Winning His War

32

He came to me all but on his knees again. I had offered to help him get another respectable one but he said it wouldn't pay well enough and pleaded to join us again. I had reluctantly agreed but stuck him on warehouse duty, in the smallest warehouse I owned, where we had never had a problem, and where I thought he would be safe.

"They took him," Jared, a younger member, only 19, supplied as he kept applying pressure to a graze on Ali's side. The poor girl was all but see through and the rag Jared was using was stained deep red.

"We were unloading the shipment when they surrounded the building. No one even noticed it happened until they were barging in. They shot at everyone and found Kellan before he had a chance to give a single order. The higher ups hauled him out and left us to deal with the their lower level thugs while they made an escape. It was only a few minutes later when they left too. The few that were still able to fight went after them to get Kellan back."

I forced myself to hide the small bit of relief.

One missing, five shaken but otherwise fine, seven injured; some worse than others, leaving another seven still alive and well and already fighting for information.

It could have been so much worse.

"Kate take my car," I said as I threw my keys at and older woman. "You take everyone who has lost a lot of blood to the house. Rick, I think I saw your car out front, it's still fine, and all four tires still have air in it. You take everyone who can't fit in my car. It might be a tight fit but that's all we can spare." The second the words left my mouth people began to move.

Kate took Ali from Jared's arms, who looked like he wanted to protest but wisely kept his mouth shut while Rick began picking up two people at once before rushing out to my car.

Soon enough only three of us remained. Jared had gone nearly as pale as the wounded though he was perfectly fine. Silas on the other hand was simply pissed.

He didn't bother hiding the rage that he felt and while I was glad he wasn't as shaken as Jared, it was dangerous. I needed level head and calm minds. Anger is going to be our worst enemy.

"What are we going to do about this? They tried to kill us! Half of Brady's blood is laying back there on the ground!"

"Ali is going to die," Jared whispered, his eyes glued on the blood covering his hand.

"Right now there's nothing we can do," I said calmly even though I don't want to believe it either. "Until Kellan's rescue team reports back, we'd be going in blind and that's worse than waiting around. For now you go home. Ali and Brady are going to be fine. Go check the cars out front and make see if there are any left that are functioning. If there are, go home, you're partners will need you."

Jared didn't need to be told twice. He ran out the door to check cars without second thought, clearly wanting nothing more than to get back to his girlfriend. I wouldn't be surprised if he left without Silas if he didn't get back in enough time.

Silas however was still glaring at me. He and Brady had been together for years now. Silas has always been a hot head but Brady seemed to mellow him out. They make a good pair and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with Silas until Brady was back on his feet again.

"I'm not just going to sit in some recovery room until you figure this out," he spat out.

"I'm not saying you have to. I'm just asking for some time. Let Kellan's team report back and we'll see where we're at."

"How much time?"

"Give me a day. I promise I'll have something figured out by then and you'll be one of the first ones to know about it."