The Sweetest Thing (Book 1) ✓

34 - Final battle

Dax 

It was like I was watching from the outside all the things happening between the time I was talking with Rebecca and getting to burst into a big mansion that had a high probability of belonging to Chris Roth – one of the high ranks in his family drug cartel. All I knew was that I was ready to explode the moment I heard his connection to my sister. A sister that I was trying to keep in line so hard that she decided to just go with the big illegal fish and not listen to me and my "too positive and absolutely impossible vision for her future." Her words, not mine. What she told me was that it was hard to be good, staying away from her friends and earning money legally, money that barely covers her needs. When she started speaking, making all the excuses and whining, it was absolutely impossible to live like that in her 20s. I knew that I had nothing left to offer her, unfortunately. When she was younger, it was easier to make her see the world through bright rose-colored glasses, make her believe that everything was possible, she just had to make up her mind and do it. And in the beginning, it worked. But then she met with a wall after a wall, stopping her from doing what was right, and it became extremely hard for her to fight all her battles on her own. Even though I was always telling her that she had me in her corner. I was ready to fight her demons every day if it meant that she was going to be okay. But she didn't want to be a burden...so she decided she deserved the bad stuff happening to her, because she somehow persuaded herself that she was bad.

When Caitie told me about all her reasons and insecurities, I felt helpless once again. Here she was thinking that she was bad and didn't deserve anything good, and I had no idea whatsoever. She was just trying to play a role in front of me for my own sake, because she didn't want me to worry about her, deciding that at least one of us should have a normal life. In her eyes, she was already a lost cause and I knew that I had a lot of work to do to finally change her mindset and make her see that she is worth it for a good life too.

But before I dealt with my sister and her messed-up vision of herself, I needed to find my girl. I knew that she was going to help me understand the way Caitie thought and find a way to break her high walls of self-loathing.

When my SWAT team found out who we were going after, Max immediately made some calls to find possible locations. When we had a few of Roth's houses, we tried to eliminate as many as possible, because we didn't have the resources to go to all of them. Luckily, my sister had some inside info that helped us choose one of the mansions. She heard Chris talking about a river getting closer to his house and the actions needed to stop it from flooding the building. We didn't know if he was going to take a hostage to his own home, but my sister was adamant that Chris thinks that he's invincible, so we hoped his cockiness to be as big as my sister was saying.

My whole team was ready and in full gear, driving to Chis Roth's mansion when Max got a call from our boss. He wasn't very happy that we were taking everything into our own hands, but my team leader managed to persuade him that we were going to the address just to see what was happening and if we had some proof of illegal stuff, we'd talk with him, ask for legal papers from a judge and only after we had a warrant in our hands, we were going to search the mansion. I wasn't sure that I could keep the promises that Max was making, because if I saw just a glimpse of Lily, I was sure that I was going in, without waiting for some bullshit papers. And I think our boss knew that, because he finished the call with just "Don't make something extremely stupid or illegal, boys. I can't deal with searching for a whole new SWAT team."

We got as close as possible to our target and spread out in the forest around the building to survey. We didn't know how many people were there. We didn't have blueprints for the mansion, we didn't even know if we were in the right place. Just hoped that we were. And hoped that Lily was still breathing. This was the biggest amateur job we had ever been to, but unfortunately, we didn't have any other choice.

We were walking around the perimeter of the building when we heard a vehicle coming closer to us. All the team took cover and waited to see who was coming. Cleo was closest to the place where the van stopped, so he was the one giving the whole team information through our coms.

"Two guys in the front of the vehicle. Four more walking the surrounding perimeter. Another one is coming from the building. Dark jeans, black shirt, I can't be 100%, but to me, it looks like Chris Roth. He is walking towards the back of the van and opening the door...he's talking with someone. One of the men got inside. A small figure is shoved outside the van. Wait...Shit!" I held my breath, waiting for Cleo's words. "It's her, guys, it's Lily. She's following Roth inside." I had no visuals of the van, so I couldn't see her, but I hope that Cleo was right.

"How does she look? Any damage?"

"Nothing visible from here. She's not limping, her hands are tied together. Don't see any blood on her." I let out the breath that I was holding. My worst fear was that they decided to break her in any possible way before I got to her. It doesn't mean that this is not in the plan, but at least I'm closer to her and have a bigger chance of preventing it than before.

"I'm going in. I don't fucking care for permission from a judge or our captain, I'm going in."

"Stay where you are, Hall. I'll talk with the captain right now. Just...wait a second, or we could make it worse than better." I knew that going in without any information wasn't the smartest idea, but knowing how much time it's needed to have all the green light... I wasn't ready to wait. But Max was our leader, and he had a clearer mind than mine, so I had to stay put. And hope that it's the right decision.

This was the longest minutes of my life, waiting for the green light for the team. Meanwhile, we were surveying the mansion, trying to count the guards and remember their movements, their weapons. After maybe 20 minutes, we finally had the permission to attack and get Lily out of there. We formed teams of two and went to 3 different points of breach, trying to spread out as much as possible and, hopefully, don't let anyone important slip through our fingers.

