A/N: Hey ladies here is the rest of Chapter 25. Enjoy.
Twenty-One Minutes Ago
"I got two on my right," Theo whispered to Benicio as they watched the old abandoned Church on Main Street from behind a car.
Benicio had to give it to Devaney hiding in the Church was a smart move. Honestly he never would have thought of using it as a hideout. If Benicio did not want to kill him so bad maybe he would have offered him a spot in his organization.
"There's one on the left," Benicio whispered back as he looked on waiting for Joey and Mickey's surprise attack on the three men across the street.
Since Jackson was receiving his medical attention, Theo rallied up all the men he could to extract revenge on Devaney.
They had the Church surrounded. There was no telling how many of Devaney's men were waiting for them inside.
Benicio saw Joey sneaking up on the two on the right while Mickey took the man on the left. They did it slow and quietly because the surprise kills were always easy. Mickey covered his victims mouth and jammed his knife into his neck. The man's body tensed for a second then went limp and Mickey threw him on the ground.
By the time Benicio trailed his eyes back towards Joey and the two guards, they were laying motionless on the ground as Joey stood above them wiping his bloody knife on his jacket. Joey looked down the street for a moment before he motioned for Benicio and Theo to come to him.
Checking to make sure the coast was clear, they jogged across the street. When they reached Joey, he immediately started walking the other way.
"Where are you going?" Benicio whispered confused.
"I saw something down the street," Joey turned to walk away.
Benicio stopped him. "Whatever it is I'm sure it can wait. Right now I need you to help me get my wife back."
"Bennie you got more than enough men to help you. There's only three hoods inside the church and about a dozen of us." Joey responded before crouching down and sneaky off into the shadows.
"Goddammit," Benicio hissed.
Just what he needed. His best friend, the best killer Benicio had ever seen ran off to do God knows what. What could have been more important than rescuing Kenzie?
"It's fine," Theo said, while looking through the stained glass windows of the Church. "He's right, there's only three inside. Two with pistols and one has a shotgun. Bad news is, neither one of them look like they're running the show."
Benicio raised an eyebrow, more confusion circulating around him.
This was Devaney grand scheme? To hold Kenzie with only six guards? It didn't seem right to him. Why go through so much trouble? But the only thing Benicio could focus on was getting Kenzie back safely. It was painful knowing that she was at the mercy of the Irish.
Benicio turned to his men.
His cousins stood with their machine guns, waiting for a command. Mickey passed Dino a cigarette and light it for him. He took in a long drag and blow it out smoke through his nose calmly. Theo and his men had revenge written all over their faces and it wasn't just because of Kenzie. Yes, the KKK did the dirty work by hanging Jackson and murdering his wife and unborn child, but it was obvious Devaney gave away the information about Jackson and his family.
"Alright boys there's no sign of Devaney. We go inside, take out the three in there and nab Kenzie."
"Got it boss," Giovanni responded.
"Suppose she ain't in there?" Patrizio added
"The longer we wait, the longer he has her," Theo replied walking away from the window.
"I believe he was addressing that question to Bennie, not you." Dino said venomously. The look in his eyes were that of hatred.
Theo glared at Dino.
Benicio knew his boys did not like working with Theo and his men as much as they did not want to work with them. At the end of everything they were likely to turn their guns on each other as soon as Kenzie was safely returned.
"Hey," Benicio said firmly. "What the hell are we standing out here arguing for? Is my wife standing next to me? No. Am I standing over Devaney's lifeless body? No. So until then pipe down and work together."
No one dared to protest, instead they listened.
"Now everybody on me and Theo." he continued. "We go in first and you follow suit."
They slowly walked up the wooden steps with Benicio and Theo in front. Mickey handed Benicio a machine gun as Theo kicked the door open. Benicio stormed inside like a brute force. He squeezed the trigger and sprayed his bullets at the three guards waiting inside the church. Theo fired his handgun and before anyone else rushed into the church Devaney's men were dead.
This should have satisfied Benicio, he was one step closer to getting his wife back. But it didn't.
He turned to Theo. "What was wrong with this picture?"
"They didn't fire back," Theo responded warily.
Sadly Theo was correct. It was like the men allowed themselves to get ambushed the way they did. Yes, they would have all been taken out eventually, but, after a grueling shootout. At least one of them should be dead.
Benicio walked up to the bodies and observed them. One was lying between pews, another was in the aisle while the third man was slumped over a chair center stage. They weren't innocents. They had pistols on holsters inside their jackets but none of them made an attempt to draw them.
