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Angel’s face hardens. “You can’t keep me if you aren’t alive, can you?”
It’s not a question. “You’re absolutely right. We’re going to get out of here, Angel. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m not.” It’s an emphatic declaration without even an ounce of uncertainty.
My Angel. She didn’t grow up in an ordinary world with ordinary parents, and so this one with its violence, strange people, and unusual circumstances doesn’t faze her. I give her a hard kiss on her forehead and then push her behind me. “I’ll make sure to live up to your confidence.”
“Emphasis on the live,” she chirps, and while her tone is bright, her fingers twist the back of my shirt tight.
“Exactly.” The fire is almost out in the bathroom and I’m tempted to leave her here, but with the tunnel system blown to bits and no guards at my side, it’s too risky. We go together. “Stay behind me.”
The closet is still burning. I douse two big towels in cold water and drape one over Angel’s head and another around mine. We sprint through to the bedroom. Things are smoldering, but the walls are brick behind the drywall and plaster, so it’s not the inferno it could be. The hallway is more smoke, but the only people we find are bodies on the ground. I kneel down and check the pulses. Dead. I give Angel a shake of my head. She grimaces but holds it together. I hear a shoe scrape against the floor and whirl around, flinging my arm out. It makes contact with a jaw. There’s a grunt as the man absorbs the blow. “Down,” I order.
Angel understands it’s for her and drops immediately. I shoot the dark-clad figure in front of me. He falls, but two more figures rush out of the smoke. I take those two down. The bullets attract attention because multiple boots are hitting the floor. I crouch and take a gun out of one of the fallen and slide it on the floor toward Angel. “Anything that comes toward you, point and pull the trigger. It will recoil, so you need to brace yourself,” I instruct in a low voice.
She gives me a thumbs-up. The floor is getting hot. We need to reach the stairs before the boards beneath us collapse and trap us up here. I wait until the bodies break through the smoke before shooting. I don’t want any of mine getting caught in friendly fire. I take down the first row before my clip is empty. Five more bodies down. How many did the Bishop send? The High Power could send in an army if they wanted. A man descends on me before I can switch out my clip. I plow the butt of the gun into his forehead and grab his pistol hand, pulling the slide entirely off. He pushes me with his free hand. I absorb the blow with a grunt and then head butt him. He staggers back. I feel a poke in my back and see the barrel of the gun I gave to Angel at my elbow. I take it, shoot the man, and then hand it back.
“We’re a good team. Let’s move before the stairs are gone.”
“Yessir.” She even gives me a salute.
Her spirits are high even in the midst of a fire and a shoot-out. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. She’s never looked sexier in my eyes even with her hair matted around her face, wearing grey sweats and two towels draped around her body. The urge to devour her is high, but we have bad guys to defeat and a burning building to escape.
Staying close to the wall, we move down toward the stairs, stepping over the bodies of the fallen. There are twelve dead by my count. There can’t be many more. Maybe another dozen, twenty at the most. I’ve got enough ammunition to take them all down if I’m careful and precise.
At the landing, I pause and motion for Angel to get down. We peek down the stairs. More than a dozen men mill about the entrance dressed in black combat gear with assault rifles in their arms. They are all wearing earpieces. One of them appears to be the leader. He has a tablet in his hand, and he’s gesturing toward the stairs.
“What’s happening?” Angel whispers.
“They’re regrouping and trying to figure out the best way to attack.” I don’t spot of any of my men on the ground, but there are streaks of copper on the floor which indicate someone bled and then was dragged across the marble tile. Lars is nowhere to be found, which likely means he’s dead. I push that out of my head. I can’t be thinking about losses now. My focus has to be on getting us out of here.
“There’s a stone terrace off the guest wing. We can jump down from there into the kitchens. There’s a delivery entrance not far from there. I’m sure there will be guards there, but it’s likely fewer than what’s downstairs.”
“You lead, I’ll follow.”
This time I do give Angel a quick, hard kiss more for my own benefit than anything. She smiles under my mouth and squeezes my biceps in encouragement. I draw the towels off of her since the danger of the fire is minimum out here. She’ll need to be quick when we cross the hall. I drop to my stomach and begin to army crawl forward. She catches on quick, and I let her pass me. The biggest danger will be the men coming up the stairs, and I don’t want her to be the first target.
Angel is quick, and we are past the open balcony overlooking the first floor in no time. We jump and race to the other end of the building. Behind me, I hear shouts. “Keep going,” I yell and drop to one knee. Gun out, I start shooting. One down, two, three and more. I keep shooting until my clip’s empty. Bodies litter the space we just crawled across, but more men pour up the stairs. The Bishop called up a whole damned army. I notice the tattoo on the back of the neck of one of the fallen. It’s a knife crossing a scythe—the Butcher’s mark. I grab my knives from my ankles and fight. The first two are easy, but the last two are nimble. They duck and whirl faster than I can move. One of them lodges a blade in my shoulder and another in my thigh. I take several blows to the face and gut. My side aches. My leg is on fire. I shut out the pain and remember what I’m fighting for—who I’m fighting for. When the last two are finally disabled, I hobble toward the room at the end. I just need to make it there. Just a few feet more.
With the last burst of energy, I stumble through the door and see Angel in the hands of the Butcher. The terrace doors are open. A slight breeze is blowing the curtains against the back of the Butcher’s legs. At five ten, the Butcher isn’t a large man, but the knife that he’s holding at Angel’s throat is big enough to take her down in one swift action. He knows how to wield the blade. I drop mine to the floor and raise my hands. “Whatever you want, take it. Just let the girl go.”
“She was supposed to be mine. The Bishop promised this to me.” He jerks her head to the side and runs his tongue across her cheek. Angel gags and averts her chin, but the action causes the knife to bite into her skin. Blood trickles beneath the sharp steel. The Butcher jerks her upright and spits on the floor. “She tastes like you. Rotten and used.”
Fury races through me, erasing the pain of my wounds. “Then let her go.”
“I can still sell her,” he taunts.
“Over my dead body.”
“That’s the idea.” He whips his knife hand toward me, but before he can release the weapon, a shot goes off. He screams and grabs for his hand, but a bullet in his forehead ends him before the motion is completed. I whirl around to find Kane Santino behind me with his handgun still pointed at the empty space where the Butcher once stood.
“Heard the Church named you enemy number one for not coming after me,” he drawls.
Relief almost buckles my knees. I turn back to gather Angel in my arms, or rather, she does the gathering, slipping her weight underneath my shoulder. “Why didn’t you come sooner?” She scowls at Santino.
“The information came late,” he replies.
“Better late than never.” I try to pacify my avenging angel.
