We all nodded. There was a brief moment of silence. And then I did something that almost felt disrespectful that I had never done in a situation like this before.
I laughed.
I laughed because the whole thing seemed absurd. I laughed because we were two married men and one man who had feelings for a woman putting their lives on the line. I laughed because I wanted to relish what could very well be the last mission we ever did together.
“Three fucking men against an army,” I said. “Guess that’s why they call us DOM, huh?”
Scott snorted. Liam chuckled. We almost never had moments of levity individually, much less with ourselves, but with our time coming to a close and things feeling like they were headed to an end soon, I figured we might as well laugh while we were still alive.
“No one better, no one stronger,” Scott said. “Get ready. We roll out in ten.”
Scott was standing up from the table before he had even finished speaking. There was a brief moment where the finality of it washed over me. If we killed Snake, DOM would be no more. Who knew if I’d even ever see these two guys again?
But being a DOM allowed no time for sentimentality. Such was the nature of life, anyway, that the people here today would be the people six feet under tomorrow. I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it, I just needed to spend time taking care of business.
I looked to Liam. He was also already standing up. Between him and Scott, he had easily mellowed the most. Both of them had gotten women, but only Liam had kids. That was probably a bigger transition than having a wife, since at least a significant other could fend for themselves if something happened to them.
In other words, I was putting myself in a hell of a position by choosing to have a kid before I even had a serious girlfriend.
Well, too late to do anything about that now.
Less than five minutes later, we were armed to the teeth.
“Let’s fucking go,” I growled.
The three of us pulled out on our bikes, though we quickly split into three separate spots. I drove up ahead first, wearing different colored gear than I had before. The “camo” would probably last all of about five seconds before Snake’s men and the cartel figured out what the fuck was going on, but those five seconds could make all the difference.
Scott trailed just a short little after. The idea was I would come in, take out the cars protecting the truck, and then Scott would swoop in and take the truck or come to my aid.
And then, trailing us all, Liam would serve as chicken for the cartel, baiting them away from the two of us while we went to work.
The whole thing, even on paper, sounded absolutely absurd, and I saw no way we’d get through this without at least one of us getting shot. But as long as we didn’t die, who gave a fuck? Wounds healed. Failed missions did not get a second chance.
Now afternoon, the hot desert sun pounded down. I fucking hated heat more than any other element. I would have sooner done this mission in northern Canada in January than I would have done this now. But fighting for the greater good wasn’t a seasonal job.
The long and lonesome road would have given me the chance to think under quieter times, but I desperately wanted to avoid my mind wandering right now. The subjects it had tended to wander to were ones I could not easily shake, and I did not need them compromising me in the middle of my mission.
It took a few hours at high speed but we caught up to the truck and the cars about an hour and a half into the drive. I looked into my rearview mirror. Scott wasn’t even in sight. But that was fine. He’d catch up soon enough.
I pulled up to the first car and unveiled my submachine gun. I took aim at the tires and fired. I managed to puncture one of the tires, but it seemed I had only grazed it, not outright made it explode, because this one car was still going along. Good news was it would eventually have to stop, but the bad news was I had no fucking idea if that would be before or after I’d have bullets riddling my body.
But this was no time to fucking dawdle and see how long I could stretch it out. I pulled ahead, swerved to dodge some fire from the back seat, and unloaded into the front seat. I must have struck someone because the car swerved off to the side of the road, now completely out of commission.
Unfortunately, that was not true for the second car. As I pulled up to it, someone emerged from the sunroof, aimed a gun at me, and fired.
“Shit!” I yelled as I swerved.
I caught a glance in my rearview mirror. Scott was gaining ground on me. So was the cartel, but I assumed Liam would handle that—I had to. I didn’t have much of a choice. If I couldn’t take out this car, I had to distract it somehow.
And so I served as a sort of flying duck for them to hit. I swerved, laid fire down, and did everything I could to distract them from Scott’s incoming arrival. One more guy emerged from the back seat, trying to take out Scott while the sunroof guy aimed at me, but I focused my fire on the man hanging out the window and shot at him. I didn’t think