"So what happens now?" Mickey asked.
Benicio turned to them. "We find the entrance into the catacombs. Should be easy right?"
Mickey shrugged. "Fair enough,"
Before they could break off and begin the search, Benicio held his hand up to stop them. "When we find the entrance, it just gonna be me and Theo to find Kenzie. I need you to stay up here."
"You're serious?" Salvio asked with furrowed eyebrows.
Benicio nodded his head. He just couldn't shake the bizarre feeling in his gut. And the fact that Joey went off on his own did not help much either. "I need you up here covering our backs."
Without another word they searched for a secret passage way. It didn't take long to do it since the Church was quite small. All they found was a small bathroom that had been used recently and a closet filled with old worn out bibles. Benicio sighed and punched the wall inside the closet as hard as he could. A strike like that should have split his knuckles, but, he was more interested in the hollow sound that came from the wall.
"Theo," Benicio called.
Theo came to him in a hurry. From the look on his face, the others weren't having much progress.
"Found something?" he asked.
Benicio tapped the wall again. There was definitely a passage way on the other side of the wall. Now all they needed to do was find a way to open it.
"I'm sure there must be a secret lever." Theo suggested.
After placing his machine gun on the floor, Benicio moved the old bookshelves to get a better look at the wall. That was when he noticed the doorknob and realized the entire wall was a door. He grabbed the handle and twisted it.
It was locked.
But Benicio didn't come this far just to let a locked door get in his way. He picked up his tommy gun from the floor and shot at the wall. Once weak, he was able to kick a hole big enough for him to fit through.
By the time he looked up, Mickey and everyone else was gathered around the small closet.
"Remember I go down with Theo and you stay up here to cover over backs. I got a bad feeling about this." Benicio added.
They all nodded and turned to guard them. Theo peered inside the dark passage way with a curious brow.
"We go down there and you can't see me, don't be alarmed."
Benicio laughed despite their situation. "That was a joke. Funny."
The two slowly walked into the secret passage. It was a little odd to have something like this built under a Church. It was the perfect hideaway to keep prisoners locked up. Apparently the way of the Church and the way of the mob weren't so different after all. Benicio made a sign of the cross as he walked further into the darkness out of habit. They came to the steepest and narrowest flight of stairs he had ever seen. This place was definitely built for torment and he could not stand Kenzie being held up in there for another second.
"We should stay close together," Benicio suggested. "In a place like this it would be easy to lose each other."
"I wasn't thinking about going anywhere." Theo replied.
Benicio walked down the stairs first. They lead him to a dimly lit corridor with only one way to go. Eagerly he followed the corridor all the way to the end where he came to path leading in opposite directions.
"We should split up," Theo suggested.
Benicio shook his head. "I thought that wasn't an option."
"If the both of us head down the wrong path then that's just more time we're losing."
Theo had a point, but for some reason splitting up did not sit well with Benicio. In fact, none of it sat well with him. Joey left him to search for Kenzie with his least favorite person in the world and storming the church seemed too easy.
Suddenly the sound of a woman's cry echoed in the dark. Benicio and Theo were instantly alert because it wasn't just some woman, it was Kenzie's voice. She was in pain, Benicio could hear it.
They sprinted in the direction it was coming from. As they ran they realized that the secret passage was more like a secret maze. It felt like they were turning corner after corner in a never ending puzzle designed to make prisoners feel as if there was no way out. But the sound of Kenzie's screams was what drove Benicio to never give up, even with the heavy machine gun in his hand.
The smell of smoke was becoming stronger by the second and they knew they were on the right track. They reached a large metal door. The smoke seeping from under it was so thick it was hard for Benicio to breath.
Kenzie screamed again.
"She's inside," Benicio told Theo.
Without hesitation he opened the heavy door and ran down another flight of stairs. When he reached the bottom, to his horror, Benicio saw a thin man standing over Kenzie while she was tied to a chair. The tiny room was more like a dungeon and the walls were engulfed in thick flames. The man had a hammer raised in his hand. He was ready to strike her but Benicio quickly took his pistol out the holster and fired four shots in the back of the man's head.
His body fell to the floor with a loud thud. Kenzie was slump over and her left hand was spilling blood. Benicio's anger and revenge was replaced with sorrow and he saw the damage Devaney had done to her.
They had tortured her.
Instantly Benicio and Theo rushed to Kenzie's side.
