Chapter 10 - The Lion at the Gate
The facility looked like a slaughterhouse from the outside. Corrugated metal walls rusted by decades of northern snow, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Dozens of luxury SUVs and pickup trucks were parked haphazardly along the frozen mud lot. Through the frosted high-bay windows, yellow sodium lights flickered, accompanied by the muffled roar of an aggressive crowd and heavy bass music.
Marcus stepped out into the biting wind, racked his shotgun, and nodded to his men. "Non-lethal breach unless fired upon. Secure the boy first."
We didn't bother cutting the padlock. The lead Suburban slammed into the chain-link gate at twenty miles an hour, shearing the hinges off the steel posts with a deafening screech of ripping metal.
We roared into the compound, our high-beam lightbars flooding the loading dock in blinding white illumination.
Two guards in tactical vests leaped down from the loading bay, hands reaching for sidearms, but froze instantly when Marcus and his operators stepped out with tactical rifles trained dead on their chests.
"Federal warrants and state child custody recovery!" Marcus roared, his voice cutting through the wind like an artillery shell. "Hands flat on the hoods! Move and you take four rounds of beanbag to the ribs!"
The guards immediately dropped their weapons and hit the freezing gravel.
Marlene didn't wait. She leaped from the running board, sprinting past the downed guards and slamming her shoulder into the metal side door of the processing plant. I was half a step behind her, catching the heavy iron door and kicking it fully open.
The stench inside was overwhelming—sweat, stale beer, wintergreen liniment, and blood.
In the center of the cavernous warehouse, surrounded by a makeshift octagonal cage built from chain link and steel pipes, two hundred spectators in heavy coats were screaming bets.
Inside the cage, Brock was on his knees.
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His face was unrecognizable—swollen, bloody, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side. Standing over him was an eighteen-year-old boy weighing at least two hundred pounds, wearing combat wraps on his fists, laughing as Trevor screamed from the corner of the cage:
*"Get up, Brock! Don't you dare tap out! Get up and hit him or you sleep in the snow!"*
