Taming the Monster by K.J. Thomas
Chapter 14
Luca
We’re stationed about two miles from the Romano compound. The seven guards and I are all dressed in black. We’ve even hid our faces in dark face paint. The kind that hunters use when they’re trying to camouflage themselves out in the forest.
I’m more than certain it just makes us look like bigger idiots, but at least this way we can try to blend in a little. If this saves us from being caught, then it’s fucking worth it. The guys actually do blend in. All of us have a light brown and green mix painting our faces.
All eight of us jump and aim our guns at the shuffling that we’re hearing right at the clearing that we came into. Seth seems to drag a very frightened looking older gentleman still in his fucking lab coat closer to us.
“Were you able to get the agent?” I ask as I look between Seth and the guy.
“Sure did boss, but I figured I better bring him along to make sure that we administer it right, and we all don’t knock ourselves on our asses.”
The man has to be in his sixties with a graying receding hairline and very taut skin. He’s shaking worse than anyone I’ve ever seen. And if his fear doesn’t give him away, the wet crotch will work or the trickling of liquid leaking down right by his older style tennis shoes.
This guy is a chemical engineer, and my dog dresses better than him. I chuckle to myself. I don’t have a dog but if I did he would dress better than this fucking idiot.
“Let’s go,” I say, as all of us start to walk. The man doesn’t stop whimpering and crying and trying to explain to us how we could end up killing everybody, this is not a toy, blah, blah, blah.
“Shut him up,” I snap at Seth who obliges me immediately. The sound of duct tape being ripped shows me exactly how he is going to shut him up.
The two-mile walk takes almost an hour. We can’t come any closer because the rumbling of engines would definitely give us away. From our last recon we learned that Vito has well over three-hundred men camped at this estate right now. From my understanding, there’s five-hundred acres besides the several buildings that sit on the land. The Mancini’s had a ton more at their compound.
When Seth was torturing the engineer earlier, he said we just need to have a place to insert the liquid. It’s only a few drops, but apparently it’s enough to bring down the whole house. The heating system or the air conditioning system will work. Luckily for us, the AC is located on the outside of the house.
When we get there, the man starts rambling and fidgeting, clearly shaken about what he’s about to do. “Multiple people could die, it doesn’t mean that they’ll be knocked out. There’s a reason that this medicine isn’t used that much.” I’m on my last fucking nerve. I don’t give a shit about the medicine. I don’t even know the fucking name of the medicine. I pull out my gun and cock it, making sure the bite of the metal is indented in his temple. At this point in time I’m almost ready to pull the trigger but I need him to shut the fuck up and start working. If everyone dies in the house, so-fucking-be-it. I’d prefer it that way, but I want things done right, so I’ll do it myself. Plus, I’ve been wanting to put my own bullets in the heads of Asher Mancini and Vito Romano.
He doesn’t think longer than a second as he puts on a mask and gloves and pulls out a small vile from a little cooler that one of the guards had been carrying for him.
The only one that pays attention is Seth, while the rest of us make a tight circle formation. It’s more like a crescent moon. We keep hidden, bending down. Thankfully Seth ripped off the white lab coat and the guy is wearing a lighter gray but he doesn’t stick out like a moth to a flame now.
He lightly taps what can be no more than like ten drops into the air conditioning system. I figured he would just dump it on top into the fan, but he opens the system and puts it inside. I heard Seth say if he did it outside it can affect us just as much and we’d be on our ass. Fucking dumb ass, that’s what he should’ve done. The engineer is never walking out of here, that’s for damn sure, he knows too much.
The man takes in multiple breaths, they’re shaky and most likely from fear. It could be the medicine affecting him. “In about twenty minutes, you should be ready.” Perfect, I smile to myself and nod to Seth.
All of us are equipped with silencers, which merely makes a little clicking noise like a gush of air, a tiny boom, if you will.
The chemical engineer didn’t even know what hit him, as he awkwardly falls to the ground. The guards move him behind the air conditioning unit. I personally don’t give a shit if he stays right here, but when they start walking their rounds again, this scene is going to be a big red flag.
We might be able to knock out all the people inside, but we sure as shit can’t knock out the fifty men out here. There’s a total of nine of us with my seven guards, Seth and myself. I’m not in the mood to try to figure out how to fight six different men with automatic weapons and extensive training. I’m very well trained, so are the older guards, but I’m not sure if these younger dip shits in our group have been. My dad was a fucking deadly bastard, so they probably have been.
All of us return to our formations, but this time we lay on our stomachs, making sure that the whole area is clear. I have us wait for twenty minutes before we even move inside. Everyone out here waits in silence. Breathing is low and monitored. No noise is made, a sneeze or even gas. The guys better be sticking their face as far in the dirt as they can and squeeze those ass cheeks.
