Morally Ambiguous (Lo longer being updated)

Chapter 6

First gear. Second, third, fourth, then fifth. The car rampaged through the road, a complete blur to all passers-by. I was laughing like a madman just thinking about the stupid, crazy, insane stunt I was about to pull. Six bottles, filled with a thick liquid, lined the front of the windscreen, pinned down by the g force. Dirtied, soaked fabric fluttered in the winds, spraying the fuel across the glass. Driving past a gas station had given me some pretty nice ideas.

I’d stopped, filled up two jerry cans with gasoline and went in to grab some booze. One Jack Daniels down the gullet, one in the flask and another poured out onto the floor. Then three bottles of Stella Artois for good measure. My throat ended up feeling like it had been scraped with sandpaper and scattered with salt. The gasoline went almost perfectly into the bottles and some car cleaning rags and a spare shirt made a great set of fuses.

Now they lined the outside of the window, ready to be lit when needed. My plan was a simple one. With only four steps, I would be pretty hard to fuck up. Smash the car straight through the Mafia warehouse’s gates, shoot the shit out of the place, grab my wife and get out of dodge. If all went well, I’d be able to slot a good few mob bosses too. Now that would be a fitting revenge for my partner’s death and my wife’s kidnapping.

They say you never know what you have until it’s taken away from you. Before this, I didn’t believe pretentious bollocks like that. Now it seems it could never be more appropriate. She’d been talking about starting a family only a few days ago, how it would be so great for me to become a dad. What the fuck do I know about kids? Besides, what would she do if we had a kid and I ended up bleeding to death in a drug den after a sting gone wrong? We could at least wait a few more years so I could do the exciting bits of my job without too much worry for others.

Not exactly the best environment for a kid anyway, TV dinners, whiskey bottles and ammunition littering our humble abode. Plus, her stress levels being so high, we wouldn’t exactly have a happy household for the little guy. It ground my gears enough already, I’d probably snap if I had a baby crying and her incessant whining. I had to appreciate the stress her work put her under though. Working for a big paper, she had so many deadlines to keep up with; I could kinda see why she moaned so much.

I’d have all that moaning, complaining back as long as this little escapade went well. None of that mattered as long as she was my wife. I’ve shot up entire gangs to save people I’d never even met before, so you could be sure I’d go in one hundred and ten per cent to save someone so close to me. The engine rumbled as it hit top speed only a few hundred metres from my objective.  I reached into the glove compartment and wrenched out a screwdriver.

It punctured a nice neat hole in the tempered glass, ripping wider as I wriggled it out of the wound in the windshield. The spider web pattern shattered as my fist drove through. The bottles stayed in place, just about, giving me the opportunity to pull out my zippo lighter. One by one, I light the frayed fabric and stamped hard on the accelerator, pushing the engine right to the limits of its capability. There was only one thing I hadn’t really thought out. How do I get out of the car before it smashed full force through a garage door?

Panicking, I spun in the car, fumbling at the door handle, just about unlocking it and letting the door swing wide open. As I fell across, almost tumbling out of the gaping hole in the side of the moving car, my seatbelt pulled taught and snapped me back into place. Lucky too, because the door hit a lamppost straight on and sheared straight off the hinges, bending and contorting around the post’s shape.

I only really had one option at this point. Twenty meters from the warehouse, I ripped out my seatbelt and tucked up in a ball. A little movement and I rolled out into the open road, my shoulder crunching and sliding a little out of place. At least I wasn’t going to be roasted alive though, which was a small positive to take out of this experience. The experience was more than a little painful mind.

I glanced up from my roll to see the car plough straight into the metal shutters, tearing them straight out of their fittings. As I expected, the sudden stop launched the homemade Molotov cocktails straight through the buildings new window, the sound of glass shards indicating that all had gone to plan. This was further backed up by the raging inferno tearing through the garage like a tornado, the frantic Italian screams and random discharges of gunfire telling me my intended targets were inside.

Blood seeped through my slightly grubby white shirt, merging with the sweat dripping from my brow. I popped a few more painkillers and ran as fast as possible towards the scorched building, which wasn’t particularly fast at all. The leg was still in bad shape from the small stab wound, and the unconventional exit had torn the stitches straight from my flesh. I was limping every other step and in excruciating pain for every other one. The painkillers were just about kicking in though, helping me get through.

They had a couple of side effects that weren’t particularly bad, especially not for the situations I found myself in. Alleviating my mood helped get through the blood, guts and gore you learned to encounter on the grimy, scum ridden streets. But the best part was the heightening senses. They said not to drink alcohol while taking killers but I found it really helped me in this way. Everything just seemed a little slower, a little brighter and there seemed to be a lot more options available when the painkillers gave off their effects. The best part was that I was still lucid for the whole thing.

I broke in the charred and blackened door with my foot and barged in, stumbling over fallen rafters. Seven men in suits, carrying SMGs, stumbled around, coughing through the thick black smoke. They would probably die from smoke inhalation anyway, but I thought I’d put them out of their misery. It wasn’t that I wanted to put them out of their suffering, far from it; I just wanted the pleasure for myself. Seven shots rang out and seven bullet casings dropped to the floor, rolling into the flames licking at my ankles.

I checked the nearest body and rifled through his jacket. His wallet, though blackened and brittle, was just about legible. Louis Antognolio, Italian- American. Rigor Mortis already setting in, the SMG still clenched in his fist confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that these guys were Mafia, probably high up too, looking at the clean, freshly pressed uniform. I had one hell of a fight on my hands if there were more of these professionals hiding behind the next door. I’d have to get through; it was the only possible way. These arrogant fucks would have to be bloody stupid if they thought I was going to just give up. They read my file. I’ve never finished a homicide or kidnapping case without taking a few of the bad guys to a lovely cold slab at the morgue.