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“We can take a man or two.”

I just glare. “There might be more than that.”

“So he’s not at?—”

A bullet hits the sofa, then another. I crawl to the other side. This isn’t O’Sullivan, but it could be some men he’s amassed. Which would mean they were watching us.

Or following us.

Neither is that pleasant of a thought. I’m normally better than that, much more observant.

But fuck.

Lucie’s been taken.

She could be hurt.

The fucker could have his hands on her.

A sickening thought comes to me, making bile rise to my mouth. If he even thinks of touching her, assaulting her, I’ll fucking piss down his throat, right after I rip his head off. Then I’ll tear off his dick at the root.

Or maybe I’ll start with that.

I count four or five. Maybe six men. I have more magazines, but I don’t want to waste them, not when I don’t know what the rest of the night will entail.

They reload and I peer around the side of the ragged fabric. Shit, they’re not even in the room. And they’re taking their time.

A rush of bullets explodes into the air again, shredding the sides of the couch. “Cocktail. Now.”

He hands me one.

With a Hail Mary, I light it and hurl the cocktail toward the direction of the bullets.

Then Seamus hands me another. Soon there’s a wall of flame as the wooden crates on either side of the door start to burn.

I shoot a few shots to the right, and then, after we both throw two more cocktails, we race for the back of the building.

We pry open the back door and dart through a lot overgrown with weeds and tall grasses. Heart pounding, I leap over a low fence, Seamus right behind me as we approach another warehouse. I kick the door open and run inside.

Four faces stare at us. Men who are unpacking crates of dried fish. With a wave at them, we run through the disgusting-smelling place and out onto the street where trucks are waiting, some being loaded and unloaded. I point to one up the street when I see a driver with his feet on the dash.

Seamus climbs up, rips open the truck door, points a gun in his face, and orders him out.

I jump into the passenger side, and we take off, screeching tires burning rubber as the truck speeds down the street.

We’ll need to ditch the truck and steal something else, and when we’re about five blocks away from thewarehouse, we do just that.

“Any word from Tor?”

“Haven’t checked,” he says, “I’ve been busy, y’know, not dying, Cal.”

We’re almost at Fresh Pond when Torin finally calls.

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you,” he says when I put him on speaker, his voice grave.

THIRTY

lucie