Read Omerta (The DeLuca Family #1) Online
Authors: K. A. Ware
We had just gotten the call from Eddie. The warehouse we were headed to was about fifteen minutes outside of Downtown Portland, in a long since forgotten industrial district. There were ten of us total in three separate SUVs, each taking a different route after exiting the interstate in an effort to minimize any suspicion. We didn’t know what kind, if any, surveillance Ivan had on the place so we needed to take every precaution to arrive without detection.
I twisted around from my place in the passenger’s seat to address Angelo, “So we’ll park on this service road here,” I said indicating to the place on the map where we would leave the vehicles and walk the rest of the half mile to where the abandoned warehouse was located. Pulling up the blueprints of the building Frankie had sent me on my tablet I continued, “Antonio will take his men in first and set up on the platform connected to the catwalk. Enzo and his team will be hidden on the far side by the shipping docks, and you and I will be in an alcove closest to the entrance. As soon as they shake hands you throw the flash-bangs and Enzo and Antonio’s teams will quickly take out Ivan’s men and Eddie’s leader.”
“Got it, Boss.”
“You and I will then move in and grab Ivan. The welding goggles and earplugs will give us maybe a thirty second lead on recovery since we know that they’re coming. It’s not much time but if all goes as planned he’ll still be out of it when we get to him,” I said, sitting back in my seat. Our plan was to take Ivan out of there alive. I needed him to tell us where his father was, only then would I kill him. I wasn’t going to risk the blowback this time, I wanted them all gone before I went back to Mia.
“They’re in place,” Mouse said without taking his eyes off the screen, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
“I’ve got a visual on Kashnikov’s convoy, they’re ten minutes out,” Frankie called out, pulling up a satellite feed on one of her multiple screens. I could see three dark SUVs making their way down the road to the warehouse where the meet would be. Enzo’s cousin Eddie and his men were just pulling up to the location and Carlo’s team was already in place inside the warehouse.
I watched as Kashnikov’s crew got closer. My stomach was in knots and I couldn’t shake the thought that something wasn’t right. I couldn’t place why or where it was coming from, but worry niggled at the back of my mind. By the time Ivan’s convoy pulled up to the warehouse I was practically on top of Frankie watching the screen with the satellite feed.
“Here,” she said, pulling out the monitor that was mounted on an adjustable arm and moving it off to the side. “Now you can get as close as you want without squishing me.”
“Thanks,” I responded distractedly. I could hear Mouse in the background radioing in what we knew to our men in the warehouse, but my eyes were still glued to the screen.
After a few minutes when they still didn’t make a move to go inside the warehouse I called out to Sal. “Why aren’t they going inside?”
“I don’t know,” His voice sounded far away and I could feel myself starting to panic.
We needed them inside the warehouse for our plan to work. All of a sudden there was movement, but only one set of men moved towards the warehouse. The others stayed by the vehicles.
“Can you get closer?” I asked Frankie, my tone urgent and strained. The knot in my stomach grew heavier, this was not good.
“I’m trying,” she said as she typed wildly. “This is as close as I can get with a clear picture.”
The view was close enough to see the figures moving towards the building but not close enough to see what they were doing or identify them. My heart was pounding in my chest as the three figures approached the entrance of the building. I could hear the blood whooshing in my ears as the same three figures started running
away
from the warehouse.
“No!” I shouted when an explosion echoed through our live audio feed.
“What the fuck?” Frankie shouted, “Shit! Mouse, tell them there’s another blast coming! This one’s going to be bigger.”
“What?” I asked snapping my gaze to her.
She pointed at the satellite feed, “Grenade launcher.”
“Fuck!” Sal exclaimed.
I zeroed in on the screen where a figure standing next to one of the SUVs with a long tube like devise on his shoulder. I watched in horror seconds later when the entire warehouse went up in flames.
I could hear Mouse’s voice in my ear, giving us a play by play of what was going on outside. The fact that it had been more than five minutes since Kashnikov had arrived and they still hadn’t made their way into the warehouse was concerning. I exchanged a dubious glance with Angelo and I knew he felt it too. Something wasn’t right.
“They’re approaching the warehouse,” Mouse relayed. I crouched back down into position as the door to the warehouse opened. We didn’t have a visual on the door from our position but Antonio did up on the catwalk. I heard Mouse in my ear shout “Shit, they’re running, get the fuck out of there!” At the same time Antonio screamed “Grenade!”
