Chapter 9

CANNON

FUCKIN HELL. I was going to find those motherfuckers and I would kill them.

“You’ll have to stay with Noah for a little while”, I touched the kid who hadn’t stopped crying since his mother got pulled up in an ambulance.

“I want to go with you, Uncle Cal”

And my heart weighed like a fucking stone in my body. I had brought my shit to my sister’s porch and they were fucking paying the price. I shouldn’t have brought her here; I shouldn’t have fucking let my guard down and mixed my work with my personal life.

I still had Nance`s blood on my hands and although I hadn’t cried like my nephew, my hands shook. Other people`s blood I could handle but not my sister’s.

“Hey, I’ll come back for you, okay? Once I find the men that did this to your mom, I’ll come for you. We like Uncle Noah, right? He’ll protect you till mom gets better”

And the kid let go of my leg as Gunner lifted him off the ground taking him in his hands. Tipping his chin at me he took Sy in his car and I fucking let a growl calling Berkely.

“Fuckers shot my sister and took the brat”

“Blaze and Pindrop- “

“No”, I thrashed. I wasn’t going to let some fucking amateurs handle my business. I was going to go after the fuckers myself if I killed Giovanni myself then hallelujah to my lucky day because shit had just gotten personal.

“I’ll take care of it myself”

“That’s fucking suicide”, Berkely grunted from the other end of the line.

It wouldn’t be suicide if I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t a moron who’d barge in there, guns blazing and shooting everyone. If I did this right, I’d not only rescue the brat but kill all of Giovanni’s men as if it was fucking open season.

“It will be a blood bath less than a suicide. Giovanni is about to kill the girl together with her pops while Blaze and Pindrop continue to do the fuck they are doing”

“Hey Callan don’t do anything stupid. Come to B & A we’ll work things out”

I was never a team player not since I watched my brothers get blown to smithereens. I preferred to work solo and that’s why I joined Berkely’s little side hustle of being bodyguards. Being a bodyguard meant you and the client and not any other way.

I had lost my client and I had every right to go rescue her because I was her bodyguard and no one else.

“Callan”

Berkely practically barked from the other end of the line waiting for a response. I weighed in my options, going there alone would probably get me killed and going with a team there would also get Berkely’s minions get killed. I couldn’t let anyone die on me.

Nance was in the hospital fighting for her life because of me and the chances of her making it were next to impossible. If I didn’t play this right, some other person would end up in a hospital bed too.

“Cannon you might be a loose cannon but going there alone is crazy and fucking stupid. There’s a kid waiting for you to go back to him”

He knew about Sy? When I signed my contract with Berkely my personal details were left out.

“I keep tabs on every guy’s family, Cannon I’m not a monster”, he spoke reading my mind before he added, “Your sister is with Snakes and he’s doing everything he can to stitch her up as for your nephew, I know Gunner is man enough to take care of his kid”

Fuck, he knew about Gunner and Sy too?

“What’s it gonna be? The team’s already here waiting for your grumpy ass to get here”

And I hung up, opening the door to my escalade and hoping in, the next destination being B&A. FUCK.

“Hey man. Didn’t know you had a sister but she’s going to be okay”, Blaze said the first thing I entered the conference room in B&A. in attendance was that fuck Jason, Pindrop, Holy, Skins and some other fuckers I saw in the Marines few years back.

“I warned you she was trouble”, Jason said placing his dirty boots on the mahogany hardwood table, a toothpick in his mouth.

Of course, he was right but he didn’t need to know that. Telling him he was right would only boost his already inflated ego that was twice the size of his head.

Nicole Montenegro was trouble. Trouble for me. For my job and my fucking family.

All my years of being a bodyguard, I had never slipped up. I was fucking good at what I did without putting my family at risk. Few hours with her spoilt ass, my sister was in a hospital God knew where, my nephew with Gunner and I was here playing Robinhood and his fucking merry band of thieves with people like Jason.

If I had been thinking straight and not with my dick, I wouldn’t have taken her to my sister’s house. Blaze had some sort of panic house up north safer than my house, I should have taken her there, left her ass and gone to Nance’s place to check up on Sy.

Worse, I shouldn’t have pulled her out of the car in my stupid bid to make her have an orgasm in the rear seat. The very minute I let her out of the car, I had subjected myself to the Devil’s wrath. Giovanni probably had cams around the city more than ants and the fucking minute, one camera picked up Nicole’s face, he must have sent his men following us.

