Axel

XXIV

XXIV

The Brothers

T R I N I T Y

        Time was a precious thing when someone was kidnapped - trust me, I would know.

Every minute, every second, counts until that person is safe and sound. The means and methods you use won't matter until that person was found, at least that's what came to mind as Axel De Bastardo came back to the motel we shared, drenched in blood yet again. We'd been here for two weeks and a day now - still no word on Caroline and Kate's disappearance - but the bastard thought torturing people would be the next best thing to gathering intel.

"Who was it this time?" I asked him without glancing up from the folder I was reading, my legs crossed as I sat up in bed.

"Some low-level dealer," he muttered as he walked towards the bathroom and shut the door. I heard the shower start and I tuned him out, focusing on the paperwork in my hands.

Tonight, Dumb and Dumber, also known as Axel and Sharp, thought they would best spend their night trying to find a high-ranking member of the Moretti family to question on the whereabouts of their sisters, despite my continuous reasons why it was a stupid idea.

The Moretti family mostly resided in New York and, from what Axel told us, their entire mafia basically controlled the drug operation there. Why would they waste their time down here when they could be controlling everything in New York? That was a question I proposed to the group in our strategy session and they didn't even think it was an issue.

The fucking bastards.

So now, three nights in, Dumb and Dumber had been going out and trying to find any Moretti member they could, torture them for information, before killing them for sport. The men were angry and getting restless, Gwen and I realized that, but hunting every Moretti man wasn't going to get us anywhere. They were being led by rage and vengeance without thinking about the consequences.

And if that's coming from me, you should know it's pretty fucking bad.

Instead, I was reading through the folder in my lap, examining reports and photos from the hospital where the women both were before things went south. Through a friend of mine, I managed to get access to the camera footage from the hospital and I had printed out the interesting shots from the motel manager downstairs.

Studying the men who kidnapped Caroline and Kate, I knew they were trained and skilled in combat. Plus, they did their homework, I mused as I looked at the image of the men lifting Caroline onto a gurney. They knew what room to go in, what to expect, and what to bring. From the damages, I don't think they were expecting much of a fightback from Kate - which even surprised me.

She can kick ass!

Single-handedly, she took out more than a dozen men with ease before I watched the men drag her and Caroline out of the building. The men wore full black and I managed to get a fuzzy close-up of the license plate of their black getaway van along with one of the men who was stupid enough to remove his mask before getting into the van.

"What are you looking at, mi angelita?" a voice came from across the rustic room.

I glanced up to see him rubbing a towel through his hair while another one was wrapped around his waist, water dripping down his bare chest. The bastard had sex appeal written all over him.

"Washed all the dead bodies off already?" I rhetorically asked with a sarcastic tone and smile.

He rolled his eyes at my response and crossed the room, glancing down at the folder in my hands.