Page 4

“Sleep tight, motherfucker.”

The girl hasn’t screamed once since the bodies have started falling down around us, but now she starts tugging at me. I’ve held people against their will, I’ve held the dead in gunfights, so a slight thing like her is nothing at all.

She obviously has no idea who or what she’s dealing with.

“Dec, get?—”

I stop speaking.

Behind me is the crunch of tires on the pavement.

A shout pierces the air.

Fuck. More of Mitchum’s men. We have to get away, head into the nightclub.

I turn and squeeze off a round, then dart inside with the girl.

I know the layout of the club. They probably shouldn’t have hired the Irish when they laid it out.

We step into the darkness.

Shit. It’s a fucking graveyard inside.

The stage is empty. A boot is stickingout from the floor behind the bar, and a tray of drinks is toppled over on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and ice cubes, a naked girl pressed into a booth.

But everyone else?

I look right. The exit door swings shut.

Gone.

Goddammit.

Someone must have called the cops already. And with Mitchum cooling outside, I can’t be here.

A bullet hits the wall, and I dive forward, my arm wrapped tight around the girl’s waist. She trembles against me, her breaths raspy and shallow, but she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t cry or scream. It’s almost like she’s been through this kind of thing before. We duck behind the bar and I reload.

The bartender yells, but I ignore him, pressing my captive against the sinks as the bottles on the wall opposite us explode, bullets peppering the walls and the bar.

Better them than our heads.

“Go,” I growl at the bartender who’s still there. “Get to the exit.”

He doesn’t need another invitation and slithers away along the floor. I peek out from the bar again and shoot back, hitting one of the men. There are four of them out there. I duck back down as a bullet narrowly misses me.

With a rocketing pulse, I pop up again and fire off another round, taking out two more.

There’s one left, and he dives, squeezing off another stream of bullets. A cry rises from the naked girl in the booth.

Fuck.

He’s behind her now.

Waiting him out isn’t an option. Shooting like a crazy man isn’t either.

I need to think.

I look at my masked girl, the smatter of pale freckles on her nose, the soft lips, the spatter of blood on her cheek.