This is life and death, all of us know that. I’m either going to come out of here alive or dead. I’m going to come out of here either victorious or not victorious. As far as my men go, they are just the strength that is helping me move up in life, trying to get where I want to be, where I deserve to be. They’re just hoping we make it. That I make it. Once I do have everything I want, I’m going to be the biggest mother fucker on the East Coast and maybe even after a while, I can start maneuvering and take over the West Coast, why the fuck not. I have the knowledge and the guys, I’ll be fine.
I glance down at my watch and see that it’s right on the dot at twenty minutes. I turn my head and nod to my guy on the right and he nods to the guy on his right, then I nod to the guy on my left, he does the same.
From the sounds of it, we could go in loud doing whatever the fuck we want, nobody would hear us, because they’re out fucking cold, and it is in the middle the night. But there’s always those little surprises. This medicine will affect others differently. There’s a good chance that quite a few people will die and there is also a good chance that it might not hardly affect anyone at all, and they could still be awake, maybe sluggish.
We have to keep our shit together, every time we turn the corner, we never know what the fuck is going to be there.
Putting our gas masks on, we ease our way in through one of the open windows in the back laundry area. Luckily for us, it was right by the air conditioning units. Our luck is through the roof. I’ve heard stories of the security systems Vito has in place, and for one of the staff to leave the window cracked was a bad and deadly decision.
We’re divided up into two teams. Seth, the older guards and I are on one team and the rest of them are on the other.
This is the best way for us to divide and conquer without risk of loss to everybody. Four or five guys in a fight is better than two, as we originally thought about doing five teams.
I nod to a door slightly ajar as we pass by. From what the blueprints told us, this is Romano’s office. Seth gets the message instantly and eases himself in there, not wanting to even try to push the door open, afraid that it might creak. The rest of us start searching rooms, this is a big house but I did not think that there would be this many unoccupied fucking bedrooms. I know that the guards have locations off of the campus to sleep but from my understanding, Vito’s having them around the house at all times, because of me.
I enter a room, which looks to be the master bedroom. It’s larger than all the other rooms that we have been in. I spot a single form sleeping on the bed. I make my way over there, silently, because who knows if the chemicals actually worked. I always heard Vito sleeps with one fucking eye open. He isn’t even acknowledging us right now. The only reason I recognize the prick is because of that family fucking ring he’s got on his finger. I yank it off to see if he moves. He doesn’t, I easily slip the Romano crest onto my finger.
Even though I have a silencer, I still want to remain as invisible and unnoticed as possible. I quickly drag the pillow out from underneath Vito’s head, hoping that he’ll just wake up for an instant, but he doesn’t. I slam the pillow on his face and pull the trigger three times.
Excessive, yes. But I need to make sure that motherfucker is dead.
Two more targets and then we are out of here. I nod to one of my guys at the doorway and they continue on down the hall, searching. I thought this would be easy for me as I make my way out the door, but I honestly don’t know if I could do what I just did to Vito to Avery. I might need to have Seth do it, but I want to be first in line for when they get Asher.
We spend the next thirty minutes searching the house completely. For the life of us, we cannot find Avery or Asher anywhere. There’s no way that they could’ve known we were coming or what we planned on doing. We told no one.
Shots start going off on the other side of the house, snapping all of our attention in that direction. “Go, go, go!” I scream to my guys. Seth and I hang back as we continue to move forward. I’m being extra cautious right now, if there’s people that are awake, who knows if the chemicals even worked effectively like they were supposed to.
“Fuck,” I hiss as quietly as I can to myself. I really want to scream at the top of my fucking lungs.
There’s movement on the other side of the hallway as I alert Seth in that direction. There is no way we could be seen over here. Besides the soft moonlight that’s coming in, we’re both covered in darkness. All of us are. But that doesn’t stop whoever’s at the end from noticing movement or maybe a reflection.
They point and it takes me a second to realize that it’s Avery and Asher. Both Seth and I pull out our guns and start firing.
I start to crawl against the wall, keeping my head down but my eyes up. It’ll be harder to hit me and see where I’m at. I keep popping off shots.
Asher screams, the rumble feels like it enters and shakes my bones. I swear the house even shifted. “Run, Avery!” Avery doesn’t take a second to adjust to the scream that tortured our souls.
I chuckle, this is kind of fun. As soon as we both make eye contact, Avery can tell it’s me. She screeches and then takes off down the hallway.
I smile big, I love the game of cat and mouse. I didn’t think it was going to go like this, it’s going to be one hell of a night.