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The tone got more menacing with each word. My throat tightened at the thought that the guys might be able to face some horrible consequence, but they should be able to leave now. Hopefully they’d been able to see me head this way. I pushed myself forward, my gaze fixed on the back door.
Which swung open to admit a stout burly guy I hadn’t seen before.
He took one look at me, and his face twisted with anger and suspicion. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing back here?” he bellowed.
“I—” I gasped out, and then he was charging forward, his hands already reaching to grab me.
“What the fuck is going on?” someone shouted from the room behind me, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. The fury on the man’s face and the muscles bulging in his arms as he threw himself at me sent my instincts honed by my martial arts classes into overdrive.
I dodged to the side and caught him in the throat with an upward swing of my elbow, slamming my knee into his gut at the same time. Despite the choked sound that sputtered from his throat, he locked his hand around my wrist. I kicked out with my leg again and managed to land a blow right between his legs.
As he doubled over, his grip on my arm loosened. I jerked backward, onto the threshold of the main room. Yells and thumps from behind me brought my head jerking around.
The Vigil guys had obviously realized I was under attack, and they’d stormed in to defend me. All of them were beating at the gangsters with vicious intensity, Logan bashing one man in the face hard enough to leave his nose bleeding, Slade cracking another man across the jaw, even quiet, unassuming Dexter kicking a third man’s legs out from under him. But they were fighting off the whole group that’d been gathered by the door, outnumbered two to one, and the gangsters weren’t backing down or going down easily.
And some of them had guns.
I couldn’t fight properly while I was holding on to the box. I set it on the bar counter and rushed over to help.
As all three of the Vigil guys whipped out their fists and hurled their elbows and knees in the middle of the fray, the woman gangster yanked herself back from the bunch and raised her pistol. She aimed it straight at Logan’s head, and he was too busy grappling with one of the bigger guys to notice.
My heart lurched into the base of my throat. I didn’t hesitate for a second, just flung myself toward her as quickly as I could move. Chairs clattered and thumped in my wake.
The woman had paused to make sure she had a clear shot without her colleagues getting in the way. When she heard me coming, her head whipped around, but I was already on her by then.
I rammed straight into her and tackled her to the ground. With a smack of my hand, I sent the pistol spinning across the floor. Then I twisted around, squirming to evade her own strikes, and brought my heel down on her fingers as hard as I could.
The sound of fracturing bones sent a wave of nausea through me. The woman screeched. But even as the queasiness coiled around my stomach, a rush of triumph shot through me as well.
I’d protected Logan—saved him. I’d put all my strength into defending the guys and conquering our enemies. And it felt… kind of good.
The woman raked the fingernails of her other hand across my arm, and I pushed away from her, kicking her in the ribs. Then I caught hold of a nearby chair and yanked it down on top of her with enough force to provoke a grunt. I scrambled farther away.
A few of the men had hit the floor under the Vigil guys’ assault. Slade grabbed my elbow, heaving me to my feet. “Let’s get out of here!”
We raced to the back of the bar, the last two men giving chase. I snatched the box off the counter as we dashed by. The man who’d come at me in the back hall had lurched to his feet, but Logan plowed straight into him, knocking him into one of the storage rooms. We ran on by, ignoring his furious shouts and the bellows from behind us.
The door burst open in our wake. I sprinted around the side of the building and down the street toward my waiting car, aware of all three Vigil guys running alongside me. Adrenaline spiked through my veins, and a crazy laugh tumbled out of me.
We’d gotten away. We’ve faced down criminals and survived—and I’d gotten what I’d come for.
Logan’s car was parked right in front of mine. I fumbled for the key fob in my pocket as the guys gathered around their vehicle. A couple of the men from the bar had just made it out to the sidewalk, so we couldn’t stick around for long, even if they wouldn’t attack us quite as vehemently in full public view.
Still, Logan felt the need to turn toward me just as I yanked my car door open, his lips pulled back in a sneer. “Was that really worth it?”
I stared back at him, still high on the wildness of our victory, and held up Dad’s box where they could all clearly see it.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d say it was.”
