Chapter 32
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Kieran
You ever read about Pavlov’s dogs? You know, the scientist who conditioned dogs to drool every time a bell rang?
I was kinda like them. Conditioned to a sound. But it wasn’t a bell, and it wasn’t to drool.
It was to the sound of a gun being cocked. The second the light yet ominously distinct click cut through whatever the hell else was going on, I went on instant defense.
Except this time it wasn’t to defend myself but someone else.
I moved fast, pushing Haz behind me while whipping out my gun, flipping off the safety, and taking aim.
“Wait!” Haz cried, trying to lunge around me. “Don’t shoot!”
It was utterly preposterous that he thought I wasn’t about to put a bullet in every asshole preparing to raid this place. I mean, technically, we talked about this. Shooting people was literally my job.
Among other ways of disposal.
Clearly, he had no respect for my job because the little hazard attempted to dive between my legs. It was as though he didn’t even try to be safe. Luckily, he got tangled in my coat and it blocked him. Inspector Gadget has nothing on me.
“Rett,” Haz called, and I realized he was worried about his friend who was literally in the line of fire from both sides. Usually, collateral damage didn’t bother me. Hell, if you were in my way, you deserved what you got. But shooting my baby doll’s only friend was probably a really bad idea.
“Rett, come here,” I said evenly without lowering my gun.
Nearby, Ghost shifted, but I kept on the four men standing at the threshold of the store, all of them with guns.
Rett stepped back.
“Don’t move,” a man in the center demanded. I recognized him from the shower at the gym.
Rett froze, hands shooting up like he was surrendering.
He was shaking so much that I could see his fingers tremble from feet away.
It was true I still suspected him of being a drug addict, and I also questioned if he was good enough to be a friend to Haz.
But seeing him standing there in the line of fire, his thin body quaking, did not give me any sort of satisfaction.
“He doesn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.
“The fact that you don’t want him to get shot says otherwise,” a familiar voice cooed.
The men parted, and Grimaldi stepped through, crossing the threshold into the Neon Reef.
I was surprised he even fit through the door with the amount of superiority swelling his head.
He was dressed head to toe in black, and the arrogance on his face shifted into gleaming malice as he pulled out a gun and jammed it so hard into Rett’s temple that he cried out.
Ghost made an inhuman sound, and my shoulders tensed. I didn’t know his connection to Rett, but that sound told me it was deep enough to sever the leash he kept on his temper.
Grimaldi’s attention flashed to Ghost, and a smile crept across the lower half of his face. “Tell you what. Let’s make a trade.” Grimaldi looked at me. “This one for the one you shield.”
A stricken sound ripped out of Haz, and he bolted around me.
“No!” Rett yelled as I dragged Hazard back, my grip so tight there would likely be bruises. Better bruises than bullet holes.
“Is that a no?” Grimaldi mused. “All you have to do is push him over here. You’ll be twelve million richer.”
“I already told you to fuck off,” I snarled, finger twitching on the trigger.
Fuck, I was not accustomed to this. Standing still.
Usually, I went all in, guns blazing, without an ounce of hesitation.
I was a man of action, but I was hesitating because Hazard and Rett were caught in the crossfire.
The adrenaline buzzing through my veins screamed, Go! But my heart was screaming to wait.
Grimaldi nodded. “You did, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why you would turn down so much money for such a simple job.
Why you would break into my home.” The smug son of a bitch preened as if he were a genius.
“Imagine my surprise when I learned the reason is you are fucking my mark.”
His? Oh, fuck this. “Rett, move!” I bellowed.
Rett burst forward, and I squeezed off a shot, the bullet slamming into Grimaldi and making him jerk. Another bullet hit him, and he dropped to the floor.
Grimaldi’s men opened fire, and a storm of bullets erupted.
Still firing, I dove at Haz, dragging him around a display that was hit the second we were behind it.
Sand and something that looked a lot like fish food created a thick cloud as it exploded.
