wouldn’t suffer the consequences like the bastards inside.
A flash of light visible through my closed eyes and a loud bang that echoed through my hands let me know the flashbang had gone off. The ground vibrated beneath the soles of my feet, though nothing like when the meth lab had exploded. I turned to survey the damage and saw the interior of the house rapidly filling with smoke. The gunfire from inside had ceased completely. While I had no idea how the guys on the second story may have suffered from the assault, it was clear to me we needed to move on the first-floor occupants before they recovered.
“Keep up a cover fire on the top floor!” I shouted to some of my guys on the perimeter as I motioned for the rest of them to follow me. We poured into the house from every direction, through doors and broken-out windows.
Inside the house, six large gang members lay on the floor, writhing around in pain and also completely disoriented. A few of them were bleeding from gunshot wounds to their limbs. Others had blood dripping down their skin from superficial cuts to their faces and heads, probably from broken glass. I didn’t have to give any orders as my men and Nico’s rushed in to tie these bastards up and disarm them before they had the opportunity to recover from the flashbang.
This wasn’t over yet, though. We knew there were more of them upstairs. Chances were, they were not nearly as bothered as these fellows on the floor, though the smoke was still thick and probably wafting up the staircase.
Nico pointed at the stairs, holding a flashbang in his hand, and I nodded in affirmation before grabbing my berserker brother by the arm. “Now’s your chance, Vin,” I told him.
My maniac brother smiled at me like a child who’d just seen the sign for Disney World from the car window. “Say when,” he said.
I shook my head, still not quite able to comprehend why he liked killing so much. Maybe it distracted him from the pain of being alive.
We moved toward the staircase as shadows began to creep up the walls near the bedroom doors. “Go for it,” I told my brother, and he began to run up the stairs with Nico and me behind him.
The moment he could reach the landing with a careful toss, Nico pulled the pin to the flashbang and sent it sailing up the stairwell. Someone shouted in Latvian just before the explosion happened, and then we heard the bodies hit the floor. That didn’t mean we were in the clear. There was a good possibility that some of the assholes had stayed hidden in the bedrooms, waiting for the explosion to be over before they came out into the hall.
Vin rushed ahead, not giving a damn about the smoke or lack of visibility. I watched him reach to his belt as he ran, probably looking for the knife he’d brought along. When he realized he’d left it in a Latvian throat, he turned his rifle around, and as we reached the hallway upstairs and two large brutes came out of a bedroom, Vin used the butt of his gun to slam the first one in the face, blooding his nose and whipping his head backward. Without slowing, Vin pushed the guy to the left, and we watched him topple over the railing, thudding on the floor below.
Vin quickly turned his weapon around and shot the second guy several times until he fell backward. Another guy came at him, and Vin rammed the rifle straight into his mouth. A cascade of yellow teeth fell from his head before Vin cracked him over the head, leaving him on the floor where Nico shot him in the chest.
In the nearest bedroom, I found a younger Savage on the ground, his hands in the air. He looked like just the sort of man we could use to give us information. Vin came in behind me, planting three bullets in the guy’s forehead.
“Seriously, Vin?” I shouted, whirling on him. “He would’ve talked.”
“There’s five guys tied up downstairs who will talk,” my brother assured me.
I hoped he was right. “Fuck,” was all I had to say to him. “Sweep up here, and if you find anyone alive, bring them down.”
