REESE

chapter forty.

Dozens of quiet confirmations flooded through my earpiece.

"This isn't just an alliance between empires anymore. This is a dynasty, this is your legacy." I raised my gun. "Protect your regime."

Muffled sounds of struggle from outside the trailer had my entire team tensing for a fight and I knew the other teams could hear it as well. The moment the French soldier started tugging on our trailer doors, Mauro started his countdown. He raised five fingers in the air and started lowering them slowly, one by one.

Five... four...three...two...one...

Blackout.

I jumped down onto the ground and rolled out from under the trailer.

Then Conex plunged into darkness.

"Que diable?!" The French soldier hissed, reaching into the air and swatting his arms at nothing. The moonlight did little to illuminate the port, he and his fellow soldiers would now have to navigate through the pitch black. (What the hell?) "Tommaso!"

I moved forward, watching carefully as the soldier's hands dropped from the air and made their descent towards the gun strapped onto his hip. The darkness was my army's playground, it was easy to become a predator when you deliberately incapacitate your prey, and incapcitated they were. Confused and semi-frantic silhouettes of the French soldiers danced in the dark and my team, armed with tactical helmets that could switch from regular to night vision at the mere push of a button, prowled after them.

I managed to grab the soldier's hand seconds before he got a solid grip on his gun. He let out a sharp hiss of recognition but that was all he could manage before I got my bearings in order. Fisting the fabric of his collar in my hand, I slammed him up against the side of the nearest truck, pinning him in place as he thrashed violently in my hold. I let my semi-automatic hang from my shoulders, my muscles straining with force as I fought to keep him in place and grab my gun at the same time.

"That's enough." I grunted, finally getting a hold of my gun and pressing it into the side of his head. His struggle came to an immediate stop. My lips curved upwards at the obvious defeat in his eyes. That was the beauty of weaponry, no one could outrun a gun.

Feeling his erratic heartbeat in my hands, I questioned him. "Do you speak English?"

"Ye-yes, yes!" He choked out, trying to move his head away from my weapon. "I speak English! My name is Clement! I am forty-eight-years-old, I have a famil-"

"I don't care about your fucking age, Clement." I ignored his pleading and pressed the gun harder into his flushed skin. "What level are the drugs are stored on?"

"Drugs?" His voice raised an octave at the prospect of knowing what I wanted. "I can give you drugs, I can bring them right here, just please, please put the gun down! How much do you want?"

"All of it." I told him simply. "I want all of it, the entire supply."

His eyes widened, almost as if he couldn't believe what I was asking. "You're crazy." He let out a half-horrified, half-panicked laugh. "You are in France. Do you even know who you are trying to steal from? Whose supply this is?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Elroy Baudelaire is not the Don you think he is." The soldier tensed up, completely unaware of my team and Carver's team creeping up onto the yacht in perfect succession as I entertained his conversation. "There are bigger players in the game."

"No one can steal from Elroy Baudelaire in his own country." Shaking his head he stood his ground, adamant on defending his Don. "You take one step onto that boat and he will know, you'll be dead before you even get to the storage cabins." He snickered fanatically, mumbling to himself in an accent so thick it was a miracle I could even understand him.