Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Keys had taken his man out as well, and the two of them left the dead behind, closing the door after themselves. Keys immediately went to the door across the hall, holding his palms close to the wood and dirt.
Code fed them information. I had to dig deep to find evidence of triplets. They weren’t born in the United States. Their parents were from here, but their mother went to Haiti to have them. She left their father and joined a cult, very enamored with the leader of the new religion. Her husband fought for the children, but he had ties to the local Mafia, and she claimed he beat her. She stayed in Haiti with the cult leader, a man who called himself Seradieu, which means “will be God.”
You can guess how those kids were treated, and the mother allowed it. She died under suspicious circumstances, and they came back to live with their father. That’s how they got into this business they’re in. By the time they came to the States, they were in their teens and already pretending to be one person. Their father left his estate to Alan Billows, his only son. He went along with their deception.
Keys held up his two fingers. Again, he drew stick figures in the dirt, positioning them exactly.
Maestro didn’t care about the information Code had given him on the Billows brothers. He didn’t need to know what had made them into monsters, he only knew they were monsters. Every member of Torpedo Ink had been tortured, had had family members murdered, had been subjected to physical, emotional, mental and sexual abuse. They didn’t traffic other human beings for money. They didn’t harm children. They were men and women who could shut off emotions and kill, but they didn’t kill indiscriminately. They had a code and they stuck to it. What Maestro cared about was getting to his woman and freeing her from monsters.
Two men were quite a bit easier to take down than three, but there could be no misses, no warning shots.
Get a move on. Code’s voice was tight. Derrick Billows is getting seriously ugly with Azelie. She isn’t giving you up, Maestro. She didn’t even throw Preacher or Widow under the bus. She’s taking everything they’re dishing out and looking innocent as hell. I’d believe her.
Maestro didn’t give a rat’s ass if the world believed her. The Billows brothers weren’t going to stop torturing her until she was dead. They had to kill her. They could never trust that she wouldn’t turn on them, not after the things they were doing to her.
He signaled Keys, pushed open the door and threw his knives, a quick one-two, killing both men before Keys could get into the room. He retrieved his knives, made certain both men were dead and hurried out, closing the door behind him.
Go, Keys, fast.
You go ahead of me, and I’ll check the doors leading to the room where she is, Keys said.
I’m in, coming up behind you, Player said. I’ll back up Keys. You go, Maestro.
The fact that Steele had changed the plan meant the situation was dire. Maestro sprinted through the tunnel, not making noise, but only because it had been ingrained in him not to. He trusted Keys and Player to have his back.
The door to the room where McGrady had been killed and Alan Billows interrogated was cracked open. He could hear the agony in Azelie’s voice as she tried to answer multiple questions Derrick shouted at her. Patrick’s voice was more calming, encouraging her to answer. He knew Azelie. She wasn’t thinking about answers to their questions. Uppermost in her mind was protecting the people she loved. He was one of those people.
Derrick made it impossible for her to answer. His purpose was to terrorize her, and he was doing so in a vicious, cruel way. The man had a knife in his fist, and the blade was bloody. Maestro didn’t make the mistake of looking at Azelie to assess the damage. There were two men assaulting her, and both were dangerous. Both were close to her. She couldn’t dive out of the chair, even if he shouted to her. Her wrists were zip-tied to the arms of the chair. There were blood and fingers on the floor around the chair. His heart dropped.
He pulled a gun from his belt and took aim at Derrick, going through the second shot to Patrick over and over in his mind until he could will the bullet to hit exactly where he needed it to. Both men were likely to have a manual switch to activate the bombs and blow up the building. They’d do so without hesitation if they knew they were dying.
He moved to the right of the door to keep Azelie from the line of fire, squeezed the trigger and shifted aim to Patrick, firing a second bullet. He followed the shots with two more to ensure both men were dead. As he fired the second rounds, he sprinted across the room to Azelie.