Chapter Twenty Three

When Adriel had texted her the location, she let a crisp hiss slip through her teeth. That she'd been so close and so oblivious the entire time was maddening. The team suited up in record time and had all climbed into the van just after Lily Anne's closing time.

For the mission at hand, Secoiya had felt it rather necessary to call in a favour or two. The first person on her list had been a man known as Alves. He was a bulky Brazilian man with a buzzcut and ties to the cartel. Typically his prices for this sort of work were rather high but the two of them had a working understanding and he'd split the prices in half.

The second person she'd called had agreed to help her for free, on account of being her former sister in law and harbouring a horrific guilt for everything her brother had put Secoiya through in her youth. Adelaide herself didn't show up for the mission, she wouldn't have been much use for this sort of thing. In her place, she'd sent two fully armed and able-bodied young men named Ervan and Reshay. They held a brotherly resemblance to one another and had accents so thick she knew what part of Jamaica they hailed from without having to ask.

Secoiya had contemplated calling in more inforcements being as she wasn't sure how well Melkior's security at the shop was. She ultimately decided against it though, being that the more attention they drew by showing up, the harder the whole matter would become. When all of them were ready, Secoiya analysed the resources they held as a unit and calculated their probability of success in her own mind.

Alves was a guns dealer and had come armed as such, with a pretty good grasp on Brazilian jiu jitsu in case things got complicated. Ervan and Reshay's descriptions of their skills had been hazy and vague but Secoiya trusted Adelaide enough to know the woman wouldn't send her anyone incompetent. Not to mention, Adriel was to join them within an hour of their arrival, and he was trained to a grotesque sort of level.

Secoiya didn't doubt Melkior's capabilities though and she cautioned her team to be very careful and vigilant. He was, afterall, Melkior.

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When the van pulled into the small vacant lot between Lily Anne's and an antique shop there were seemingly no other visitors to the shop. Sure, Secoiya took note of Mr. Duboir's beige coupe in the shop's driveway and the light of the desk light peeking through the curtains from Miss Patima's room. These things were completely natural, as far as she was concerned. The old woman seemed the type to read before bed and she wasn't immune to forgetting when a light had been left on. Mr.Duboir wasn't the sort of man who'd need to be anywhere else at night. He hardly left the shop at all.

"How do you figure we should go in?"

Secoiya eyed the shop's exterior and nodded her head towards the back right, a side they couldn't see from their position in the lot.

"There's an old laundry room at the back, farthest from the bedrooms. It's least likely to wake the owners."

Alves nodded as he tucked a small case into the large pockets of his cargo shorts.

"What if we do wake them?"

Secoiya eyed Reshay at his question, halting the preparation of her own weapons and tools. Alves allowed a smirk in the dark of the van and said nothing.

"Don't kill them, they're harmless. Restrain them and leave the rest to me."

The brothers nodded, waiting for Alves and Secoiya to finish their preparations.

As luck would have it, Alves had brought his lock picking set and began to pick the lock on the laundry room door. Alves muttered hushed musings about the manner of lock it was and how little security that sort had whilst Secoiya halfway pretended to be listening. He had pulled his shoulder length dark hair into a bun at the back of his head and focused himself entirely. After about nine minutes had passed, the door clicked open and the team began to sweep each of the rooms quietly and carefully.

Ervan and Reshay were to scan the perimeter of the house while Secoiya and Alves moved towards the more inner rooms. The coffee shop portion itself was completely clear, as was the restroom and the area behind the counter. Eventually Alves got word on his walkie from Ervan that they'd found something.

"We got summat here. A cellar door, looks like."

Alves had scanned the room with the stairwell leading up to the chambers where they knew the family to be sleeping as he listened on for more news from the brother.

"Where?"

Reshay had already circled back, lightly bumping into his brother's shoulder as he eyed what appeared to be a thick storm shelter door, angled in such a way that it would lead down beneath the house. It was tucked away between the walls of storage cabinets, almost as though the owners had meant to hide it.

"Storage room, on the left when we walked in."

It wasn't very long then until the large form of the man stepped into the storage move and began sifting this way and that through the rows of miscellaneous shelves. For the most part, it seemed to hold objects related to maintaining Lily Anne's business. There were coffee cups with the shop's brand logo, lids of lilac purple or black, and all different manner of silverware. Alves eventually found the shelves where three of four sides were cased in, and the two brothers standing before the bizarre cellar door.

When the whole group had rejoined in front of it, they stared curiously at the manner of lock holding the doors shut. It was a pretty basic padlock and Secoiya started to get a strange sense of danger. It was unlike Melkior to make anything so simplistic. They'd only picked one lock so far and there was no security on the first layer of the shop, what were the chances of luck like that? Secoiya Polson didn't believe in luck.

"Alves- do you have a way to get this off?"

