Page 68 of To Catch A Rook
“I don’t want to shoot you, Conan, but I’m not willing for Blondie to lose a limb tonight.” I kept my gun trained on him, nodding my head toward the door. “Toss it.”
Another metallic click of a bullet in a chamber startled me. Hillary held her own pretty little silver gun in her grip, and by the look in her eyes, she knew how to use it.
“Drop the gun, Lucky. You shouldn’t be here.”
Lord have mercy. If this woman got any sexier, I’d be locking her up in my bedroom til the end of time.
“Jesus, Blondie. I’m trying to rescue you from a fuckin’ barbarian, here. Mind telling me why you’re all exorcising your demons on each other?”
I’d let her exorcise her demons on me. Her split lip, flushed face, and bruised torso in a sports bra made her look like a warrior straight out of hell. Turns out, I was into that.
The faint whistle of metal zipping through the air was my only warning a blade was coming for me, but I was too late.
“Fuck!” I roared. A tiny but lethal throwing dagger speared my right hand. I dropped the gun and gripped my wrist. My gaze snapped to a now very-alert Aaron who glared metaphorical daggers back at me too.
The three of them started firing off words in rapid Spanish, their attention and weapons no longer trained on me while I bled rivulets all over the unfinished floor. Now that I was impaled, I wasn’t a threat or something.
“I don’t like your friends, Blondie,” I muttered as I tore off the sleeve of my shirt and wrapped it around my wrist as a makeshift tourniquet.
I sat down on the floor, listening to the three of them angrily snap at each other; fully willing to wait them out. Con men were patient. This certainly wasn’t the stickiest situation I’d ever gotten myself into. I was semi-confident, if worse came to worse Hillary wouldn’t kill me.
Mostly.
Plus, I couldn’t complain it was a boring Tuesday night anymore.
It wasn’t until a name—Alvarez—cropped up that I snapped to attention.
“What the fuck do you lot want with Alvarez?”
Their attention turned back to me. The three of them stared at me with suspicious eyes filled with dark intent. I didn’t like where this was going.
The bloodied man who looked every bit a real-life Viking stalked over to me and gripped my shoulder with a massive mitt, dragging me forward onto the plastic pooled with little puddles of blood.
More rapid-fire Spanish with aggressive hand gestures. Arguing and counter-arguing. Mostly debating whether or not to off me, if I was reading the room right.
When Kellan cocked his gun at my head again, stress sweat beaded along my hairline.
She wouldn’t let him kill me, would she? Not my Blondie?
The thought died a fiery death when her own gun came up to point—I was too fixated on Kellan’s weapon, I couldn’t tell where it was aimed exactly, but I had my suspicions.
“We will see what he knows.”
Aaron’s voice broke through their squabble. Had to give the guy credit, he could be as commanding as the other two, even with a smucked up face. He rose from his courtside seat and limped toward me.
Okay, now I was probably in real trouble.
The three stared down at me, all imposing and angry, and I started calculating how I was going to get out of this mess. A bit late, really, but I’d really been convinced I’d made enough inroads with Blondie I wouldn’t need to. Hopefully, I could live and learn for the next job.
It didn’t look promising.
Snarled Spanish. Insults. Three Alphas with their little Beta cornered. If I could just–
Hillary’s English reply broke through the noise.
“Lauchlan,” she stated coolly. My full name dripped with false security off her devilish tongue. “It’s yourluckyday. Welcome to Fight Club. If you want to walk out of here alive, here’s your initiation.”
Fuck.
Nope.
I didn’t like that one bit.
Uh, oh. Looks like the Rook is caught! How is Lucky going to get out of this mess?
In the ultimate game of cat and mouse, who will be the victor?
The Rook, The Knight, The King, or the Queen?