Page 13 of Savage Little War

Dmitri is already waiting for me at the door in a black button-down with the sleeves rolled up his forearms and dark gray pants. He takes my hand and kisses my temple. “You look beautiful, Cara.”

Beautiful.

I haven’t felt like that word in a long time either. I’m still not there yet, but maybe soon.

We get into one of Dmitri’s more casual cars so that we can blend in better and head toward downtown Las Vegas. It doesn’t take me long to realize that we’re headed to Fremont Street.

“Do we get to act like tourists?” I ask with a cheeky smile.

Dmitri chuckles. “That’s one way to blend in.”

“I actually haven’t been here in a very long time,” I admit. “I never really had the time to.”

“Me either,” Dmitri says before resting his hand on my knee where my skirt doesn’t reach. His touch sends an electric current through my entire body, warming me up from the inside. “I guess we sort of are tourists.”

Amusement flutters in my chest as he finds a spot to park among the sea of other cars parked in the area. When we get out, a nice breeze greets us, blowing through our hair and ruffling our clothes.

Dmitri offers his arm to me, and once I take it, he leads me into the fray. We soon filter into the crowd of people wandering up and down Fremont. It’s sensory overload, all the music, lights, and bodies.

“Can you imagine being on something and coming here?” I say with a laugh, feeling disoriented myself while completely sober.

Dmitri chuckles, leading me around a small group of people watching a dancing street performer. “Talk about a scary trip.”

When we reach where the LED canopy stretches overhead with more trippy graphics, I smile and let Dmitri guide me as I admire the sight. “It’s nice being out again. It almost feels…normal.”

Dmitri places his hand over mine. “We’ll get our normal back,” he says.

My eyes fall to his, hope surging through me. “We will?”

Dmitri nods. “Even if I have to carve it out of them.”

I lift up on my toes to kiss him.

A BOOM cracks the air ahead, so loud my teeth rattle.

Light blooms white-hot, and the front of a building erupts.

Screams fill the street as people start running to get away, moving in all directions in a chaotic mess. People run into each other, knocking each other to the ground without bothering to help each other up. The live music playing from a nearby stage cuts off abruptly.

The cries punch straight through time. For half a second, I’m back in the basement, blindfolded, bracing for pain.

My knees threaten to fold.

“Fuck!” Dmitri’s hand clamps around my wrist, yanking me behind him. “We need to get out of here,” he says as he glances around for an escape.

I take another look back down the street, trying to see which establishment blew up.

My brain tries to make it make sense of it. Was it a gas leak? An accident? Anything but what it looks like.

A bomb.

My stomach sinks when I get a look at the fractured, charred front of the building. The words across the top have some missing letters, but I recognize the name. “Gallagher’s.”

“What?” Dmitri asks me, shielding me as people come barreling past us.

“The Irish own that bar!” I tell him as I point at it. “My father’s bar was attacked!”

“Shit,” Dmitri says as realization washes over his face. “I need to let Sean know.”