Brother Sweet Brother
Characters: Victor, Kilo, Sierra, Juliett, Papa, Hotel, Holly Wallchester, Yves Bouvier
Word Count: 4,426
Trigger Warning: Swearing. Violence. Blood. Death.
Parts: X/X/X
A/N: Fourth and last installment in this little adventure. When I read this back it felt forced. A whole "pulling this outta my ass feel" to me at least. Tried to go more linear storyline wise with this one but it still kinda jumps from section to section. The fight scene isn’t really what it’s supposed to be. But who knows I might just be too hard on myself. This could be fine and y’all might like it.
Summary: The mission comes to a close as Hotel races to get to the waterfront. Kilo worries for Victor while Sierra worries for Kilo. Click that read more if you wanna…
XXXXX
They left the penthouse apartment with a confused, and still heavily drugged, Holly Wallchester tied up amidst the debris. The Ketamine was slowly wearing off so at some point later in the night she would fully come to her sense. But she wasn’t their problem anymore. The Cleaners would deal with her and that would be that. And besides they now had a life to save. The three women stood outside the apartment as Hotel whipped the black Audi around and slammed on the brake.
“You ladies call an Uber?”
Papa and Juliett both rolled their eyes at the Getaway’s attempt at a joke. Sierra just smiled and climbed into the front passenger seat while the other women piled into the back. The waterfront was a good 40 miles from the upscale area where the criminal defense lawyer resided. And the only way to get there was by the freeway. But even then the journey would take the average driver, going 70mph, about half an hour.
Luckily for them Hotel was nothing close to the average driver.
“Let’s go save Victor,” Sierra said.
Hotel nodded, eased up on the brakes and then slammed his foot on the gas. The car shot out of the apartment building’s parking lot.
Even though Hotel didn’t drive like many other daredevils out there, gunning the gas to 90 or 100 for no reason expect to look cool, he knew how to gain distance quickly. Most people thought that the only way to do this was to slam on the gas. But that was far from the truth. All you needed to do was to pass other cars. Weaving through cars gained distance and cut travel time down better than anything. And he didn’t need to drive any faster than 70mph.
He was that good.
In only a few minutes Hotel had already cut down ten. Sierra looked over at the Getaway as he drove. Even though he wore black driving gloves on his hands she could still see how tightly he gripped the steering wheel. It didn’t take any imagination to know that his knuckles would be white underneath them. Just as she was about to ask if he was okay he caught her off with a question.
“So what’s the plan, Sierra?”
“Simple. Get to them before they kill Victor and kill them,” Juliett piped up from the rear seat.
“No, that’s not what we’re doing, Jule,” Sierra said with slight venom in her voice. “They took Victor yes. And probably badly roughed him up, but, we’re not killing them. We get Victor and Bouvier and that’s it. Got it?”
“You got it mom,” Juliett said with a slight grumble.
XXXXX
Even before Hotel stopped the car Juliett was out and rushing across the parking lot. Without warning she rammed into one of Bouvier’s goons. The guy was taller than her by a lot and pretty bulky too but she caught him off guard. He was leaving his post at the warehouse door for a smoke break cigarette and lighter in hand. And the very last thing he expected was a 5’6” woman, with the crazed look of murder in her eyes, bum rushing him and tackling him to the ground. Pinning him to the blacktop with her knee Juliett pulled his hair back with one hand and brought a knife to his throat with the other.
“You feel this knife? This is my favorite knife and it’s been covered in a lot of blood. If you don’t want yours to be next then you’ll do exactly as I say.”
The hired gun stuttered out a reply which was muffled by the asphalt in his face.
“Sorry? What was that?” she asked through grit teeth as she dug her knee deeper into the man’s back.