And all that happened under my watch. Years of training and I didn’t notice a Mc Laren following us. A fucking Mc Laren for God’s sake. Years of training and my head didn’t think for one second that pulling Nicole out of my car was like attracting a whole hive of hornets to myself.

As soon as I killed Giovanni rescued the mayor and his daughter, I was done with being her security detail. I would be done with Nicole Montenegro and forget a woman like that existed in my life.

“You with us, boy?” Berkely asked and all eyes landed on me.

“She ruined you, didn’t she?” Jason pulled up a sly grin.

“Do you ever shut up?” I barked but he raised his hands in mid-air as if what I had just said was a fucking compliment.

Berkely pulled up a blue print of Giovanni’s estate right by the fucking marina. Flames apparently had called in earlier saying that Giovanni had a new pet and by pet, he meant Nicole. It was still ballsy of him to call instead of using the codes we’d been taught back in the Marines but hey, that was Flames. Ballsy and fucking fearless.

“Pindrop did a little air recon on his property and I gotta say it’s not going to be easy”

“When is an extraction ever easy”, Holy spoke and I hated to admit with the fucker but he was right.

We were talking about Giovanni Vincenzo for God’s sake.

Money launderer.

Associated with the fucking cartel.

A man who gutted people like pigs on a platter.

Even the FEDs were after him and they still had nothing solid enough to put his ass behind bars for good.

Not only was our mayor stupid for going after a man like that, he had a screw loose. Fucker must have had a screw loose in his head. And that had made his daughter an even bigger target.

“Well at least it isn’t downrange. Shit’s hell at downrange”, Jason clipped and everyone took a minute of silence to remember his own shit at downrange.

“Sixteen guards on the property. Five at the lanai, three at the docks, two by his side always and the rest man the gate or act subs during shifts. Shifts happen at midnight, three guards at the pool house get replaced every day”, Berkely explained.

Two guards by his side, wouldn’t fucking matter to me, I would kill them and get to Giovanni in no fucking time.

“Let me guess he’s keeping the Montenegros in the pool house”, Pindrop who had been caught up in his own fucking shit to speak, interrupted.

“Must be my lucky day. Working with Flames on the same mission and I fucking get to hear Pindrop utter more than five words?” Jason chuckled, his pretty boy hair swooshing like a fucking barbie.

“Yes and no”, Berkely ignored Jason answering Pindrop.

“They took the mayor right under our noses but the fuckers didn’t take him to where Giovanni is. At least that`s what Flames says”

“What you trying to say?” Blaze shifted in his seat. The same seat that had turned cold the minute Berkely said those words. And then instead of thinking about our mayor who was probably being eaten by ants by now, I thought about the raven-haired beau. This would definitely shatter her.

“The mayor’s either dead or they moved him to another location”

It was definitely the former. He was dead. Done. Six feet under. There was no in between. If they took him there was only one place to take him and that was at Giovanni’s killer island. Giovanni wouldn’t risk taking him to another location and risk anyone seeing the mayor with his men. He was careful. So careful that even the best in the field of FBIs couldn’t put anything on him.

“Too bad, I kind of liked the guy”, Jason countered and I shook my head at his sarcasm.

“Then I don’t understand why we are pulling up an extraction plan?” Holy asked and my blood boiled and that wasn’t fucking good.

I wanted to lash out that Nicole Montenegro was being held captive by the monster. I wanted to punch Holy’s face in and telling him that Nicole was also a fucking being who needed to be saved. Fortunately, Berkely beat me to it,

“Her father paid good money for me to keep her under my protection. Plus, we are Marines first and every civilian life counts”

He couldn`t have said it more perfectly.

“So, what are we waiting for ladies. Let’s kick some ass and save a damsel in distress”

The look on Berkely`s face confirmed what I thought. There was fucking more than he was leading us to believe. Unlike Jason`s stupid comment of the job being fucking easy and rescuing the damsel, my gut told me something was up.

“Anything else we need to know?”

“Looked into Luis Montenegro`s file and his relationship with Giovanni. They had a squabble six years ago. Nicole Montenegro had just turned eighteen and Giovanni offered Luis a deal”

“What deal?” I practically barked.

“He wanted Nicole Montenegro for himself”

Shit was now FUBAR. Only thing worse than a madman was a madman obsessed with a woman. Fuuck!