Several blasts ripped through the warehouse, the noise enough to cause my ears to ring. Angelo and I hadn’t gotten a chance to put in our earplugs since we needed to hear Kashnikov enter the building. Dust and debris were everywhere. I rolled to my stomach since I had been knocked back by the force of the blast, coughing and blinking through the smoke and whatever else was in the air after the explosion. I looked to my right and found Angelo in the same condition, only he had a small cut above his eye that was seeping blood.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yeah, you?”
“Fine,” I groaned as I stood up, “let’s get the fuck out of here.” As soon as the words left my lips I heard Mouse’s warning over my radio. I had enough time to make eye contact with Angelo before an even bigger explosion rocked the building.
…
I heard faint screaming and gunfire in the distance, everything was muffled. I had been thrown back against a cement wall, about eight feet from where I had been before the blast. My body protested when I tried to move, and from what I could tell, at least one of my ribs was broken. Taking stock of my body I realized aside from the ribs and probably a concussion I didn’t seem to be injured anywhere else. Although from the looks of the smoke filling the large warehouse if I didn’t get out of here soon I wasn’t going to stay that way.
“Angelo,” I called out, which threw me into a coughing fit. The smoke was getting thicker by the second, making it more difficult to see what was going on around me. I gritted through the pain and pushed up onto my hands and knees, the movement making my head start to pound. I could see Angelo passed out a few feet away from me. Crawling over to him I checked his pulse, breathing a sigh of relief. It was strong so he was likely just knocked unconscious.
The shooting and shouting had stopped so I stood up to get a good look at my surroundings. The pallets that were hiding us from the main section just minutes ago had fallen over nearly blocking us into the alcove. There was a small space to the far right that was still clear, slowly making my way over I took a cursory glance around. No one, nothing but smoke. I creeped around further, coming to a stop just inside the main part of the warehouse. I couldn’t make out much with the smoke but what I did see made my stomach sink.
Orange flames licked up the walls on the far side of the warehouse where a giant hole took up the space that had been Enzo’s hiding spot before the attack. I couldn’t tell where the gunfire I had heard before had come from since I didn’t see anything but rubble and fire in front of me now.
We’ve got to get the fuck out of here before the entire place goes up in flames.
I turned back around to grab Angelo and get the fuck out of this place and immediately backed up again when I came face to face with the barrel of Ivan Kashnikov’s gun. I saw an evil smirk cross his face and a glimmer of victory in his arctic eyes before everything went black.
I felt tears start to prick at my eyes and my nose started to tingle as I watched the flames billow out of warehouse. I heard Mouse calling for the men in the building over and over again, I felt like I was going to throw up. My thoughts were in a tail spin.
What if nobody made it out alive?
A crackled voice came over the radio, snapping me out of my wallowing. I couldn’t make out what it said since it was so garbled but the fact that it was coming in at all meant that at least one of our men was alive. Hopefully there were more with him. I shook my head, mentally scolding myself for almost breaking down,
again.
I didn’t have time for that shit. With Carlo unable to call the shots the responsibility landed on my shoulders. I couldn’t let my thoughts drift to the ‘what ifs’, I needed to focus on what I could control, what I could change. Taking a deep breath I stood up taller and pulled myself together. I had men out there and I needed to get them home.
“Are you able to identify who was trying to make contact?” I asked, turning my focus on Mouse.
He sighed, “No, the audio is rough. I’m trying to buff it now to get at least something from it but they’re all on the same circuit so there’s no way to trace it back to any one person.”
“Hey, we have movement,” Frankie announced, bringing my attention back to the satellite feed once again. The two groups of men had come to stand together, or face off, I couldn’t tell with the quality of the picture.
“This isn’t good. Eddie is a total hot head and his friends are even worse,” Frankie said shakily, it was the only time I had heard her sound less than confident. I made a mental note to ask her how she knew Enzo’s cousin after this was over.
“Shit!” I hissed. You couldn’t mistake the body language of Eddie’s crew. The four men had drawn their weapons on Kashnikov’s men.
“No, no, no!” Frankie yelled at the monitor, “Don’t fucking do it, Eddie. You can get out of this, just fucking use your head!” As if he could hear her one of the men lowered his weapon and turned to speak to the other men who were still pointing their guns. Someone from Kashnikov’s crew stepped forward and it looked like he was talking to them. One by one they each slowly lowered their weapons, one of the men from Eddie’s group stepping forward.
“They’re shaking hands?” Sal asked.
“It looks like it, maybe they are still making the deal,” Mouse piped up.
Eddie and his men turned back to their cars but before they could make it the Kashnikov crew opened fire. All four of the men dropped to the ground and didn’t move again.
