Chapter 18 – Grey #2
“Get her out of here!” I shouted at Corv who was hauling AJ to her feet.
I aimed and fired, hitting an Ace square in the chest before he could get another shot on Rook. The fucker crumpled to the pavement as Rook danced through the rest of them, a beast set loose on a herd of sheep.
“Fuck that,” Ava Jade said, gasping as Rook was hit again. Corvus didn’t try to stop her as she sprinted forward, following her instead, already firing.
The glint of the sniper’s rifle above reflected in the moonlight, and I took off after them, making an uneven path.
“Don’t stay still,” I hissed at them as the first of the Aces turned their attention away from my brother and toward us. Big fucking mistake.
Rook grabbed the Ace by the head and twisted, the crack of snapping bone resounding in the street.
Headlights flashed over us before jarring to a stop, turning around to flee the scene.
The Ace directly in front of me lifted his gun to aim at my face, and I sped the final step, knocking it from his hand. But before I could fire a shot of my own, the whisper of steel cutting through wind filtered into my ears.
He went down with a silver pommel embedded in his neck.
Ava Jade’s hard eyes found mine, and I nodded. “Keep moving!”
She nodded back, going to Rook as three more Aces began to surround him. She pressed her back to his and threw another knife. The gurgling cry of a dying Ace echoed through the night, telling me her aim was true.
Rook dropped his mag and refilled it, hooking an arm around AJ’s waist to bring her to the ground as someone shot at her. As they both rose, blades and bullets flew. I rushed up and kicked one Ace in the back of his knee, sending him to the ground before pumping two bullets into his skull.
The screech of tires cut through the sounds of fighting and gunfire and my pulse picked up, doubling its tempo as I whirled to see the white van. To see its door opening and the men pouring out. Armed with a lot more than fucking handguns. An icy cold slunk down my spine.
Fuck.
The Aces never planned to go quietly. And they never planned to try to weather the storm. They were out for blood. Live or die. I should’ve fucking known. We should’ve known. Lenny Ace was nothing like his uncle was. He had no honor.
“Three o’clock!” I shouted, already firing, rolling to dodge a few stray shots.
“The alley!” Corvus bellowed. “Rook! Sparrow! Move! ”
Rook finished off the last Ace in front of him and grabbed Ava Jade, dragging her to the alley. She fought against his hold, fingers reaching to jerk one of her blades out of the body of a man at their feet. The only blade she had. The rest, she’d already thrown.
No. Bad idea. The alley would provide cover from the sniper, but it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Heat seared into my side, and I hissed, shouting as the realization that I’d been shot made the pain intensify.
“Grey!” Corvus was yelling, and I sensed Rook and Ava Jade had stopped.
A hail of gunfire sounded before I could move, and my eyes widened as I realized I was directly in its path, distracted.
A body knocked into mine and the pop! pop! of Corvus’ shots rang in my ears as he laid down cover fire, hauling me away. Grunting as a bullet grazed past his face, brilliant red streaming down to his chin.
The others had to be on their way out.
There was no way they couldn’t hear this. Right?
Even underground, with music pumping, Diesel would hear the pop of gunfire in the street outside, wouldn’t he?
And the camera, it would’ve picked up something. But was someone manning the cams right now?
God fucking damnit.
Corvus shoved me into the alley with Rook and AJ, and I stumbled back, hand clutching the gushing wound to my side.
“Fuck, Grey!” AJ was shouting, rushing to me, tearing my jacket back to see the blood seeping through my fingers.
“He’s hit!”
“We all are,” Corvus growled, hesitating in the mouth of the alley. His gaze flicked to Rook behind me, fixing him with a dark stare. “Get them out of here,” he muttered before turning back and running from the alley, drawing gunfire and the pounding of heavy booted feet after him.
“Corvus!” Ava Jade hollered, still clutching me. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
Her voice wobbled, and I didn’t dare look, couldn’t bear to see the pain I knew I would find in her eyes because she was right. And Corvus knew it.
“Fuck that,” Rook said, switching out his mag to the last one he had on him.
I did the same, extricating myself from Ava Jade, removing my hand from the seeping wound to my side. Getting up.
It didn’t seem to have hit anything important, and judging by the wetness leaking down my right ass cheek, the bullet had gone through and through. Blood loss would be my only issue. I’d survived worse.
“Stay here,” I tried, grabbing AJ by her wrist, knowing it was useless. “Find someplace to hide and call Diesel.”