"Her hand is bleeding something bad," Theo said as he began untying her wrist while Benicio undid the ankles.
Benicio looked at Kenzie's bleeding hand again and noticed a large nail lodged into it. Before he had any time to react she began couching and looked up into his face.
"Benicio..." she said in a weak whisper that threaten to tear his heart. "...Am I seeing things again?"
He brought her unharmed hand to his face and let her touch him. It was refreshing to feel her skin against his cheek but she was in a worst state than he thought. Her hair had been chopped off and strains clung to her bruised and sweaty face.
"I'm real," Benicio's voice almost cracked as he spoke to her.
"What happened to Robert?" It was clear Kenzie was unaware of what was going on around her.
"Dolly I'm here okay, me and Theo are getting you out of here." he assured.
"Theo's here?"
"Yes," Benicio responded.
With her wrists and ankles now free, there was only one problem left. Getting Kenzie out of the chair. Benicio looked around quickly and found the hammer lying in a pool of blood. Instead of grabbing it, in a rage, Benicio picked up the lifeless body of the man that was torturing Kenzie. Using all of his strength, he tossed the body into the burning wall. It landed in an odd sitting up position and the flames began burning the body.
It did not make him feel any better, but this was Benicio's way of sending the man straight to hell for what he did to his wife.
"Benicio come on, the fire is spreading to the staircase," Theo shouted in a hurry.
Benicio grabbed the bloody hammer.
"Sorry Dolly," he said heartbroken.
He took the claw of the hammer and started prying the nail out of Kenzie's hand. Her blood screeching scream echoed off the walls. To make matters worst the nail wasn't slipping out fast enough and he too felt as if he were torturing her in some kind of way.
With one last strong pull, Benicio finally removed the nail. Her blood squirted like water from a broken faucet.
"We gotta go now," Theo insisted.
"I need to stop the bleeding," Benicio said.
He undid his tie as quickly as he could and securely wrapped it around Kenzie's wound causing her to wince at the pain.
"I'm so sorry Dolly," Benicio apologized and kissed her forehead.
Working together, Benicio and Theo each place one of Kenzie's arms around their necks and picked her up. She was much lighter than Benicio remembered. They walked her up the stairs as quickly and carefully as they could. The dark corridor was now filled with smoke coming from every direction.
Benicio turned them to the left. "I think we came from this way."
Before any of them could take a step Kenzie instantly resisted them.
"That's the wrong way," she said in a low voice. "We have to go right."
"Are you sure?" Theo asked.
Kenzie nodded. She lead them out of the catacombs. Though she was weak, her sense of direction was perfect. In no time they were at the bottom of the steep steps from which they came. The smoke in the corridor never let up. At first, Benicio thought it was still coming from the dungeon. But now it was clear that somehow the church had caught on fire.
As they walked up the stairs, they could feel the heat from the flames. A massive and brutal gun fight could be heard just outside of the church.
"What the hell is happening out there?" Theo asked frustrated.
"I have a feeling we're about to find out." Benicio responded.
They slipped through the large hole in the secret door. Luckily enough for them, only one side of the Church was on fire. If Benicio didn't know any better the whole thing was a setup from the beginning.
The gun fight was still going on and the voice of Mickey shouting obscene insults could be heard. They were almost to the entry until one powerful shot went off inside the church. Benicio stopped and looked at Kenzie. The sound was loud enough to alert her.
Suddenly Theo fell to the floor, he was the one that got shot. Before Benicio could come face to face with the shooter he felt a cold steel barrel being pressed in the back of his head.
"Drop her right now or I will pull the trigger."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter 25 is now Complete ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: There you go ladies the finished Chapter 25. Like I said before it is the other half of the chapter. Um I hope you enjoyed it. Everything is unfolding as well as coming together which means that the story is coming to an end. If you enjoy my works so much, I've already started two new stories and they are available on my page. Journey to the Kingdom of Thorelind and The Vampire and the Voodoo Priestess. And also my sister Jaspent has started a new story called How Nick Michaelson Got Into Tabbie Holmes Pants. It's really funny and she's a good writer, if not, a better writer than I am so you should definiately check her out.
Premise: Nick Michaelson isn't very popular like his older brother. The girls in school refer to him as 'Matt's little brother'. But when his gay best friend tells him he can't hit a home run with the conservative new girl, Nick makes it his mission to win the challenge at any cost in this hilarious tale of a teenage boy trying to score big.
-So there you have it, I hope you enjoyed the chapter let me know what you think.