The Dark & The Beautiful

09

"Thank you, Mr Bellerose." One said through his tears and I placed a hand on his shoulder giving it a soft rub before turning back to Maurice.

"Let's give them some privacy." I nod towards the exit of the warehouse and he quickly nods and follows. I grabbed my coat from the back of the chair and started to make my way out.

Maurice caught up with me after a few seconds. "That was real cool of you to give them young boys some grace like that Stone."

"A little too cool," I replied as we exit the warehouse, and I toss my arms through the sleeves of my coat. "they fucked up one of the simplest assignments which was to go and retrieve cargo from the docks and now it's stolen. I'm letting them grieve their fallen brother for now but after that, I'm not showing any more mercy to those who can't carry out simple tasks."

Maurice made a face and I could see the words forming on the tip of his tongue but he exhaled a low breath and refrained from speaking them aloud. "So what now?" he asked instead.

"We go get my shit back," I said to him. "because it seems like as of late if I want to get anything done I have to do it myself."

••••

Later on that night, I found myself on a rooftop. I screwed the large silencer atop the rifle, finally grabbing the scope and clicking it on, finishing up the assembly of the gun. Now I only needed some live rounds, and I was ready to shoot, but tonight's target wasn't in place yet, so I refrained and instead just gently put the gun down on the edge of the building, laying down on the gravel atop the roof to check if I had a visual.

"Visual..." Looking through the scope, I could see more than a dozen living rooms from this building, the insurance office high enough to obscure me from sight yet also low enough to grant me sight into the residential area across the street where the target would be. When I finally found the window I'd been looking for, I sighed and smiled. "We definitely got visual. Maurice, how is everything looking down there?"

"Everything's squared away down here," he rings in the earpiece. "I had a tap into one of the men's phones and they should be about to enter the apartment any second now. I can't believe they were dumb enough to go get Chipotle after a cargo raid."

Maurice managed to get the tag of the guys who pulled up on my men down at the dock by hacking into the camera around the area. We found them hanging out down at the local Chipotle where one of the men's phones was connected to the local WiFi with no VPN — what a dumbass now we've had their location pinged for quite a few hours just following them around until we could get them alone.

"I'm gonna try to connect our earpieces to the same frequency of his phone so we should be able to hear through his speakers to collect intel if there is any," Maurice informs. I can hear him pressing some buttons from his position in the car below, a shrill sound, and a robot woman's voice telling me the device had been turned on reassuring me everything was working as intended.

"Have I ever mentioned how lucky I am to have you on my team?" The playful remake found its way off my tongue.

"You could stand to mention it more." Maurice counters and I know he had that stupid smug look on his face in the car. He's such a smart ass but I really couldn't ask for a better partner in crime – literally.

"I feel like I'm about to explode —" The target's voice could be heard in my ear, a thick Jersey accent flowing through his lips. I look through the scope to get a better look into the apartment. Five men came waltzing in all smiles with full bellies. I can only assume this is only a few of them who were down at the docks earlier.