DANTE'S POV
FLASHBACK **Sixteen years ago…** Dante: Ten years old
"You're going to be a fine and strong man when you're older." My father says to me as I sit in a boat with him. This is the first time my father is taking me out fishing and now that I am out of the house, all I want to do is go back. I didn't realize how boring fishing would be. I didn't realize you actually had to be patient and wait for the fish to come to you.
"How do you know, dad?" I ask him as I hold on to my fishing rod. Dad says I have to be alert because a fish might latch on to my bait any time and I have to be ready to drag and pull it out of the water.
"Because I raised you, Dante." My father, Leonardo has always raised me to be a carbon copy of himself. Where he was strong, I had to be stronger. Where he was smart, I had to be smarter. He has been a great father figure to me and I look up to him.
"Do you think I will ever be as strong as you father?" I ask, looking up at him and squinting my eyes to get the sun's rays out of them.
"Oh, I think you will be stronger Dante. So much more than I am. Besides, you have be. When your other and I eventually pass from this life and onto the next, you'll have your little sister to take care of." He says with a light smile.
"I don't think you and mother will die any time soon though." I say.
"Let's hope so." My father says with a light nod of his head.
PRESENT DAY
I snap out of the flashback I just had and focus on the present as we all drive to erotica. Kent did not disappoint when he said he would call upon the entire FBI force if he had to. There are so many cars and so many soldiers and I know they will see us coming from a mile away but the advantage that we have is that we outnumber them by a lot. Veronica might think she won. She might think just because she has Adrian now, she has more men than we do, but Kent was able to talk to so many FBI bureau's and after the stunt Veronica pulled in public, a lot of people are after her and want her dead.
She fucking launched a bombed in a city. That didn't gain her a lot of points and now they don't even care whether or not we bring her dead or alive. We just want her dead.
"This is our last chance boys." Kent says into his mic and since we all have receivers in our ears. All the men Liam and I found are here with us right now and they all said they are ready to die with us today as long as we successfully carry out what we came here for. I gave each of them a pretty huge sum of money. Ten million dollars each and they all sent enough money to their families anonymously s that they would never have to work again.
They came here with me with no hopes of ever going back. I came to this place with the same mindset. Liam is here with us too and although I would have preferred if he stayed behind, he insisted and I guess it's only right that he comes with us because of Naomi. I understand that he wants to be the one to get her out. He blames himself for what happened o her. But the problem, I have been on missions similar to this before and so have the other men and obviously the FBI agents. No offense, but Liam is just a lawyer and that's not even a bad thing. He's not a fighter and he certainly isn't a killer.
He's fit, I'm not going to argue that. He has the muscle and he's strong and he does know how to fight and use a gun but he is not a killer. Today he will have to kill s many people and I am really scared of the toll it will have on him later. I saw how he got when he killed people for his first time.
Today, he'll have to kill more than ten or even more people.
"I know what you're thinking about and I just want to tell you to forget about it." Liam says as he looks to me with a serious look on his face.
"I'm not thinking about anything." I say to him with low and deep voice.
"Oh please, I know that look all to well. That's the look you have when you're about to tell someone not to do something and I'm telling you right now to drop it. There's nothing you can do to stop me from going in there with you all. Naomi is in there."
I shift uncomfortably in my seat as adrenaline pumps in my veins. "I wasn't going to stop you." I say simply.
"But you were thinking about it." He says with a raise of his brows. I just shrug and start counting my guns all over again as I have done a million times today already.
"You've checked a gazillion times Dante. You have all the right equipment and they are all worried. You need to calm down." I raise my brows at Liam at the irony of this situation right now.
"Really? You're asking me to calm down? You?" I ask him with a playful smile on my face. "You haven't stopped shaking your leg since last night."
"I'm not going to lie. I am scared. I don't want any of us tonight to die." Liam says with a frown on his face.
"Well, if one of us gets shot, the rest have to continue no matter what. That was the deal. If we try to save each other all the time then we will not get anything done. We came here with the thought of winning, of coming out of this alive but that doesn't mean the possibility of us dying doesn't exist. We have to prepare for anything." I say.
"It's time to send out the drones. We're close enough now." Kent says into our speakers. He was able to order a hundred little drones that look like flies. He's going to send a couple of them out right now to scan the area and then images are going to come back to us, and then he's going to make them land on strategic positions.
The interesting thing about these little drones is that they are also bombs and as small as they might look, the explosive force from one of them is enough to wipe out an entire building. Erotica is a big place. It's massive actually so we needed to get a lot of these drones so we could bring the place to the ground when it's time.
"Copy that detective." I say in a serious tone and I hear him bark out orders to his men as we continue driving to the premises. He sets out the drone and images in real time immediately start appearing on everyone's screen. The flies are fast. So much faster than we are so it only takes then a couple of minutes to reach erotica. Our cars are driving slower now on purpose.
"The woman has an entire army. What the actual fuck?" Headshot notices and comments the first.
"We have more." Kent says with confidence.
"They're all over the place." Liam says.
"Their body parts will be all over the place soon when I set those bombs." Kent lands the bombs on different parts of the building and sends some of the drones into the house. Kent has been so angry since Veronica bombed his car and that of his men. I have no idea how he came out unscathed but he did and he has an unsatiable grudge on erotica ever since.
If he was angry before, he got even more furious after that. He originally did not want to set bombs because he believed he would find evidence in erotica of other sick organizations and he didn't want to destroy that evidence by bombing the place, but now, he doesn't give a shit anymore. He just wants everyone to die, and die they shall.
Once all the drones are set and some sent into the building, our cars start accelerating.
"Wait, what is that? In the kitchen?" Liam asks and I take a closer look at the numerous images that flood in. the thing about the drones is they take so many images at a time that what pops on our screens looks like a video. I look closer to the screen and…
"Oh my God. Is that Naomi?" Liam asks, immediately getting agitated.
"I think it is…" I say with a hopeful look on my face. Naomi's alive. I let ut a breath of relief as she clutches a knife in her hand, standing with all the vulnerability in the world behind a guard who's shooting at everyone in the kitchen like his life depends on it. He's protecting Naomi.
"Who's that she's with?" Kent asks.
"I think that's our Colton guy." Headshot says. "He's the only one at erotica who was willing to help us."
"We have to move faster. He'll never be able to handle all the guards outside by himself." Liam says as we continue watching he fight on our screens. Coltn is moving fast even though he seems to be hurt. He's good at what he does but I'm sure he has already drawn a lot of attention to himself. He'll die if we don't get there in time.
Our cars accelerate and in no time, as Colton makes the last shot. We pull up in front of erotica and the first bomb goes up. The war has just begun.