Read Online Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3) by Allie Juliette Mousseau - Free Book Online
Authors: Allie Juliette Mousseau
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bound behind her in a barbaric bar style cuff.
“What’s happening?” Her voice is strangled with tension. “Are you going to kill me now?”
“Ryder, we’ve got a serious complication.” Briggs’s tone is terse in my ear.
Before I can answer either of them, all hell erupts above our heads.
The staccato pattern of automatic weapons combined with shouts of anger, surprise and profanity becomes nonstop. Whatever is happening upstairs is separate from what’s happening down here and has nothing to do with me—but I’m not quite sure it doesn’t have to do with her.
“Looks like three separate gangs are infiltrating the estate.” Briggs sounds panicked. “You can distinguish them by their colors and patches. They’re storming the facility, Ryder, and they’ve got all kinds of numbers and munitions. You got to get the fuck out of there now!”
Shouts, groans of death and barked orders tell me it’s become a fucking warzone above us.
I yank the woman to her feet.
We don’t have time for explanations. It won’t be long before Miguel’s men or the opposing faction get down here and make us both a couple of ice cold corpses.
The woman’s legs buckle under her weight. “I can’t walk.”
“Don’t speak!” I growl urgently against her ear. We don’t want to make any noise that would alert someone to our location.
Without a word, I sling her body like a sack over my shoulder, wondering how long she’s been held down here. I bring us out the door and into the hallway.
“Incoming on the stairs!” Briggs announces just as a man drenched in blood comes rolling down the kitchen steps and sprawls facedown against the concrete floor.
Immediately following him is one of Miguel’s soldiers, who I recognize from yesterday, brandishing a truncheon.
He takes one look at me and the prisoner I’m carrying and comes at me with the military issued weapon he’d just bludgeoned his enemy with.
I shoot him between the eyes, turn and prepare to go back the way I came, but odds are the quiet, unguarded exit route I created is now in complete chaos.
“Dude, you better find someplace to hide; the house is completely surrounded and it doesn’t look like they’re taking any prisoners,” Briggs explains.
Before I can consider what he said, a blast goes off above us that shakes the foundations of the house and causes a fault line to crack open and snake up the concrete wall.
The woman screams and curls against me in terror.
They’re going to take this place apart.
I may have seen salvation in the basement laundry room yesterday where I’d discovered a steel reinforced plate behind the dryer. It’s worth a try. In my line of work I’ve seen escape hatches into sewer systems, tunnels dug beneath bathtubs, hidden rooms and safes hidden with every guise imaginable. In fact, Chief trained me to seek those types of things out every time I cased a joint—they’ve often proven to be an invaluable lifeline.
And who the hell puts that kind of barricading behind a common household appliance anyway?
I get into the laundry room and rush to the plate. After shoving the dryer out of the way with my hip, I glimpse the silver bolt lock on the lower section of panel.
“I’M HERE! I’M HERE!” the woman shouts.
“What the fuck, lady? They’re not the fucking cavalry!” I bark. “I am!”
But she’s not stopping. My fingers find the breaching charge and the duct tape from my carrier pouch. I cover her mouth fast with a strip of the tape and then adhere the charge next to the lock and panel edge. I light the charge and step back, hunching over the woman’s body so I’m her human shield.
It blows—I doubt with the ruckus upstairs anyone will notice—and the panel unhinges.
Right away, I see a tunnel bathed in the soft green glow of florescent security lights. Only fly in the ointment could be if this one tunnel has several intersections and we meet up with Miguel and his henchmen.
Adapt, improvise and
“What’s happening?” Her voice is strangled with tension. “Are you going to kill me now?”
“Ryder, we’ve got a serious complication.” Briggs’s tone is terse in my ear.
Before I can answer either of them, all hell erupts above our heads.
The staccato pattern of automatic weapons combined with shouts of anger, surprise and profanity becomes nonstop. Whatever is happening upstairs is separate from what’s happening down here and has nothing to do with me—but I’m not quite sure it doesn’t have to do with her.
“Looks like three separate gangs are infiltrating the estate.” Briggs sounds panicked. “You can distinguish them by their colors and patches. They’re storming the facility, Ryder, and they’ve got all kinds of numbers and munitions. You got to get the fuck out of there now!”
Shouts, groans of death and barked orders tell me it’s become a fucking warzone above us.
I yank the woman to her feet.
We don’t have time for explanations. It won’t be long before Miguel’s men or the opposing faction get down here and make us both a couple of ice cold corpses.
The woman’s legs buckle under her weight. “I can’t walk.”
“Don’t speak!” I growl urgently against her ear. We don’t want to make any noise that would alert someone to our location.
Without a word, I sling her body like a sack over my shoulder, wondering how long she’s been held down here. I bring us out the door and into the hallway.
“Incoming on the stairs!” Briggs announces just as a man drenched in blood comes rolling down the kitchen steps and sprawls facedown against the concrete floor.
Immediately following him is one of Miguel’s soldiers, who I recognize from yesterday, brandishing a truncheon.
He takes one look at me and the prisoner I’m carrying and comes at me with the military issued weapon he’d just bludgeoned his enemy with.
I shoot him between the eyes, turn and prepare to go back the way I came, but odds are the quiet, unguarded exit route I created is now in complete chaos.
“Dude, you better find someplace to hide; the house is completely surrounded and it doesn’t look like they’re taking any prisoners,” Briggs explains.
Before I can consider what he said, a blast goes off above us that shakes the foundations of the house and causes a fault line to crack open and snake up the concrete wall.
The woman screams and curls against me in terror.
They’re going to take this place apart.
I may have seen salvation in the basement laundry room yesterday where I’d discovered a steel reinforced plate behind the dryer. It’s worth a try. In my line of work I’ve seen escape hatches into sewer systems, tunnels dug beneath bathtubs, hidden rooms and safes hidden with every guise imaginable. In fact, Chief trained me to seek those types of things out every time I cased a joint—they’ve often proven to be an invaluable lifeline.
And who the hell puts that kind of barricading behind a common household appliance anyway?
I get into the laundry room and rush to the plate. After shoving the dryer out of the way with my hip, I glimpse the silver bolt lock on the lower section of panel.
“I’M HERE! I’M HERE!” the woman shouts.
“What the fuck, lady? They’re not the fucking cavalry!” I bark. “I am!”
But she’s not stopping. My fingers find the breaching charge and the duct tape from my carrier pouch. I cover her mouth fast with a strip of the tape and then adhere the charge next to the lock and panel edge. I light the charge and step back, hunching over the woman’s body so I’m her human shield.
It blows—I doubt with the ruckus upstairs anyone will notice—and the panel unhinges.
Right away, I see a tunnel bathed in the soft green glow of florescent security lights. Only fly in the ointment could be if this one tunnel has several intersections and we meet up with Miguel and his henchmen.
Adapt, improvise and
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