Page 59 of Inez

I tuck a towel around my waist and leave Sophia spread out on the bathroom counter, slumped back against the mirror, panting, bleary-eyed and stupefied. I close the bathroom door after myself and head across the suite, making sure the towel is secured.

I hear the shower turn on a moment later, and I grin to myself at the thought of Sophia trying to stay upright in the shower on shaky legs.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I have my hand on the knob, the other on the lock, but some faint instinct jangles in my gut. I hesitate, hungry enough to ignore it.

Long years of training and experience, however, mean I know better than to ignore my instincts.

I throw myself to the side, away from the door. A deafening blast leaves my ears ringing, and the door explodes inward in a storm of splinters—a shotgun. I hit the ground on my ass and roll backward to my feet. The towel droops off me, and I snag it, crouched and waiting. I have a split second to glance across the room at the rifles and pistols, uselessly lying across the room on the couch.

A black combat boot kicks the ruined door inward—it flies open and slams against the wall, shuddering halfway back toward the frame. The boot's owner steps through, a massive Binelli sweeping across the room. I still hear the shower running, but there is absolutely no chance Sophia didn't hear that blast.

I have no time to think about anything else, then. The breacher is pivoting my way in his sweep of the room. I whip the towel at his face, and in his attempt to bat it away, he gets the shotgun tangled. I lash my foot out in a front-kick, my heel slamming into his gut. He doubles over, gagging, and I snag the shotgun, towel and all, out of his hands. I slam the butt as hard as I can into the side of his skull, and I feel it give with awet crunch. I drop to a knee and find the trigger, tug it through the towel. The fluffy white fabric disintegrates as the slug rips through it, and I yank the towel away and toss it aside. My first slug left a giant hole in the wall just outside the door but didn't hit an enemy. It did buy me a few seconds, though.

The second tango steps through sideways, aiming where I would be if I was on my feet; he fires a burst as he crabwalks through the doorframe, but his rounds buzz over my head and chew up the floor just behind me.

My slug slams into his chest and sends him flying backward into the frame, blood spurting from his mouth; his body armor stopped the slug from penetrating, but the sheer blunt force trauma of the ultra-close-range blast caused some sort of severe internal damage.

Another burst rips through the doorway, a buzzsaw of bullets intended more to keep my head down and me from moving across the opening than to harm me. A flashbang rolls with a clatter across the marble floor. I react on instinct, using the butt of the shotgun like a golf club to whack the explosive back toward the enemy, and then curl over the shotgun and clap my hands over my ears, face buried in my thighs.

The blinding light and concussive noise is a sensory assault, leaving my already ringing ears ringing even worse. I surge to my feet, blinking away the blurring, coruscating, flashing afterimages, butt tucked against my shoulder, and step toward the doorway, firing blindly into the opening. After my first blast, I dart sideways and fire again, shoulder slamming into the far side of the frame. I fire a third time, jerk the barrel to my left a touch and fire a fourth time. I'm still firing mostly blind, as the afterimages still dance across my vision and the ringing in my ears leaves me off-balance and nauseated.

I hear an assault rifle chatter in a burst, burst, burst, and then feel a small soft hand on my left shoulder: Sophia, HKin her hands, as naked as I am, moving past me in a tactical crouch, firing off burst after devastating burst into the foolishly clustered group of tangos. They're all wearing body armor, so most of her shots that do hit don't kill, but leave them momentarily out of commission.

My sight is clearing and the ringing is abating now. I go for lethal headshots, putting slugs through skulls—the mess of gore painting the foyer is unbelievable.

The door to the other suite crashes inward, and Toro fills the opening, riflecrack-crack-cracking; he steps through diagonally, and Fonz follows him, limping so badly it's more of a one-legged hop. His aim is unaffected, however, and in short order every tango is down, either dead or badly wounded.

Toro, once the gunfire has been silenced, eyes the moaning, bleeding survivors with a cold glare, mutters to himself in Spanish, and then whips his rifle back up to his shoulder and double-taps those who aren't dead yet without moving from the doorway.

"I guess we know what you two were up to, eyyy?" Fonz says, grinning at me.

Sophia seems unaffected by both her nudity and Fonz's off-color joke. "Is anyone hit?" Her gaze flicks to me, rakes over me. "Ren, you're okay?"

“Yes,amor, I am unharmed. If I had hesitated another moment, I wouldn’t be."

Toro saunters back into the foyer from our suite, where he'd been finishing off the last survivors. His gaze rakes over Sophia with brief but blatant appreciation, and then he shakes his head like a dog and whips around, facing away. When Fonz doesn’t immediately follow suit, Toro yanks him around by the shirt, keeping hold so the injured man doesn't topple over.

Naomi's face peeks around the doorframe, eyes going wide at the godawful mess of gore bathing the walls, floor, and ceiling,and then fixing on Sophia's naked form, and then mine. I don't miss the way her eyes linger on certain portions of my anatomy before she squeezes her eyes shut, blushing. She vanishes, and reappears with a bathrobe in each hand, proffering them to us. We both gratefully shrug into them.

"We need to move out ASAP," Fonz says, uncharacteristically devoid of humor. "If this bunch found us and gained access, you can be sure more baddies are inbound. You lovebirds get your shit on and we can get scarce."

"Fonz is correct," Sophia says, her tone and expression once more hard, cold, and unforgiving—purely Inez, now. "Dress, gather whatever is necessary, and we will all meet in your suite in five minutes so we can plan our next move."

She turns on her heel and glides back into our room, an incongruous sight with her sopping wet hair sticking to her neck, wrapped in a thick, fluffy white spa robe, assault rifle in her hands, bare feet flashing beneath the too-big robe.

She vanishes into the bathroom again, slamming the door behind her with a resounding crash. I take a moment to drag the bodies out of our room so I don't have to look at them while I get dressed, and then close the door to the suite behind me.

My phone is buzzing—it's Bradley, our liaison. I answer it, ready to rip him a new asshole. "How thefuckdid they get up here?" I snarl, by way of hello.

The voice is not Bradley's. "Mr. Araujo, my name is Bruce, I'm the assistant head of security. Bradley was my immediate supervisor. They, uhhh…tortured and killed him for access. I don't know how they got into the Bellagio in the first place without being spotted, but rest assured we're on high alert. The authorities have been contacted, obviously, since the noise was reported by multiple guests. The owner of those suites is one of our most important VIPs, so as a courtesy, I'm giving youa heads-up so you can make your exit before law enforcement arrives."

"I appreciate it, Bruce. We'll be gone in a few minutes. I'm sorry to hear about Bradley."

"Me too, Mr. Araujo. He was a good man. He didn't give up the information easily."

"I don't doubt it. Goodbye." I end the call and then head for the bathroom.

I tap on the door and then let myself in. Sophia is hunched over the sink, slowing her breathing. "I heard the shots,” she whispers, “and I thought—I thought you…"