She squinted at me, shaking her head once, slowly.
“Fuck, AJ.”
“ Move. ” Rook pushed between us, jogging out the mouth of the alley as the booted footsteps approached. It was too late now.
“You need to get a gun,” I told her, my voice hard. I lifted her hand to my mouth and kissed it, feeling the tacky wetness of blood smearing over my mouth.
She nodded, glancing down at her last blade clutched tightly in her fist. “We need to go.”
Outside, Rook roared as he engaged the half of them that didn’t take off after Corvus.
My brother needed me.
I let AJ’s hand go and swallowed, holding my breath against the pain as I raced from the alley.
I barely managed to dodge the hard side of a pistol as an Ace whipped it at my face, coming around the corner faster than a Mack truck.
I fell to my ass to avoid the hit, and AJ sank her blade into the fucker’s jugular, not stopping at a single stab, but going at it three, four, five times before she was satisfied, reaching down to help haul me back to my feet just in time for me to shoot the next one and for her to throw her blade into the chest of the last one coming for us.
I nodded to her, and she nodded back, but something over my shoulder caught her attention, and her face went whiter than the ghost Rook named her for.
My guts twisted.
Corvus coughed, a sound of gruff pain, and I turned to find him ten feet from the entrance to the club, surrounded in Aces as they took turns stomping on him. Their heavy booted feet kicked and pushed down, making him jerk and cough, blood coating his lips.
I shot wildly, rushing past Rook, who’d disarmed the three remaining Aces near the alley and was going at them with vicious fists.
I felt AJ on my heels, but we weren’t going to make it there in time.
An Ace, one I recognized from the meet at the warehouse drew his gun and aimed it low, directly at my brother’s head.
I fired, but the gun clicked uselessly against my hand, out of bullets. I tossed it, and a fear unlike anything I’d ever felt before gripped my heart in a vise. No. No, no, no.
The door to the underbelly of Sanctum opened and a body stumbled through, grinning, his easy expression morphing the instant he saw the scene before him. Drake lifted his gun from the back of his waistband and fired.
The head of the man who’d been about to shoot my brother kicked back, and he crumpled to the ground. Ava Jade launched herself onto the back of the Ace next to him, and he cried out as she sank her teeth into his neck.
I nicked the gun from the one next to him and took aim, firing one shot after another, my bullets blasting from the barrel in perfect time with Drake’s as the Aces in the circle around my brother went down one by one, taken by surprise.
Drake refilled his mag just as the door behind him smashed against the cement wall outside and Diesel came swiftly out, the others on his heels.
He wasted no time raising his gun, firing two rounds to finish off the two still doing a death dance with Rook.
I heard his outcry of rage at his prey having been taken from him, but he’d get over it.
“Sniper!” I warned. “Twelve o’clock”
Axel darted ahead to check it out, but it seemed the sniper had fled. There was no glint of metal barrel on the roof opposite us anymore.
“ What the fuck is going on out here? ” Diesel demanded, his face a mosaic of rage as he came to us, stooping to help a coughing Corvus from the asphalt.
“Fan out,” he bellowed to the Saints at his back. “Clean this mess up. Bring me any still breathing.”
“Son,” he said, giving Corvus a slight shake. He gripped Corvus by the face, forcing his eldest son to look at him. “Look at me.”
Corvus’ blinked, coming back to himself with a grimace. He jerked out of Diesel’s hard grip to spit blood onto the ground.
“Hey,” Diesel said, slapping his cheek. “Look at me.”
Diesel checked his eyes before judging the rest of him. “Are you hit?”
He lifted the hem of Corvus’ t-shirt, checking for injury, his gaze snagging on me. On the dark red staining the front of my jeans. “Christ, Grey,” he cursed, releasing Corvus to push my jacket out of the way and assess my wound.
“The fuck did you do that for?” Rook growled as he stalked closer. “I had it.”
But when he saw Dies’ face and Corvus’ distant gaze and beaten body, he stopped talking, his gaze fixing on Ava Jade instead, assessing her.
“Good, Bro?” Rook asked, slapping Corvus on the back, making him cough again.
“Yeah,” Corvus said, his voice garbled as he tugged away from Ava Jade’s helping hands, standing on his own. “Good.”
“Get me a fucking kit,” Diesel hissed at no one in particular, pushing hard against the wound to my side, making air rush in through my clenched teeth.
“Fuck.”
“Rook, get over here,” Diesel demanded, and Rook came around. “Hold this.”