Cleo and I took a side door that led to a spacious room full of fancy furniture. We took our time to search room after room, trying to be as quiet as possible, quickly disarming everyone who we met, using plastic cuffs to bind their hands and feet and being creative with ways of bounding their mouths to keep them quiet. We disarmed six men before all the heels broke loose. We heard gunshots from the other side of the building, and we knew that we had been found.

"Shit! Need to move quickly. C'mon Dax, watch my back." Cleo took the lead and started moving quicker through the halls and rooms. The sounds of the guns were getting louder and louder, and I knew that we were closer to the action zone. I was just hoping that my teammates were okay and holding their positions.

"What the fuck!" Cleo stopped abruptly next to a corner, then quickly dropped his riffle and hugged the figure that he almost shot. It took me a second to recognize who it was, but then the relief of finding her flooded my whole body.

"Umm, Cleo, do you mind leaving my girl alone?" I saw the moment Lily realized that I was there too. Her body started shaking, and I knew that all the emotions were finally catching up with her. I quickly pulled her into my arms, holding her tight. I knew that her body was going to give up every second, the last 48 hours were more than she could deal with. I took her in my arms and, with Cleo leading us, we went in the direction of Luke and Ralph with the hope that they were okay and could help us with the extraction of Lily from this place.

We were getting closer to the others; Lily's body was absolutely relaxed in my arms and the only thought that I had was, "please, no one is coming from behind," because I wasn't sure how I was going to stop them with my hands full of my Cupcake. When we were finally having visual contact with Luke and Ralph, we were almost at the front door. They were taking cover behind different furniture, firing their weapons at a group outside that were trying to stop us. Then out-of-the-blue Ralph shouted at us: "Take cover, motherfuckers!" and a second later there was a small explosion near the door.

"What the fuck! Are they bombing us?"

"Yeah, Cleo, they have grenades and apparently want to see what we'll do if they throw them at us. Was that Lily in Dax's arms?"

"Yeah, we got her. She just passed out, but she's fine otherwise." I gently put her body next to my hiding spot, making sure that she was not in harms way, then joined the action. After a few intense minutes of exchanging fire, we heard sirens getting closer to us.

"Looks like the big boss didn't want all the fun to be left to the SWAT team. I can see how all the cops will be gloating that they came to save us all," Luke said between the shootings. Right now, I didn't care about the bickerry that I knew was coming, I just needed to get Lily to a safe place and all that shit to end.

"They could try, but we'll end all of this before they even stop their cars." Cleo was really competitive, especially when it came to a comparison between a regular cop and a SWAT member. The idea that someone else, outside our team, would have to save his ass was making him twitchy. He quickly took the initiative and got closer to the door and started shooting at everything that moved on the outside. After a minute or so, all the fire stopped. The sirens were closer, but still moving. "Clear!"

One by one, my teammates walked outside and made the rounds, checking everyone and collecting their weapons, restricting their hands or legs. We didn't shoot to kill, we were trying to just disarm the guys, so we had a lot of moaning men lying on the floor in a pool of their blood, holding different parts of their bodies in a hope to contain their bleeding. Of course, we had some men that weren't moving at all and, after a check for their pulse, we knew that they were dead. But luckily, we didn't have a lot of them. I'd like to say that this was a successful operation, but I knew that our boss would think otherwise. The headache was staring just from the thought of all the papers we had to fill in after that. But it was worth it. Knowing that Lily is safe next to me – totally worth it.

"Clear!" I heard Ralph through our coms, then Luke, then Olly. They managed to secure all the men outside before the cops came to our rescue. Cleo was ecstatic.

"Clear too, and we have the big fish with us." Max was the last to confirm his status.

"Moving?" I wasn't sure if I wanted Chris Roth to be dead or alive.

"Not exactly."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well... I'm sure some parts of him we'll be moving into in the future, at least the ones that are still attached to him... One of his boy's grenades caught him, and now he's a little bit separated from his legs..." Well, I didn't see that one coming, but I can't say I was sorry for him.

Finally, the police cars stopped near us, and we saw Troy Roberts getting out of one of them.

"Looks like you didn't leave us anything..."

"Pff, of course we didn't. We're professionals, don't need to back up from you, guys. But all of you could make yourself useful and call ambulances or make sure that they don't die, hold their wounds or something. We'll make another round of the building to check if we have all of them and no one is hiding."

"We are not your servants, Cleo, you can't just boss us around like that."

"You sure of that, Roberts?"

"Your big head is getting in your way of..." I left them be. The two of them became good friends around the bakery, so I knew that whatever they said to each other, it would be just a way to let their adrenaline go after this fiasco.

This day couldn't end soon enough for all of us. Just remembering all the things we needed to do, write and report to the big boss – the headache was getting stronger in my head. But it was worth it, so totally worth it. Because I had Lily in my arms, and I'd do it all over again if it meant that she'd be okay in the end.

***Now you know Dax's P.O.V. from the last events too. He has a lot of stuff to deal with, but...he has his Cupcake back, and I'm sure that's all he cares about right now.