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Noah was sitting inside the small recently repaired home staring at the stag across from him, cleaning his old and trustworthy 1911 before dropping the slide and making the stag jump. “Bud quit scaring him, he’s here to make up for his mistakes. Besides, it's bad to drop the slide on ol’ reliable like that.”

“Stupid mistakes that he should have known would blow up in his face.” Dropping his pistol back into its holster he rose to his feet, full kit adorning his form over a black and white flannel and simple jeans. “Fuck you by the way. My gun, my rules.”

Max just shrugged as he finished re-assembling his SBR and going through a quick functions check. “I'm still not letting you take the KS-23.”

Noah deflated slightly as he looked over to the normally hidden gun rack. “Eli shot it…”

“That was life and death. What you plan to do with it is nothing short of a John Wick film and we can’t stay out of prison on top of a mountain of bodies.” Eli picked at a few of the scales on her hands as she was brought back to that moment but quickly pulled back by her lover. “You don’t have to be there alone. I'm here with you.” With a smile and a nod the attention was back onto the subject at hand.

“Tonight. I’m not risking them being there any longer than that.” Max pursed his lips at the timeline. It was barely past eleven in the morning and there was much to do if this was going to go anywhere remotely good. “I’m getting my kids back. With or without you.”

“Good thing it’s with, raises your odds of not being shot.” Max’s brow furrowed as he thought about the massive time crunch they were now under. “Things are going to have to move fast if we’re going to walk away from this. We need to force their hands into pulling back the curtain so we need three separate plans. Three big moves that show their crimes, the corruption of the police and who these people really are. We have half of what’s needed but the other half will need to be a confession which I think I can squeeze out of Trevor, lord knows he likes to hear himself talk. I just need to figure out a way to get him ‘alone.’”

“What about the kids? How are we getting them back?” Noah’s voice cut through the air, the knife of his tone cutting right to the source of his vitriolic rage.

Max nodded, undeterred of the rage bleeding off of his best friends before unfurling a number of sheets recently printed on his work table. “That is where the trickier side comes up.” A set of blueprints stitched together from public sources including the size of the ranch and listings of employees. “Some of this might be out of date seeing as how most of the records come from the twenty tens but it should be accurate enough. Easy ingress points here, here and here but we won't exclude windows for possibilities and worse comes to worst I doubt the wall are reinforced. Biggest question is where the kids would be.”

Noah stood and moved to look at the plans along with Jeffery joining them, both studied the stitched together plans before the stag spoke first. “Here, they’d be keeping them in the basement. They had it renovated about a year ago and use it for a kind of daycare for their ranch hand’s kids. A few of them talked about it when buying camping supplies a few months back.” His brow furrowed as he recalled that his store was now a charred husk of a business by Trevor’s hands.

“You’ll get it back, hell we’ll all get out of this better off if this stupid plan works.” Max places a single nine mil round on the plans of what would be the edge of the property. “Diversion spot here would work best, longest travel time for them while still giving us the best cover.”

Noah nodded as he looked over the patchwork of a map. “Who’s on the distraction team? We’ll need at least two people on it.”

Max pursed his lips as he considered the people left, Chelsea, Jeffery and Eli. Noah couldn’t make the call seeing as how he was compromised emotionally and neither could Max due to his Relationship with Eli.”Jeff, who do you want with you?”

Shock stuck to Jeffery’s features from the surprise of being given a choice. “I assume that Chelsea has more training?” Noah and Max nodded, leading to a heavy sigh from the stag. “It would probably be best if she stayed close as well so I choose her. I assume that you two were going to choose the same route?”

Max nodded as Noah patted him on the back. “My wife is a crack shot even in night conditions, you'll be in good hands.” His eyes leveled on Max, narrowing as he addressed his friend. “Do we have breaching charges?”

“Yeah but seeing how most of this is going to be indoors you’ll get one linear strip for initial entry, the rest will have to be donut charges or the twelve gauge dart for any other locked doors.” Max’s eyes locked with his best friend. “No tear gas or flashes, we can’t risk the kids getting hurt.”

Noah’s teeth gnashed against one another as he lost two of his advantages for home invasion and non-lethal room clearing. Then it dawned on him, everywhere his kids weren’t he could be lethal against anyone else. Until they either gave up or stopped producing bodies for him. Leading to a wicked smile to spread across his lips. “Too easy, just let me know when we start.”

“Roger, that just leaves the publicity.” Everyone’s eyes looked to each person present before resting on Eli. “Think you can handle it? Shouldn’t be too difficult, just talking to a guy and telling the truth.”

Eli rolled her ruby eyes. “Political speaking and two years of college to be a lawyer, that was a mistake, should be good enough, right? Lord knows I'm losing enough scales from all this stress. I'm just happy that this’ll all be over soon.” Her shoulder slumped as she leaned into her lover. “Maybe then we can connect without having to check over our shoulders.”

Max’s hand gripped Eli’s in a warm and loving gesture. “We’ll get through this and lord willing we’ll get out with all of our parts intact.” Her eyes softened as she wordlessly voiced her concerns to him that caused him to tighten his grip to reassure her. “I’ll be okay, it’s just a wolf with parental issues. I’ve handled worse.”

Before she could speak the front door swung open where Chelsea stood holding a few bags of items held in her fur covered hands. “We makin’ the stuff or not?” Noah and Max nodded as they moved to help the husky with the heavy load and set to work.

