“We have to find Elle. We gotta comb this place before it burns the fuck down! I'm not waiting up.”
“Asphalt!” Brass swore behind me as I took off, heading outta the cafeteria through the old swinging door. “Goddammit!”
I couldn't get the van outta my skull. If they'd carted her away for more torture, more brutality, then I'd make theirs a thousand times worse. I tore through the warehouse, ignoring the pungent smoke beginning to drift through the empty spaces, all the signs this place was primed to go up like an exploding fucking blimp.
“Elle! Ell-e Joooo!” I screamed my lungs out, hands around my mouth to project it.
I stopped, held my breath, listening harder than I ever had in my fucking life.
Somebody tried to scream. Except they couldn't, their voice stopped like they'd been gagged. I kicked aside a few old crates stacked against a storage container – mercifully empty – and found three Tacoma boys hogtied with dirty socks stuffed in their mouths.
Fuck. Reaching for the One-Eyed Jack first, I tore off his gag and yanked him to his feet, pulling my switchblade to his bound hands to get the rope off.
It was their Veep, that battle hardened, scruffy motherfucker with one eye named Line.
“Where's Elle Jo?!” I screamed in his face.
“Elle? What the fuck? We've got to go after the van, brother, the Chinese took off with our fucking Prez and –“
I punched him clean across the face. Fucker was too dazed to fight back. I didn't give a shit about what they'd done to these poor bastards, or even the fact that asshole Gil was missing.
If the next few words outta his mouth didn't have to do with my girl, I'd knock him out cold.
Elle Jo took up a hundred percent of the space in my fucking mind, and she wouldn't quit 'til I had her in my arms.
“Is she with them? Did those fucks cart her away too?”
Line shook his head. “Storage. We need to get the fuck outta here.”
He pointed with his free hand, beginning to work on cutting his brothers loose with the other. He'd ripped the blade right outta my hands, and I didn't even give a shit. I ran up the small ramp to the metal box and began pounding with both fists.
“Elle? Elle!” I shut my ass up for two seconds and heard a tiny muffled whimper. “Fuck, baby, is that you?”
I wasn't waiting to find out. The fucking door was locked when I jerked it, a cheap ass padlock holding it shut. Guys behind me started to cough as thick gray smoke blanketed us.
The fire under my ass to get her the fuck outta there burned a hundred times hotter.
Grabbing an empty rusted barrel next to the storage tank, I went apeshit, bashing it against the lock 'til the impact practically shattered my bones. Had to hit it about ten times before the shitty plastic finally cracked, and I could reach inside, jerking on the guts. Tore them right out.
The newly freed Tacoma boys helped me pull. Fucking thing finally snapped, and I jerked open the huge double doors, rushing into the blackness.
What I saw inside should've stopped any sane man in his tracks.
Lucky me, whatever sanity I had left went flying out the fucking window about ten minutes ago.
My baby girl was slumped in the corner, her hands bound, a gag in her mouth, just like the others. I didn't understand why the fuck her jeans were down around her ankles 'til I saw the piece of shit next to her.
Elle looked up from her stupor, saw me, and started screaming through the gag. She motioned with her whole body, down at the man on the ground, rolling around on the rusty floor with his hand between his legs.
Didn't take a genius to figure out she'd kicked this fuckhead in the balls so hard she'd probably ruined him for sex forever. And if she didn't, well fuck, I was gonna finish the job.
I stepped on his gun as I approached, then kicked it across the floor where he couldn't reach. Mafia asshole must've lost it and been too preoccupied with blinding pain to pick it up, and now he never would.
I didn't even bother claiming the gun for myself. I had everything I needed right behind me. I rushed out between the bewildered looking guys, and pushed them aside a second later, a heavy metal barrel in my arms.
Elle Jo started screaming again through her gag when she saw the storm coming. She went silent, and so did the whole damned world, when I stood over the groaning mafia asshole and slammed it into his head.
His rotten skull caved with one crack. Not good enough.
Not even fucking close!
I knocked his goddamned teeth out and probably his eyeballs too on the second blow, and it only got worse from there. By the time the Tacoma Grizzlies shook off their stupor enough to grab me, and I heard Brass' pissed off voice behind me, I was a gibbering mess, my whole body burning on pure rage as I turned mafia asshole's brains into cherry mush.