“Go,” I tell him. “I've got her. Go.”
Then he moves.
30
Lorcan
The red silk of her dress flashes in the corner of my eye. Then, the wet, sliding sound of steel parting skin.
Silas shrieks loudly like a gutted pig.
The heavy black handgun slips from his fingers, clattering onto the marble floor. My hand stops shaking. The cold, leaden weight that has been pinning my boots to the floorboards for the last five minutes simply vanishes.
She actually did it. This crazy, beautiful little woman actually cut him.
"Echo! Sweep the left!" I roar, my voice tearing through the ringing in my ears. "Kieran, on me!"
"I'm on it, boss! Move!" Echo yells back, his submachine gun spit-firing into the dark.
I don't feel the floor under my boots. I only feel the forward momentum of my own body as I charge across the ruined dance floor. Silas's remaining men try to close the gap, but they are too slow.
They don't have the adrenaline of a father who almost watched his daughter die. All I can think of is how to save my daughter, and anything that gets in my way is going down.
A shooter steps into my path, raising a rifle. I slide my hand under his collar, twist, and slam his head face-first into the corner of an overturned table, and the wood cracks, so does his nose. He goes down, his face a red mess, and I don't even wait for him to hit the floor before I yank the weapon from his grip.
"Get out of the way!" another enforcer screams, lunging at my side with a combat knife.
I duck-step inside his reach, my forearm catching his wrist. I twist it backward, forcing the joint against its curve until the bone pops with a dry, splintering sound. He lets out a high-pitched wail. I drive the butt of the rifle into his sternum, feeling his ribs collapse under the impact. He drops like a sack of wet sand.
"Kieran! Cover the stairs!" I bellow.
"I've got them! Go, Lorcan! Go!" Kieran screams, firing a three-round burst into a shooter leaning over the balcony.
I sweep my eyes across the floor. Silas is scrambling backward toward the service entrance, his hand clamped over his shredded right forearm. Blood is pouring through his fingers, staining his pristine grey suit. He looks up, and for the first time in five years, I see the absolute terror in his eyes.
"Kill him!" Silas shrieks, his voice cracking with panic. "What the fuck are you standing there for? Shoot him!"
"There's nowhere left to run, Silas," I growl, my boots splashing through a puddle of spilled champagne and blood.
I catch up to him near the heavy double doors of the service corridor. I grab him by the lapels of his expensive jacket, lifting him off his feet, and slam him back against the concrete support pillar. The stone chips under the impact.
Silas spits blood onto my cheek, his teeth bared in a desperate, ugly snarl. "You're still a brute, Lorcan. A brute who couldn't save his own wife."
"She was a rat, Silas," I say, my voice dropping into a register that is dead and cold. "And you're a dead man. I'm going to make sure you stay one."
I raise the barrel of my gun, pressing the cold steel right under his chin. My finger tightens on the trigger.
"Boss, down!" Kieran yells from across the room.
The service doors behind Silas blow open with a deafening crash. A hail of heavy-caliber rounds tears through the air, chewing up the concrete pillar right above my head. Stone dust explodes into my face, blinding me for a split second.
I'm forced to let go of Silas, rolling behind a fallen brass planter as the bullets rip through the metal.
"Silas! Get him out of here!" a voice barks through the smoke.
Four men in grey tactical vests, carrying short-barreled rifles, pour through the doorway. They lay down a relentless wall of suppressing fire. Two of them grab Silas by his good arm, dragging him backward into the dark hallway.
"I've got the door!" one of the shooters yells, firing a wild burst toward my position.
