Page 66

Using the information that Craig had gotten from Bitch Barbie, we crept our way toward Uptown. We were a few blocks away, the dark of night still covering us, when I spotted our intended targets ahead. A streetlight in front of a brick townhouse illuminated the five of them. Two of them were seated on the concrete steps, and the other three were standing in a loose semi-circle in front of them on the sidewalk. The sounds of laughter and chatting carried to us, but they weren’t quite loud enough for me to make out what they were saying.

“Remember our plan,Ma Petit?” I asked, nodding toward the group.

“Yep.” She replied, reaching for the bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.

She took it from my hand and walked ahead of me, swaying slightly as if she’d been drinking. I stayed back, watching as she pretended to take a drink from the empty bottle, and stumbled just a few steps away from the Jackals. It was enough to get their notice, just as we’d planned, but when the nearest man to her reached out to help steady her, I had to biteback a growl and shove away the urge to charge in and gut them all on the spot.

“Hey there sweetness.” He said as his hands touchedmywoman.

“Thhanks.” Her fake slur was so realistic I almost believed she was drunk. She swatted his hands away before straightening up and taking a few weaving steps forward.

“Where ya going, baby?” He called after her, signaling his friends.

Victoria grunted and swayed on her feet, pretending to take another sip from the empty bottle. “Home.”

“Ah, don’t be like that. You look like someone who’s looking for a good time. Why don’t you let us show you what we got and we have a little fun, huh sweetness?”

All five of them were on their feet, slowly closing in around her. None of them were paying attention to the direction she’d come from, giving me the perfect opportunity to get close unnoticed. I slipped a knife from my pocket into one hand and freed my blackjack with the other. I caught her eye just as I brought my blackjack down on the back of the nearest man’s head, hard enough to knock him unconscious. Victoria didn’t hesitate, shifting her grip on the bottle to its neck and slamming it into another man’s head.

The Jackals we were up against were clearly new and poorly trained. It took next to no effort for me to dispatch four of the five. Victoria stood proudly over the fifth with her booted foot on his back as I pulled zip ties out of my hoodie pocket and secured our catch. When I stepped up beside her to deal with her man, I noticed the blood from her split lip. A snarl ripped from my throat, and before I knew what I was doing, I had my gun out and aimed at his head, pulling the trigger with the next breath.

“Leighton!” Victoria shouted, half in shock. “What the hell?”

“He hurt you.” I shrugged. “He had to die. Besides, we only really need one of these guys. Two at most. I figure we go ahead and take two so we can show Az and Craig how well you did.”

“Leighton…” She started, but my hand moved to brush my thumb over her busted lip, interrupting whatever she was about to say.

“Go get the car so we can load them up. I’ll deal with the rest of them.” I said softly, my hand squeezing the grip of my gun.

“I think we should take them all, Leighton. One may know something the others don’t,”

“Car,Ma Petit.I am barely holding my shit together and I need you to go get the fucking car before I go completely feral and rip these bastards limb from limb.”

“It’s just a split lip. I’m sure you’ve had worse on a hunt, Leighton.” She sighed.

“Car.” I bit out, my tone nearing a growl. “That’s an order.”

She pinched her lips together, clearly unhappy with me. I wasn’t exactly pleased about it either, but it was the only thing I could think of to get her to go before she saw the worst parts of me. She stared into my eyes a few more moments before stomping her foot with a huff and turning back in the direction we’d come from to retrieve the car. As soon as I was sure she was far enough away, I turned back to the four men tied up on the sidewalk.

“Lucky fucking day you pieces of shit. I don’t have time to give you what you really deserve for hurting my girl.” I knew they were still out cold, which only made them luckier in my opinion. It didn’t stop me from needing to voice it aloud just before I put bullets in two of their heads and then settled onto the steps to wait for Victoria to return with the car to take the others to Craig.

Chapter Thirty Three

Victoria

“You’re still pouting.”

“I’m not pouting,” I snapped, arms crossed tight over my chest as I followed Leighton to the back of the car. “I’m irritated.”

“Same difference,Ma Petit.” He grinned, entirely too pleased with himself as he popped the trunk. “You’re cute when you’re mad, though. Like a bitey kitten. Fierce and fuzzy.”

“You’re being ridiculous. It’s asplit lip.”

“Exactly,” he said, as if that somehow helped his case. “You got hit. That means I didn’t keep you safe.”

“Or maybe I just didn’t duck fast enough,” I muttered, but he was already reaching into the trunk and hauling out the first of the unconscious bodies like he was dragging a gym bag, not a grown man with a potentially fractured skull.

The warehouse loomed ahead, all concrete silence and yawning shadows. The door creaked open under Leighton’s boot, and the scent hit me immediately—faint traces of gunpowder, oil, and something metallic beneath it all, which I refused to identify too closely. This place had memories. Candy’s laugh still echoed sometimes when I wasn’t careful.