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The words died on my tongue as about a dozen men shoved past the doors and marched into the building. In my first glance, I registered that a few looked like locals, but the rest were a mix of ethnicities. Maybe the criminal organizations here had gotten more diverse, or maybe Mom had sent over a bunch of thugs from her other territories.
It didn’t really matter. Either way, these goons wanted us dead. The second they set eyes on us, all of them whipped out guns.
“Take cover!” I cried out, and threw myself behind the shelter of a vacant information booth.
The guys hurtled after me, Rafael firing off a few shots as he sprang. A grunt and a thump told me at least one of his bullets had hit its mark.
Other bullets thundered in our direction, slamming into nearby pillars and shattering display windows. I winced and peeked around the booth, my pistol ready.
The thugs were advancing on us. I wasn’t okay with that.
I took a couple of shots, nicking one guy in the shoulder and sending another toppling to the ground, clutching his belly. Our other attackers jerked to the side of the hall where they could use the pillars as shields.
Quentin swore and pivoted on his feet, his own gun clutched uneasily in his hand. “Is there another exit we can make a run for?”
I followed his gaze and grimaced. “Not without giving those assholes a clear shot at us.” The booth would only hide us from view until we got a little ways away, and then we’d have a sprint of at least a hundred feet before the nearest side hall.
“Then we’ll just have to go through the pricks,” Rafael muttered, and eased to the side to take aim at our attackers.
I followed his lead, but my next two shots only clipped the pillars. The gunmen launched another spray of gunfire our way, and I ducked back into safety.
“They won’t just hang out there forever,” I said through my constricted throat. “When they try to get closer, we’ll have a chance to pick them off.”
Rafael nodded, but his expression was grim. We’d have to take down an awful lot of them. And out of the five of us, he was the only one completely confident with his weapon. I knew how to handle mine from lots of practice, but it’d mostly been against unmoving targets.
Our lives were on the line. If the thugs closed in on us, we’d just have to do our best to mow them all down.
Niko wet his lips, his knuckles pale where he was gripping his pistol. He raised his phone to his ear with his other hand. “I’ll call emergency services. If we can hold the stand-off for long enough, the police will deal with them.”
My pulse stuttered. We didn’t know how many of the cops we could trust—and I hated the thought of having yet another violent incident associated with me.
“Make it an anonymous call,” I pleaded. “They don’t need to know it’susgetting attacked.”
His mouth tightened, but he nodded.
As he spoke into the phone in soft Japanese, I peeked around the booth again. None of our attackers offered a clear shot. Shit, shit, shit.
Then three more figures burst through the front doors behind Mom’s goons. My jaw dropped as I took in the three Deadly Rose defectors, all of them whipping up semi-automatics.
Dámaso’s eyes glittered with a fierce gleam as he opened fire on the thugs, the mall lights gleaming off the lightning bolt shaved into his dark buzzcut. Frankie cackled and swung his scrawny frame around, pelting out more bullets. And as she squeezed her trigger, Ursula’s straggly, bleached hair flew out behind her like she’d leapt into this reality from an action movie.
It only took an instant for our attackers to realize they were now under assault from both sides. Even as a few bodies crumpled, streaking the floor with blood, some of the other men spun, firing their weapons in turn.
The defectors hadn’t given any thought to shelter. One of the first bullets tore across Ursula’s elbow, making her arm jerk and the gun fall from her hand. Another slammed into Dámaso’s chest, sending him reeling backward.
“No!” The cry tore from my throat, and I launched myself from behind the booth. As my finger squeezed the trigger over and over, my men followed me, adding their own bullets to the fray.
The arrival of the defectors had driven our enemies from cover. In a matter of seconds, with the sound of the shots booming off the high ceiling, the rest of Mom’s men slumped to join their colleagues on the floor. My mouth tasted sour with adrenaline and revulsion; I couldn’t tell how many were outright dead, or how many of the bullets that’d landed had been mine or Rafael’s or even from the skaters.
There wasn’t time to worry about that. I dashed towards the trio of defectors, shoving my gun back into my swinging purse. Ursula and Frankie had drawn close around Dámaso, Frankie pressing his hand to the wound on his friend’s chest and Ursula clutching her bleeding elbow while she spat out hasty orders.
“Let’s go!” Rafael bellowed, catching up with me as we reached them. “We’ll get him bandaged up once we’re out of here. If the cops catch us, we’re all in deep shit.”
Sirens were just starting to peal into hearing beyond the doors. We dashed through the entrance and across the courtyard outside, Rafael supporting some of Dámaso’s weight.
We’d come by the subway, but racing down there amid all the regular civilians didn’t strike me as a wise idea. Rafael appeared to feel the same way, leading us past darkened office buildings into a narrow driveway well out of view of the mall.
There, he paused for a second to whip off his jacket and tear off a strip of fabric to use as a bandage. I pawed through my purse. “I’ve got a roll of gauze and some pads.”
