The Butcher of the Bay Part II - J. Bree Page 0,63

D’Ardo.

The entire warehouse is full of a hazy smoke and through the masks it’s impossible to see right. I’ve studied the floor plan enough to know where I’m heading even without being able to see but that doesn’t fucking help me if one of the cartel jumps the fuck out at me.

We need to get to the mezzanine floor, where Mecedo stands overhead and watches his minions produce. Crime lord dickheads love that shit, D’Ardo does it in his party shed at the docks. I guess a taste for watching comes with the ego they have, the god complex because they have some power.

They don’t realize the higher you climb on that fucked up throne the bigger the target you really are. I’ve always known true power is being about to look at that goddamn throne and have the power to kill anyone on it but never take it for yourself.

I take out two more and I hear a fight break out behind me but I have to trust that Harbin can fucking see well enough to kill the fuckers.

We don’t have time to waste. Mecedo and his men will be here soon.

We should’ve run an alarm test before we came out here but I didn’t want them getting suspicious there was someone in their system and losing my edge. I don’t know if the smoke is from them or if they’re destroying evidence in case the authorities show up.

Clearly, they know fucking nothing about the Bay.

I make it to the stairs and by the fourth step I’m above the smoke and can see what the fuck is actually happening down there. Roxas is grappling with some guy in a full hazmat suit while Harbin is still trying to find the staircase. The smoke is getting thicker but I can’t see where the fuck it’s even coming from.

I do see two men coming up on Harbin from behind and I throw a cleaver at one of them. I’m too far away to kill him but it gives Harbin the chance to turn around and finish the job.

What a fucking mess.

I move the rest of the way up the stairs and when I get to the top I find a guy crouched behind a fucking desk like a pussy.

"Don't kill me! I'm not here willingly!"

Too late.

His body drops to the ground, his throat slashed open and blood pouring out everywhere, and there's nothing left inside me to feel guilty about it even if he was innocent. I doubt it and I'm not getting stabbed in the back by some asshole pretending he's a victim in this shit. If they're here, they're dead... one way or another.

I walk along the top level and start picking off the rest of the cartel men, all of them crouched behind shit like that'll save them. I use my throwing knives, I’m more accurate at a distance with those and I make note of where the fuck they are so I can finish the job once I’m back down there. When I get to the end I find the tank that the smoke is pouring out of on the other side of the warehouse. It's below me but to get down there I'd have to walk back down the stairs and make my way across the smoke-filled warehouse without tripping over something or being taken out by some cartel trash hiding out. Fuck knows what it's actually got inside it but there's no way of plugging it from here.

Except.

I jog back over to the dead guy and grab his feet, dragging him along the top floor until I get above the tank again. Roxas makes it up the stairs, sweating and wiping his forehead around the gas mask. There's blood on his hands that smears everywhere but who gives a fuck about a little blood?

I tip the body over the edge and the dead guy lands over the hole in the tank, plugging it enough that there's only wisps of the smoke making it out around him.

I hope the thing doesn't blow, we should get the fuck out of here before it has the chance, and as I turn to say as much to Roxas the door opens again and gunfire starts up again.

Harbin's down there by himself.

Roxas takes off at a sprint and I grab the last of my knives, already aiming as I run up behind him.

I don't want Mecedo dead though.

I need him and his bodyguards alive and trussed up like fucking turkeys