Getting back into the office we waited for Cade. It wasn't a long wait and Jackson and myself, were double-checking our weapons. Cade arrived a short time later. He was decked out in pretty similar clothing to the rest of us. Jackson shook his head seeing the large black case he was carrying. Maddox hadn't called for heavy weapons, but Cade had brought it regardless. The man was wicked smart and lethal. But he was also a loose cannon, sometimes. But I trusted him enough to turn my back to him. And that alone was enough for me.

"Ok gentlemen, here's the most recent version of information I have available to me, our shipment of stuff is at the westside port. After the deal went south, they moved it. Your main job here is to take what is ours, it's all weapons-free. Predict to be met with heavy fire. Watch of course for innocents, but leave no gang members alive. Shoot to kill, I'm positive you gentleman can handle this quickly."

There were nods and a few oks from Jackson and Cade. I remained silent as I went over in my head the list of weapons that should be in the crate and the street value of each one, should we decided to offload them somewhere else. We had the means to pass them along the mafia family line after all.

Maddox and his associates, which was us. We were all pretty solid with the numerous families. Maddox didn't cause trouble for anyone else, and he expected the same thing in return.

Cade loaded up one of the SUVs with the tools needed to bust open the crates. This was an all-hands-on-deck recovery. Riding along with us all on this was quite a few henchmen. Five SUVs were loaded for action, six men to each. Protocol on these types of things was simple. Each underboss in their vehicle,   the two front seats were not to be sat in.   This was all for our safety because if one car got hit with anything, that would be only one underboss, not two or three.

It was a sixty-minute drive to the port.

The closer we got the more I got ready for a firefight.

"Boss? Any plan on how this is going down?"

I looked at the henchman. These were Cade's men, not mine, but they would have my ass regardless.

"Weapons free, No survivors, except innocents."

They all nodded.

"How is Creed?" The man driving asked suddenly.

"He is healing, slowly. But he's alive."

"Glad to hear that."

"You and me both."

Setting my hand on the handgun on my hip, it occurred to me that felt a lot safer that I had his weapon with me. I felt safe with his weapon. That was probably because he was right the chances of it jamming were a lot less. His weapon had seen more firefight than mine, he had worked out all the problems.

"Five minutes to the port."

"Alright. Be ready."

Popping the headphone in my ear, I synced up my phone. It beeped three times, that signalled, Jackson, Cade and I were all linked.

I spoke freely.

"Good luck." (Alexi)
"Always."  (Cade)
"You know it." (Jackson)

I had my hand on my weapon ready to be drawn as we entered the port. This wasn't solely owned by our family, it was owned by a few, more recently some gang bangers had set up shop. Nothing a little spring cleaning didn't take care of.

The first bullets that hit the SUVs, were to the left side passenger door of the one I was in.

"I've taken fire, watch yourselves."

I heard Jackson laugh.

"Does the budget for cars cover a new paint job and bullet extraction?"

I snorted.

"They would have to have to hit a spot that wasn't reinforced to sink a bullet. These fucking SUVs weren't cheap.  They have bulletproof glass, and are reinforced just about everywhere they could stick that shit."

More bullets hit the SUVs, all of them. When we got to the same warehouse as last time, it was just crawling with unfriendly gang members. They opened fire right away. Cade took to having whoever was driving his SUV run them over. His driver cleared out a great section of them pretty quickly. That man's thought process was odd to put it lightly.

Jackson's SUV stopped, and so did mine. Showtime.

Drawing my weapon, I didn't wait for the word. I jumped out of the car and glanced at Jackson's SUV. He had the same idea I did. We were a great distance away from where that crazy-ass Cade had gone.

"Cade status?"
"Playing gun tag with my new friends, are you boys going to help or gossip?"
"Right, here we come you crazy bastard."
"What Jackson said."

Cade was lucky we were behind him. We intercepted a group of gang members headed towards him and the other two units of henchmen. Jackson and his five men went around one way, I and my five men went the other way. Going straight through the path of shipping containers would have been the fastest path but it was a trap. No one honestly thought we were that stupid right?

Regardless of what they had planned for us to walk into, it wasn't the way they had hoped. Jackson's team and my team made our way around the sides with minimal effort.  We met up with Cade in the center. That crazy bastard had gone right up the center.

"Took you two long enough."
"Next time tell someone your plan, you crazy bastard"
"Where's the fun in that one Jackson, you know Cade lives to keep us all on our toes."

A bullet hit off one of the shipping containers behind me. Jackson and Cade both sent return fire as I crouched down behind some trash.

"Let's get to work ladies," Cade said taunting us.

Creeping around the side of the trash I got a few really good shots at some gang members. They were dropping like flies. For everyone, I was getting my associates were getting two. Now I would like to say I wasn't a competitive man, but that would be a lie.

Tired of sitting in one spot I moved closer to the heart of the fight. This had been an enormous deal better. I could see the crate that belonged to us. And about a hundred gang members surrounding it.

"I have eyes the shipment and about one hundred classless jerks," I said annoyed.

"We also have eyes on them"

"Take them out," Cade said.

"Got it."

That started the rain of bullets that lasted for over five minutes. The body's littered the ground, it was a full-on blood bath.

"Alexi behind you!"

I felt the pull of a knife on my thigh and barely had time to register that someone was trying to stab me with my shit.

Thank God I lived for keeping up with training. A kick to the man's lower regions had him drop and I shot him with Creeds gun.

"This better be the last of these cockroaches. I'm out of bullets for Creed's gun."

They both turned to took at me and the weapon in my hand.  Jackson just shook his head as he walked around and made sure we got everyone. Picking my knife up off the ground I tucked it back into my holder.

I went to check the bodies well Cade worked on loading the SUV. Heading back the way I came I felt a bullet hit the area of the vest that covered my ribs. And oh fuck did that ever sting. Looking for who had shot me wasn't that hard.

The man was leaned back against the wall his hand over a stomach wound that was bleeding out. He didn't try to shoot me again, not that he could have, his gun was out of bullets. Just like mine was.

"Shoot me."

"I would like to, and trust me on that one, but as it turns out, I'm also out of bullets."

Pulling out a knife, the man's eyes went wide, as I walked towards him. If he could have gotten up and run he would have. But with that wound, there was no way. It had hit vital organs and he was bleeding out pretty quickly.

This was for Creed, I told myself before pulling the knife blade from under one ear to the other.