“Fuck you bitch.”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
Juliett quickly shoved his face into the black asphalt of the parking lot; hard. She was angry and desperate which in turn made her even angrier. She was the one who always brought a knife to a fist fight and she brought the guns to a knife fight. No matter what fight she was in Juliett was always the most prepared person in the room. But this whole thing with Vic being captured? That was something she never thought would happen. So she never planned for it and was caught off guard which made her unsure of what to do next. Juliett always had a plan and she hated being the one who didn’t have a plan.
“Speak to me like that again and I will slit your stupid throat and end your pathetic little life. Are we clear?”
The man nods almost imperceptibly.
“I asked,” Juliett said while pressing the knife ever so deeper into the skin of the man’s throat, “Are we clear?”
“Yes. God please don’t kill me!”
A trickle sound interrupted Juliett before she even began ordering the man. The perfect time to add insult to injury on the man’s already bruised ego.
“Ooooh is the widdle baby scared? Did the baby go wee-wee in his widdle pants?”
Sierra cut her off with a sharp look. They had come too far and were too close for things to be screwed up. She couldn’t have anything setting Juliett off with what was at stake. It wasn’t just Victor’s life. It was all their lives. She bent down so that she was squatting slightly and staring the goon directly in the face.
“Now. My girls and I have come a long way to get what’s ours. That’s two people you got in there,” she said with a nod to the warehouse door.
“Our brother and one other person. Want to take a guess as to who that is? Your boss; Bouvier. See, the easiest thing to do would be to go in and kill them all. I’m not talking about the guy you work for and I’m obviously not talking about our brother. That makes no sense. Why would we kill him? That’s crazy. Hon, I’m talking about your work buddies. The other hired guns in there.”
“You wouldn’t! You’re bluffing!”
“Does my face look like I’m bluffing?”
The goon shook his head.
“But I’m feeling a little generous today so I might let them live. Only if you let us sneak into the building. Oh we can get in just fine. No troubles there, hon. The only problem we have here is you have people watching the only way in.”
Juliett shoots Sierra a confused look and mouths What about the skylights? Or the side windows?
Papa slides up to Juliett and whispers in her ear so that the slightly captive guard can’t hear them. There was no way that they could even reach the skylights in the first place. The outside ladders to the roof, if there were any in the first place, had all been removed. And none of them were tall enough to jump through the side windows; even with a running start. Five feet off the ground was too much of a height so there was no way they would even attempt it. As Papa explained to Juliett how they couldn’t run headfirst into danger this time the goon under her knee tried to plead with Sierra.
“I have three kids and I was just diagnosed with cancer, lady! Puh-please don’t kill me!”
“I just want you to watch the door, hon.”
The man nodded and Juliett took her knife away from his throat. Once she took her knee off his back she backed away. Let the scumbag help himself up. It wasn’t her duty to play nice with people like him. Bouvier, or anyone else for that matter.
That wasn’t in her job description.
XXXXX
Kilo had been quiet the whole ride to the waterfront and through the whole ordeal with the door guard. The other women knew that she was taking Victor’s abduction harder than they were so they let it go. She blamed herself despite their best efforts to get her to stop. And now that they had snuck inside the warehouse, with slight help from the door guard, the group stood behind a cluster of boxes and metal drums. Sierra held up a fist signaling for the others to wait where they were. Then she cupped a hand over her eyes and then brought the same hand behind her ear; signaling the group to look around and listen to get a feel for the situation. The others signaled back okay and went about surveying the room.
All except for Kilo who had stopped short inside the doorway.
“Ki! What are you doing?” Papa whispered.
The Musician stared off into the center of the warehouse. A group of men stood in a pool of light; surrounding a slumped figure in a metal chair. One of the men was wearing a black suit and stood a little far off from the rest. He had thinning hair and a creepy smile. But Kilo’s attention wasn’t on the man in the suit. Or any of the goons around the place.
Her focus was on Victor and the cattle prod which was being used to electrocute him.
Turning to Papa, since she was the closest to her, Kilo pointed at the Swallow, tapped her head and then tapped a finger to her chest. You cover me.
Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye Sierra whipped around so that she faced Kilo. She shook her head on and began signaling for her to stay. But Kilo was already gone and in the process of taking out the goons closest to the door. Shots were fired and the other people were already altered to their presence. There was no going back now. Sierra sighed and shook her head. She motioned for the others to follow her as she joined the firefight.
Kilo ran over to Victor and began untying him.
Completely unprepared for the state that Victor was in Kilo felt tears prick at the back of her eyes. She bit her lip hard as she worked at the knots in the rope. Whoever tied them had to have some practice as they were very good. And tied super tightly. Her voice shook slightly as she spoke.
“Vic? Are you okay? Dude, I am so sorry, this is all my fault!”
“It’s nothing, Ki, jus’ a little blood. It’s nothing. Hey. What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vampire? A vampire only sucks blood at night.”
Victor didn’t even skip a beat before firing off another one; “Don’t be sad, Ki, you know what they say; a pessimist’s blood is always b-negative.”
Kilo looked down as the tears began to fall. Victor was obvious badly hurt, with some internal bleeding and broken bones for all she knew, but he still managed to keep up the horrible puns. So maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed. She quickly wiped the tears away and continued working on the knots.
Meanwhile Juliett ran after Bouvier who tried to make a hasty escape. He had snuck around to the exit and was almost to the door. Juliett smirked slightly; not on her watch. She reached into her breast pocket and threw the contents at the man’s feet. He tripped on the small metal ball bearings and fell flat on his face. Juliett was on him faster than ants on a picnic.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Sierra said in her mom voice.
“Since when are you the expert?” Juliett responded bitterly.
She had Bouvier right where she wanted him; on the ground, face painfully smashed into the concrete, with a 9mm Beretta to his temple. Hell, he couldn’t even talk without moving his face across the concrete. She wasn’t going to waste the chance to severely maim the man. Or kill him. Besides HERACLES was a ‘take no prisoners’ kind of organization so they definitely weren’t going to let him get off scot free. And besides he had fucked with them first.
“In case you haven’t noticed, mom, everything we do is wrong in one way or another. And almost all of it is because someone like this scum,” she shoves Bouvier’s head into the floor, “did it first.”
“I know, hon, but you don’t have to do the same to him.” Sierra said recognizing the look in Juliett’s eyes.
“I’m not.”
Just as the words left her mouth Juliett got two shots off into the side of Bouvier’s head. Blood and small bits of brain flew back at her. The blowback slightly colored her arms and face with a minor amount of gore.
Sierra sighed and walked around the warehouse to make sure they didn’t forget anything. She found Victor’s laptop on a crate that was turned upside down to function as a makeshift table. Bouvier had left it there, presumably, because he couldn’t figure out why it didn’t have anything on it. And now it was covered with blood and suffered a couple light dents from stray bullets. Sierra picked up the laptop and tucked it under her shoulder as she went to rejoin the others.
Kilo and Papa walked up to the others carrying Victor between them. Despite everything that happened his wore a slight smile. He was just happy that this whole thing was over with and they got the bastard responsible.
“Hey. What do you call a group of frequent blood donors? The IV League.”
“Dude if you weren’t possibly dying right now I would punch you for that.”
“Good thing I might be dying then.”
The group walked out of the warehouse; leaving the blood and death behind them. Once they reached where Hotel parked they piled in the Audi silently. Hotel looked at Victor in the rearview mirror. He gave the Cobbler a slight smile; happy to see the man was still alive and kicking. Pulling away he started the drive to the rendezvous.
They drove in silence.
Kilo snored against Victor’s chest and he let her despite the pain he felt because when he saw her he knew right away that she hadn’t slept well. Juliett spun a butterfly knife in her hand. And Papa stared out the window at the night sky. Hotel focused on the drive but this time his hands were relaxed and he was driving slower. Sierra looked at her teammates and smiled. She was relieved that they were all relatively okay. Then she realized she had no way of explaining this to their handler when they got back home.