The man nodded gruffly and shuffled around in his cargo pants until he pulled out two pairs of wrenches. The brothers watched his actions with uncertain eyes as he moved in front of the group of them and started his handiwork. It was a rather simple mechanism, wherein he wedged the two wrenches between the lock and pushed until the metal loop broke. The muscles in his forearm flexed tightly from the pressure he had needed to pull such a thing off. The brothers looked at each other with a hint of mischief in their eyes.

The whole group pointed their weapons at the door whilst Alves pushed it open to reveal a set of cement stairs leading down into the darkness. The man had stepped one of his vascular legs over the basement ledge and onto the top step of the stairwell when Secoiya grabbed his shoulder to halt him a little.

"We've no idea what's down there."

The man raised a brow at her as if to call her ridiculous and nodded.

"Of course we don't, but we'll have to find out sooner or later."

The soft whisper of their voices was interrupted by the steady thump of boots from the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. Secoiya felt the hairs of her neck start to creep up like a lion in tall grasses and Alves' shoulders went tense as they both froze. Suddenly a single blade swished through the air beside Alves' head, and the whole group threw their bodies down onto the wooden floor. Reshay and Ervan, being further back, were able to quickly reposition themselves so they could see down into the cavern and one of them threw a strange circular device past the sunken heads of their companions. Secoiya tried to catch a glimpse of the device as it flew into the dark of the basement but failed.

"Bumboclaat!"

Reshay pulled Secoiya up from the floor by her arms just in time to see the basement floor illuminated and her heart sunk deep in her chest. She saw at least four pairs of legs in dark pants rushing in their direction and she quickly pulled her gun out with the suppressor already in place and she cringed to herself. Suppressors could only muffle sound so much and she couldn't be sure any of the others had brought them.

She began to fire into the dark of the basement, leaning out of the cellar doorway the best she could. Alves had done the same, neither able to look back and check on the brothers. Enough bullets were flying through the doorway that it was hard to tell which direction they were coming from. They were at a crude disadvantage in numbers it seemed, and the opponents had an advantage that they didn't: there was more light on the top floor than down the stairwell.

A bullet grazed Alves' left shoulder across from him and she could hear the faint hiss that left his lips as he held steady, firing wildly into the abyss before them. Secoiya was biting her tongue so hard her mouth tasted of metal and her heart was slamming more loudly than the weapons.

Pap-pap-pap-pap! The spray of noise was merciless as the thoughts in the woman's head grew louder and louder.

They were bound to run out of bullets soon. What then?

How could they be sure they were hitting any of the strangers in the basement?

The sound of rushing boots poured like a never ending stream and the bullets never seemed to end. Reshay and Ervan had started a sort of cycle between themselves. One would steady fire while the other reloaded and prepared the next clip for the latter. They alternated back and forth rather efficiently.

How did Adelaide know the men? What if they were cousins? Nephews? Her own sons? What would happen if the two of them died here?

Secoiya's heart pounded faster and faster. How long until the gunfire triggered the law enforcement's response? Melkior would simply say they had been intruders on his property and were dealt with accordingly. What if dear old Miss Patima wandered downstairs to investigate and got caught in the crossfire?

She was risking too much. There were too many unpredictable variables in play and they were taking far too long. Sooner or later, something had to give.

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The buzz of a crappy cell phone sounded from the centre console, and Growden lifted his heavy eyed head up, glancing at the caller ID only to find it was from an unknown number. In the groggy fog of a leftover nightmare, it was hard to discern where he was or if anything of importance was happening. The digital clock on his dashboard read 4:31am and if Growden was remembering correctly, he had forgotten to set it back to normal when he crossed the state line, putting him an hour or two ahead.

Upon taking note of how odd a time at night it was, he picked up the phone and hit the red 'decline' button. A moment later he rubbed a hand across his face and began the tedious process of picking the mucus from his eyes. A little after he'd finished the right eye, his cell phone started to buzz once again and the man let out an audible sigh, blowing air out from his cheeks and picking the device up. He glanced at the number to find it was the same time and after a short moment of deliberation, he hit the green button and let the device rest on his knee as he leaned over like a sad pretzel twist and waited.

Gunshots and mayhem raged on in the background of the call as a gruff voice started to babble incoherently. Growden blinked twice before he became startled the rest of the way awake and regathered his senses.

"Hello?"

The voice came again, this time slightly more coherent.

"Lily Anne's- get to Lily Anne's."

The man furrowed his brows in complete confusion as he tried to figure who the strange man on the other end of the phone was or why they would possibly be asking him to make an appearance at a coffee shop at such an absurd time.

"Who is this?"

The man on the end grunted heavily and the sound of gunshots had started to slow, the mayhem finding its own sort of conclusion and allowing the stranger through the phone to speak more clearly with Growden.

"Secoiya's been blown to bits, you're the only contact in her phone. Lily Anne's."

Growden's stomach lurched at the words as the reality of it all struck him and he hung up the phone. His clumsy hands started to fumble as he climbed from his cosy blanketed position in the backseat into Nessie's driver spot and started the engine.

Miss Polson was in some manner of trouble.

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