“NO!” Frankie let out a blood curdling scream. The look of devastation on her face was soul crushing. I knew what that felt like. It was the same feeling I had when we found Gina, as if you’re whole world just stopped.
She folded in half in her chair and alternated between dry heaving and hyperventilating. I snatched up the trash can from the corner and hurried over to her. Dropping to my knees I placed the can at her feet and softly stroked her hair down her back.
“Mouse, no matter what, DO NOT lose your visual on them, understood?” I called out orders from my position on the floor. “Sal, I need you to get on the radio and keep trying to contact someone, anyone.”
“On it,” Mouse replied, taking over the satellite feed.
“Of course,” Sal said, making his way over to the radio equipment.
“Hey,” I whispered, continuing to rub Frankie’s back, “I need you to try to take deep breaths for me okay? You have to try to calm yourself down.” She nodded her head but her breathing was even more erratic than it had been a moment ago. At least the dry heaving had stopped. “Come on, try to match my breaths, okay?”
I took deep exaggerated breaths in and out, having done this with Gina once when she was tripping hard from something she took at a party. Just thinking about Gina made my heart hurt. There was literally a pain in my chest every time a memory of her would creep into my thoughts. I hoped one day I would be able to remember her without feeling like this. Frankie struggled to match my breathing and after a few minutes she was able to take normal breaths again.
“I’m not going to ask if you’re okay because that’s a stupid question. I am going to ask what you need from me. Can you tell me what you need, Frankie?”
“Water?”
“Of course,” I said sweetly. Getting up, I walked over to the mini-fridge in the corner of the room. When I opened it I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. It was full of Redbull. There was one bottle of water in the door and every other inch of space was occupied by Frankie’s habit. As I made my way back over to her, I called out to Mouse and Sal.
“Any changes?” I asked.
“Kashnikov’s men went into the building,” Mouse whispered gravely and hesitated as if he wanted to say more but wasn’t sure if he should.
“What?” I questioned impatiently.
“They started to drag the other guys into the building with them,” Mouse chanced a glance at Frankie and I followed his gaze. She was sitting up in the chair but her head was down and her eyes were squeezed shut.
“How long has it been since the second explosion?” I asked, changing the subject. We all knew that if they were dragging Eddie’s men into the burning building then they were definitely gone. If not from the gunshot wounds then from the fire.
“Eight minutes,” Mouse replied.
“How is this place not crawling with cops yet? I know we pay well but we sure as hell don’t pay well enough to keep them off of something like this.” I said, resuming my position at Frankie’s feet and handing her the water. “How’s your breathing?”
“Better,” She said between drinks of water.
I took the bottle of water out of her hands and set it on the desk. Reaching out to grab either side of her face, I tilted her head up so she was looking at me. “Look, I know this situation is completely fucked, but you have a decision to make right now. You can walk out of here and go home, or go lay down in one of the guest rooms and grieve, sleep, whatever you want. Or, you can stay and help us get the rest of our men back and take this bastard down. It is completely up to you and no one is going to judge you or think any less of you no matter what choice you make, understood?”
She nodded, took a deep breath and cleared her throat, “Let’s make this fucker pay.” Her voice was a little shaky but the intention wasn’t, she was on board.
“Good, I need you to get onto the scanners and hack whatever system you need to find out why there hasn’t been any police activity yet. I want to know how you blow up a building without the police getting called.”
“Okay,” she nodded again and turned back to her computer, put on her headset and started frantically typing as she searched for an answer to my question.
“Sal, anything yet?”
“No, just some garbled chatter. Whoever it is, their transmitter must have gotten damaged in the blast.”
“Okay, I need you to get the rest of the men up to speed. I’ll stay here with Mouse and Frankie.”
“Sure thing,” he said and hurried out of the room.
“I’ve got something,” Frankie called out, “Looks like there was a bank robbery twenty minutes ago and a five-alarm fire thirty minutes ago. Police and Fire have been contacted about the blast and they’ve been dispatched but they’re still fifteen minutes out.”
“Pull up the satellite and track their progress. Mouse, what do you have for me?”
“Nothing yet. Kashnikov’s men haven’t come back out of the building.”
That got my attention. Why the fuck would they willingly spend any amount of time in a fucking burning building? “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I said as understanding hit me, “They’re going after whoever is inside. Keep an eye on the back entrance of the building where our guys came in. There is at least one of them alive in there and I want to know immediately if he makes it out.”
“Okay.”
