AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rook stood, and Diesel cursed. “Rook.” He seethed, limping to grip the back of Rook’s jacket and tear it clean from his back. Two bullet wounds, one to his thigh and another to the dangerous area between his neck and shoulder seeped steadily. “Were you just not going to fucking say anything?”
“I’m good.”
“Like fuck,” Diesel said, muttering curses to himself as he grabbed more clotting powder, stuffing it into Rook’s wounds angrily.
“And you?” he asked, turning to Ava Jade with another bag of powder clutched between his fingers. “Are you hit?”
Ava Jade shook her head.
“I could use some of that,” came a voice from behind us. Drake struggled over, clutching his biceps, his gun dangling uselessly from his fingers. “If you don’t mind.”
Diesel tossed him the baggy, and he caught it, dropping to a knee to pack his own wound.
I went to him, wincing as I reached out a hand to help him up when he was finished. He stood, tossing his light hair away from his eyes. I shook his hand. “Thank you,” I said earnestly, catching sight of another shadow behind Drake. Someone peeking out from behind the building on the next street up. Not fighting, just watching. Something about his posture, his shape, and height seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Axel,” I shouted, since he was the nearest. I pointed and the shadow vanished. “There, one of those fuckers is hiding ’round the building.”
Drake took his hand from mine and air expelled in a gush from his lips as Ava Jade pulled him into a hard hug.
His hands hovered over her back awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure whether he should hug her back. Right now, I wouldn’t kill him for it. We owed him.
But before he could decide, AJ pulled away. “Thank you,” she said on a breath. “We owe you.”
Drake shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. “Nah,” he said. “You’re good, angel.”
AJ sighed, reaching out to twine her fingers with mine, unbothered that both of our hands were covered in blood.
“Got one,” someone shouted, leading an only mildly injured Ace out from the alley by his hair. Likely the sniper, trying to escape unnoticed.
Diesel took the motherfucker from Axel and threw him to the asphalt just as the rest of the people from inside of Sanctum’s underground began to pour out. The Kings looked on the carnage with a sort of awed surprise. The lawyers and bankers turned varying shades of green and red and white, but none could bring themselves to look away or leave.
This was what they came here for, after all. They wanted to see blood. Now, they could see what real death looked like. It wasn’t pretty. There wasn’t just blood staining these streets. Most men pissed themselves when they died and the smell of urine was just as strong in the air as the scents of blood and lead.
“Where’s Lenny?” Diesel asked, cocking his engraved Desert Eagle to press against the Ace’s temple.
The skinny fucker cringed away, but managed to keep from soiling himself.
“My father asked you a question,” Corvus growled, accepting a bottle of water from Pinkie to sip.
“Not here,” the guy said. “He only sent us. Said that it would be easy. That you’d all be here and we should pick you off as you exited.”
“Coward.”
“Where is Lenny now?” Diesel asked. “Where is the rest of your crew?”
The Ace lifted his hands higher, his fingers shaking like leaves in the wind. “I-I don’t know. I s-s-swear, man. They s-sent us and said they’d be right behind us.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me…” Diesel trailed off.
“N-no. No, man, p-please. I have family. I have a brother and—”
Diesel clocked him on the back of the head, just enough to stun him. “Shut the fuck up.”
The guy began to cry, and Diesel dragged him to his feet, hauling him by the back of his shirt toward Corvus. “Apologize,”Diesel demanded, and I recognized the manic gleam in his eyes. Diesel St. Crow rarely lost his control, but he liked to toe the line, and right now, he was fucking dancing on it.
“You fucking heard me, asshole!” Diesel shouted, shaking the Ace.
“S-sorry,” he choked out.
