AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fuck,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my face and yanking my gaze away from her. What-if’s and could-have-beens are all fucking irrelevant, and I need to keep my own mind focused on the mission.
I fall into a practiced stillness, waiting. Breathing in, breathing out, my senses open and muscles relaxed.
Capside arrives first. There are three of them, the man in the middle holding a bulging duffel bag that must contain the drugs.
I watch them closely, knowing that Dante and Logan are tracking their movements from above and subtly repositioning themselves as needed—even, though, just like my brother predicted, Capside is taking up position in the defensible area toward the loading dock doors at the west of the building.
The three men are far enough away that only the low murmur of their voices come as we wait for McKenna’s people to show.
And finally, they do.
Chloe enters first, followed by two West Point thugs. She looks terrified, but it’s clear she’s got some of Riley’s backbone in her. Her footsteps are a little shaky, but she crosses the floor toward the Capside crew, leaving McKenna’s two men hanging back by the loading doors.
Logan predicted two, so our original plan stands. He really is good. I clock their location and subtly reposition myself to cover the one on the left, easing my gun into position and steadying it with a firm grip.
Then I wait.Focus. Breathe in, breathe out.
I let every one of my senses narrow and sharpen as a second ticks by, then another.
Wait… wait…
The Capside fucker holding the bag crumples to the ground, the back of his head gone in a silent spray of Dante’s favorite shade of red, and I move.
Racing toward the action at a flat run, I fire at West Point. Two of my shots hit McKenna’s man on the left, taking him down, and I duck and roll behind a stack of crates to avoid a kill shot from Capside.
“Riley!” I bellow. “Now!”
37
RILEY
As Maddoc’svoice cuts through the air, I don’t think.
I justmove.
My body lurches into motion, sprinting across the dusty concrete toward my sister as pandemonium fills the dark warehouse. Men are shouting and cursing, and gunshots ring out like fireworks.
I can’t breathe, or maybe I’m breathing too fast. It doesn’t matter. Unlike the Reapers, the other gangs clearly don’t have their weapons silenced, because I’m almost deafened by the sharp crack of gunfire and all but blinded by the flashes of light every time someone shoots.
But none of it matters, because Chloe isright fucking there.
She’s frozen in place and terrified, sobbing as black rivulets of mascara run down her cheeks, and time seems to slow down as I sprint toward her.
If any of those fuckers hurt her, if she starts to bleed, if this goes wrong and a bullet goes astray…
“Chloe!”
I call her name a second before I barrel into her, taking us both down to the floor and out of the line of fire.
“R-Riley?” she stutters, her eyes so wide that the light brown of her irises are completely ringed in white. She clutches me, panting for breath and fingers digging into my arms hard enough to bruise. “What are you—? What… I don’t—”
“Later,” I gasp, my knee stinging where it scraped across the cement floor when I tackled her. “Come on.”
I drag her up and put my body between her and the last standing Capside guy, a skinny man with his teeth barred and his bald head splattered with someone else’s blood. He’s busy shooting like a maniac up toward the rafters where Dante and Logan are positioned, but he could shift his focus to us at any moment.
Shit. I need to get Chloe under some kind of cover.
“Go,” I hiss, staying low as I push her toward a looming stack of pallets off to one side.
