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“Helpful to who?” came a voice from the shadows. “If no one knows where you are, then all the more time for me to play with you.”
My heart thudded. For all my newfound sense of confidence and sass, it didn’t seem to extend to kidnapping situations. Thankfully, I had Florence as my backup.
“You lot seriously need to get over yourselves,” she said. “It’s been fucking weeks. Apollo will get his for being a total git but holding us hostage is not the way to get back at God and his Angels for a dodgy car race. Besides, he gives zero shits about me, and his retaliation is just going to be way worse if you do anything to Harlow here. Do you idiots not realise she’s Reginald fucking Vanguard’s heir?”
“You think this is about a dodgy car race–?” another voice asked, humoured.
But the first one cut off the rest of what he was going to say. “I’ve heard Callahan’s inheriting everything anyway and that bauble on Miss Vanguard’s finger is just a fucking flimsy attempt to make the claim legit in the eyes of the Council.”
I blinked. “Council?
Florence seemed equally confused. “What Council?” she asked.
“The Nameless have rules, ladies,” the first speaker said, all ominously.
“And who are they, then?” Florence asked. Her voice was as chipper as it ever was, and I was sure it was a tactic of her own.
“There’s naiveté and then there’s just plain idiocy,” the first speaker said.
“Pretend I’mreallystupid, then,” Florence begged.
It was obvious he didn’t believe we didn’t know who the Nameless was. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it – them? – mentioned, but I still didn’t really know who they were. I could take a few educated guesses though.
“Merging two of the most powerful families into one borders on breaking the Law against Legions. Vanguard and Callahan had better have something pretty fucking epic up their sleeves if they expect to get away with it.”
I heard a crash to the left and looked over to see a door burst open.
“It also technically breaks the rules to waffle on about business to the women-folk, as nice as these two are,” came Marco’s voice.
“O’Malley,” came the first voice.
“Two against five, eh?” That was Fender.
“Well, let’s fucking go, then,” Marco said.
“Get down,” Fender yelled and suddenly bullets were shooting over us.
“Fucking hell!” I heard Florence yell, then we were tipped sideways, and my shoulder hit the cement floor with a crack. “How’s your head?” she asked me, concern marring her voice
I winced. “Better than my shoulder.” The cut stung against who knew what kind of dirt and grime my body weight was crushing it into.
“Good.”
I didn’t really know much about what happened after that. When my eyes weren’t shut tight against whatever horrors I might accidentally see, flashes of gunshot cracked through the darkened warehouse. There was a lot of noise, and a fair amount of shit-stirring courtesy of Marco.
Finally, “Fall back!” cried a voice I didn’t recognise.
“Take your dead with you and consider this fuckery done,” Marco commanded.
There was muffled footsteps followed by silence, then finally I felt someone drop beside us and I curled up as tightly as I could.
“There now, missus,” I heard Marco say calmly as Fender murmured something to Florence.
The two of them got us free and standing.
“How did you find us?” I asked. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“I might have stuck an app on your phone that day we spent shopping,” Marco said, but he sounded odd as he looked around like he thought they might come back. “When you’d been hanging out in a warehouse for a little too long, I figured something was up.”
