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He grinned again, and damn if my stomach didn’t twist at the sight. “Noted. This will be fun.”
I doubted it.
Slipping to the front of the car, I looked around. “You take the left, and I’ll?—”
Three shots rang out, followed by three distinct heavy thumps. He’d gotten three of the men in the left SUV, and with none coming out to replace them, I had hope.
“Your turn, warrior princess,” he joked. I snorted.
Falling back on my training, I lifted the gun, and muscle memory kicked in before I even had a conscious thought to pull the trigger.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Where there had been chaos a moment ago, only silence remained.
“You okay?”
“We got lucky.”
“I’d say that was half luck and half skill.” I didn’t answer, just snatched the gun from his hand. With the danger gone, I was revoking his access to a weapon.
Laser-focused, I moved to each of the bodies. Nate hadn’t lied; every one of them had a kill shot. Such a shame. It would have been nice to have a chat. Dead-looking or not, everyone now got a shot between the eyes so I didn’t get one in the back. Another Mario Marcosa life lesson.
I heard Nate’s breathing hitch and the whispered, “Christ,” but he wasn’t my problem.
“Toss me my phone,” I said, crouching near the closest body. Grey was probably having an aneurysm, and I had no doubt that he’d spend the next week glued to my ass if I allowed it. Considering I wanted to toss him into a volcano, I wasn’t so sure we’d survive it.
Maybe I’ll convince him we got hacked. That would save me a whole hour of his company. Nate stepped over to the McLaren and picked up my phone, handing it over instead of throwing it.
“Scared I wouldn’t catch it?”
Nate shrugged. “You may be comfortable throwing a thousand-dollar piece of tech around, but I’m not.”
And there was the guilt again. Looking away, I ignored the missed texts and dialed my second directly.
“You better be calling me to say they’re dead.”
After days of discontent and an itching frustration under my skin, that was the last straw. “Considering my joyride was ruined, my car is full of holes, and I’m surrounded by bodies, I suggest you watch your fucking tone, Greyson.”
There was a pause and a slow, relieved exhale. Like he didn’t believe I was safe until I snapped at him. Like all the bullshit we’d been wading through didn’t exist anymore. “Apologies, reina. Will we need medical?”
I was reina again, but for how long?
I peered over at Nate, but he didn’t even have a touch of road rash on him. Thankfully, neither did I. My dress for tomorrow wouldn’t look good with bandages. “No, but we have a complication.”
Grey snorted, and the sound eased a part of me that had been wound tight with our distance. “How many bodies?”
“Hmm, ten?” I counted distractedly as I pulled the dead man’s shirt out of his pants, lifting it to bare a tattooed chest. Most of the ink was beautifully done, but a few of the pieces caught my eye, and not in a good way. I hissed when I found what I was praying I wouldn’t. “We’ve got another complication.”
The shootout was already more complicated than I liked with Nate around, but the playing card inked on the dead man’s hip was the clearest sign I could ask for. One that I had no doubt I’d find on every body we’d dropped.
This wasn’t just a lucky shootout. It was an act of war.
Chapter Eight
Greyson
I wasn’t the type of man to be scared. Fear didn’t serve me in the shadows. But looking up from an argument with Dominic to find the only person I cared about gone, while she was being hunted, terrified me. Knowing Mari had been shot at while I was too busy arguing with an asshole made it worse.
