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“Alright, what’s the plan now?”
“I take Balaban, you take the other asshole.”
“What if I want to take Balaban?”
“Older brother privilege. On three – one, two…”
He stepped forward, smashing his huge shoulder through the door. It flew open, the two of us rushing inside and sizing up the situation.
Aubrey and Marcus were there, Marcus on the ground holding his shoulder – he’d been hit.
Balaban was behind Aubrey, using her as a human shield, a gun to her head. The other man was down, likely having been killed by Marcus.
“Here’s the deal,” Balaban said, his thickly accented, booming voice filling the barn. “Not one of you is going to take another step. If you do, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in her head.”
“Cops are on their way,” I said. “You let her go and we can end this peacefully.”
He laughed. “You think I came here forpeace? No, I came here to hurt you just as badly as you hurt me. And going by the looks on your faces as I hold my gun to this pretty little thing’s head, I know just the way to do it.”
As he spoke, I caught sight of something on the ground. The fallen merc had dropped a pistol, small and black. Most importantly, it was near Aubrey’s foot. I caught her attention with my gaze, glancing down at it. She blinked in response.
Behind her, I spotted Tyler on the loft. He moved slowly and silently.
“First,” Balaban said. “You’re going to let me out of here with her. Once we’re clear, I’m going to be in touch, send you the number for a bank account into which you’ll deposit every last cent of the money you made on your last mission. Then—”
I was done listening to this prick talk.
“Tyler, now!”
With a grin, he jumped down right in front of the llama pen. With a quick motion, he opened it up and began calling out, George and Larry and the rest of the llamas running wild and free.
“Huh?” Balaban was totally taken by surprise, not having expected a stampede of runaway llamas to deal with.
The distraction was enough for Aubrey to pull her arm forward and slam it into his belly. He let out a rush of air as she dropped, grabbing the gun off the ground and turning it toward him. She pulled the trigger, only aclicksounding out.
The safety.
“You bitch!” he screamed as he raised his weapon.
I opened fire, filling the asshole with lead. He twitched back and forth where he stood, his eyes going wide with surprise as he dropped to his knees, then into a heap on the ground.
That was it, Balaban was dead. One look at Tyler and Marcus, however, let us know right away that our problems were far from over.
Chapter 35
Aubrey
Ifelt like I was being totally babied, and not in a good way.
“I’mfine!” I said, the nurse fluffing my pillow underneath me. “The guys are more important than my stupid pillow.”
The nurse, a no-nonsense middle-aged woman, smirked as she backed away from the bed. We were in one of the rooms at the ER of the local hospital, the walls covered in Christmas décor.
“You twisted your ankle hard,” she said. “The adrenaline going through you right now means you’re not going to feel it for a little while. But when you do, you’re going to be glad we took care of you.”
I sighed. “OK, maybe you have a point.”
“I definitely have a point.”