“And pull up a second feed over where the SUVs are on the service road. Someone might have made it out and we didn’t catch it.”
I paced behind both of them, my eyes bouncing between all three satellite feeds
.
I played with the ring on my left hand. It had been mine for less than a day and already I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose it, and I didn’t want to find out.
Come on, baby, show me you’re still alive.
“They’re coming out the front!” Mouse announced.
I moved quickly to stand behind him, watching as three of Kashnikov’s men dragged a motionless body to the back of one of their SUVs. The man was wearing bulky tactical gear which meant he was one of ours. Even though I couldn’t make out a face from the image I knew in my gut who it was.
“Carlo,” I breathed.
“Shit,” Mouse muttered. “I’m sorry, Mia.”
The look of pity on his face pissed me off, “He’s not dead.” I said harshly, probably a little too harshly since even Frankie flinched at my tone.
“I guess we don’t know for sure. You’re right, we should hope for the best.”
“Jesus, Mouse. He’s not dead because Ivan doesn’t want him dead. He needs him alive.”
“Why?” This time it was Frankie who spoke up.
“Because he’s going to use Carlo to get to me,” I gritted out, my jaw was clenched so tight the muscle was starting to spasm. I watched as they loaded him into the back of the vehicle and took off. “Follow them. I want to see where they’re taking him.”
“Shit, okay. You know, Boss-Lady this is a lot more difficult than I make it look. I can’t control the satellite like that. I’m going to have to hack into the traffic cameras and fucking bunny hop to keep up with them.”
“I don’t care what you have to do, just get it done and don’t lose them.”
“Someone’s coming out of the building. There are two, no wait they’re carrying someone. There’s three of them. Looks like they’re headed to the service road,” Mouse called out.
“Thank God,” Sal said from the doorway.
“Two more just walked out, looks like one of them is limping.”
“As soon as they get to the service road you start blowing up everyone’s phone. I want to know who made it out,” I said. “Frankie, where are we on Kashnikov?”
“I’m still following them. They’re flying down I-5 right now.” She said breathlessly, her eyes ping ponging from one screen to the next.
“Good. Stay on them and tell me if anything changes.”
“What did I miss?” Sal asked.
“Ivan has Carlo, he’s alive but we don’t know for how long. Frankie is following his convoy now so we can figure out where they are taking him. From what we can tell five of our men made it out and it looks like they’re headed to the service road. That’s all we know right now.”
“Police and Fire just arrived,” Mouse said, “The first group of three made it to the SUVs. I’m calling their phones now.”
“Let me know when you have someone on the line,” Turning back to Sal, I asked, “Did you brief the rest of the men?”
“I did. They’re ready to go when you are.”
I nodded, “Go give them an update. Once we find out where Ivan is going and assess the injuries of the men that were in the fire, I’ll come down and brief everyone.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said heading for the door. “And Mia,” he called out, causing me to turn and look at him, “You’re good at this. We’re going to get him back.”
I gave him a nod and went back over to Mouse, “Do you have anyone on the line?”
“Yeah, I’ve got Antonio,” he said handing the headset over to me.
“Antonio?”
“Yeah,” he rasped and he stopped to cough, “I’ve got Angelo and Enzo with me. Enzo’s pretty messed up,” he wheezed, followed up by more coughing.
“Okay, there are two more headed your way. Ivan got Carlo, he’s alive and we’re tracking them. I don’t know about the other five.”
“They’re gone,”
“Wait for the other two then you guys need to get out of there. I want you to head south towards Salem. I’ll have Mouse send the address to your navigation systems.”
“Got it.”
“Be careful. The cops just got to the warehouse so you’re going to have to go around them. Do you need me to get you the alternate route off of the service road?”
“No, we have it.”
“I’ll have a doctor waiting for you at the safe house when you get there. We’re going to pack up and head out as soon as we have confirmation on where they’re keeping Carlo.”
“See you then,” he said and disconnected the call.
I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down an address, “Send this address to their GPS systems then shut everything down and pack it up.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Frankie, what’s going on?”
“They split up, but lucky for you I was always really good at that hide the ball in the cup game when I was a kid—“
“Frankie!” I cut her off.
“Jesus, yeah, I’m still on the right car. They headed east on I-84 then circled back towards downtown.”
“Okay, st—“
“Stay on them. Yeah, I got it the first six times you said it.”
“Right,” I sighed, and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was starting to get a massive headache and it was only going to get worse. Pulling out my phone I dialed the number I’d memorized when I was twelve. He picked up on the first ring, “Hello?” his voice sounding tired.