Little did Eli know but that would be the last time she would be embraced by her lover for the night. Her hand felt cold in his absence with a level of worry that must have been written on her features for Jeffery to notice. “He’s a tough kid, injuries he sustained in the last month would have put down and scared off anyone else. If he says he’ll be alright you should trust him.”

“I trust him to make dinner, to show me proper breathing techniques for shooting, how to drive a manual or even good books to read.” Her breath was a shudder as her eyes met the stag’s across from her. “I’m worried that he’ll get distracted again and I won’t be there to save him like last time.”

Jeff nodded to her voiced fears, they were real fears. Logical ones to have from the last conflict they were a part of. “Don’t take this the wrong way but were you what distracted him?” Eli nodded as she remembered that horrible night and that twisted smile. “I guarantee that he’ll be fine. He can focus on the problem in front of him without any distraction since he trusts those around him. As far as I can tell he trusts you the most out of everyone here, which is why he gave you the hardest job.” A questioning look was tossed his way, now more just confused from the classification of her job in this whole plan being the hardest. “They’re emotionally compromised, hell even I am. You’re the one with the clearest vision to win over people and trust me, that’s no small feat. You’re the best shot we have.”

Eli swallowed as she realized what was really being asked of her. A nation will see their deeds and how they needed to take matters into their own hands to deal with the Gray family and the broken town they were in. “I won’t let everyone down. I have to see this out to the end right?”

A soft smile crossed the stag’s thin lips as he finally saw her as he should have when the Gray kid came to blackmail him at his business. A daughter he was damn proud of. “You never have, you’ve got this kiddo.”

“I hope I do.” She took a moment to watch her new friends and lover fret over the numerous supplies that Chelsea had procured in the afternoon. There were no more smiles, just stern faces and creased brows as they worked to assemble their cheap but effective tools. Hands worn and scared from years of abuse, diligent labor and training making the work seem effortless but she knew that if she were to try her scales would be worn off within minutes. “Or I’ll lose the best thing I found in my life.”

The next few hours would be completing tasks and laying out the deeper facets of their plans. The calm before the storm was tense. Everyone knew their place and what moves they would take at the exact right moment. They even came up with a simple operation name if Trevor didn’t call everything off the last chance Max would give him.

“It’s a stupid idea.” Noah made his concerns known as the sun was setting on the mountainous property. “If it were me I’d just take his head clean off his shoulders and leave it at that. He doesn’t deserve any more chances, he’s already shown that he doesn’t deserve a trial.”

“Noah if we just kill him we make a martyr so we need to make sure that we get a confession. The only way I can do that is if we pressure him. Make him see who he’s fucked with. We need to break him, and we can’t break a corpse.” Max’s forehead creased as he chose his words carefully. “It’s why it needs to be me.”

Noah pursed his lips, the last sentence hit a nerve as he was torn, getting his kids back and ripping the man responsible apart limb from limb. He knew Max was making the right call though. “I’m pissed but you’re thinking more clearly than both me and Chel right now. Just do one thing for me, crush him, for them.”

“There isn’t any other way I’d do it.”

• The previous day: The Gray household -

“Why would you think this was a good idea!?” A glass shattered against a rustic support beam of the ranch style home as it was thrown by the matriarch. “You piss off the one guy in this town that not only wants a fight but has the means to bury us and then you think it's a good idea to kidnap his best friend’s kids!? You do realize that he’s more experienced than the former right??”

Trevor’s upper lip peeled back with a silent snarl, unflinching from the crystal glass that missed his head by mere millimeters as well as his mother’s ire. “Please, they won’t be able to do anything! Their hands are tied and-”

“Not another WORD from you.” Her cold tone froze his protest in his throat, letting her speak freely. “It was bad enough when you orchestrated that little assault that cost Jacob his life and put your brother in the hospital but this… You’re on your own with this. We’ll make sure the children are cared for and attempt to contact them. We don’t need anymore blood spilled because of your arrogance.” She pinched the bridge of her snout as she thought of all the trouble he’s caused. “We won’t be able to have the police look the other way for this so if you live past the next few days I’m going to throw you to them.”

His anger flared as he pointed a clawed finger towards his mother. “I own this town! Everyone bends to me and the only one that doesn’t-”

“Will burn you upon a crucifix! How are you still so blind to not see that he only wanted to be left alone!?” His mother towered over him as her anger flared and her teeth bared, causing the built but still shorter male to cower under the matriarch’s glare. “Don’t not push men to violence when they spent their lives perfecting it. I will not lend you a hand nor help but only put out fires that will scar me and this family. As far as me and your father are concerned you are no longer our son. Now get out of our home.”

Trevor trembled under his mother’s glare and the only time he ever heard her yell, his eyes fell to his father for any form of support but was only met with a level of disdain he didn’t know the human visage could muster. Thus he stumbled backwards, through short hallways before meeting snow. When did he get outside? How long had he been out there? He didn’t know, the shock of all ties with his family being cut was a shock too great for him to handle just yet. So he fell back to his original plan. To cut the head off of the snake.

The phone only rang once, only a day after he had been tossed out on his ass and he was still leveraging threats and blackmail against others to force hands and move pieces. “Tonight, main street. I’ll need you to stay hidden for this to work.” He hung up without waiting for a response, knowing full well that the trap he had laid in his head would come to fruition. With that human bleeding in the snow strewn street.