Taking advantage of the distraction, I shoved the entire display forward.
Someone shouted as it fell, and we lunged behind the counter for better cover.
Making sure Haz was concealed, I moved to the other side to peer around the edge in time to see Ghost burst up from behind a row of tanks as one of the men moved past. Surprised, the man fired, the shot going wide and slamming into a tank, shattering the glass instantly.
Water burst everywhere as Ghost grabbed the long muzzle of the man’s gun and pulled it from his grip.
He shouted, and Ghost turned it around on him to blast him in the chest. The man flew back, crashing into a tank and making it shatter too.
More water whooshed out, saturating the floor.
Haz wailed, “No!” and bolted up, a perfect opportunity for one of these bastards to fire a shot in his direction.
I threw myself at him, the collision knocking us onto the floor as wood exploded and splinters fell like rain.
“Stay down!” I demanded before vaulting over the counter toward the man who’d just tried to murder my heart.
The asshole’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back, pointing the gun right at me.
I kept coming, more than willing to take a bullet so I could send him directly to hell.
The click, click, click of the empty chamber made panic transform his face as he looked between the useless metal and me.
I smiled, nice and toothy like, and he threw the gun, which I batted away before dragging him forward by the front of the shirt.
He struggled and grunted, pulling a knife from somewhere and stabbing it into the side of my arm. I glanced down at the blade sticking out of me and then back at him.
His eyes darted to the side and then bulged when he realized that stunt only pissed me off more. Still holding him, I pulled the blade from my arm and buried it in his gut.
“This is for ripping my coat,” I intoned, twisting the handle.
A gurgling sound erupted from his throat, blood pooling around his lips.
I yanked the knife free. “And this is for trying to kill what is mine.”
The man shook his head adamantly, an effort made in vain because I plunged the blade into the side of his neck and dropped his lifeless form at my feet.
More glass shattered, and I turned just as Hazard rushed from behind the counter toward the tanks.
“Haz, no!” I yelled.
“They’ll die!” he protested, disappearing behind the first row.
One of the men in the back turned to follow, and I dropped him with one shot. Before I could even lower my gun, Ghost rushed past. I turned just as he barreled into the guy sneaking up on me with a knife in his grip.
Ghost caught him by the waist and bulldozed him back, slamming into the front door, which splintered on impact.
The two men fell through, glass raining all over the sidewalk as they continued grappling.
The fight lasted maybe two seconds before Ghost ended it, leaving the dead man right there on the concrete.
He stepped through the busted door, boots crunching over the debris. “We got a runner,” he said, pointing to the area where Grimaldi had gone down with two bullets in him.
Because of course he wasn’t dead. I never said death was easy, just that it was final.
“Fuck,” I spat, racing toward the back of the store, feet splashing through puddles as I went. “Hazard!”
His brown head popped up from where he was bent over the floor. “Help us,” he called, transferring a fish from his hand into a tank that wasn’t broken.
Rett was doing the same, both of them wet and frantic as they scooped up fish after fish.
Clearly, they were fucking insane.
“Now isn’t the time to worry about those fucking fish!” I demanded, marching forward.
A bullet cut through the space between us, slamming into another tank and rupturing the glass. The yellow sold sign Haz had taped to the front just a little while ago fluttered, and the entire front cracked open, water and glass spraying everywhere.
“Our babies!” Hazard wailed and rushed forward as a bloodied Grimaldi appeared, snatching Hazard around the waist and pressing a gun to his head.
My blood ran cold.
“Scop!” Hazard panicked as if he didn’t notice he was now a hostage. As if the life of that ugly bottom-feeder was more important than his own.
Rett dashed forward, and Grimaldi pulled the gun from Haz to aim it at him.
“No!” Ghost roared, leaping around me just as the gun fired.
Ghost’s body jerked, and he dropped like dead weight into the water and glass. He didn’t stay down, though. He scrambled up, grabbing Rett and forcing him beneath him as red soaked his shirt.
“You’re shot!” Rett exclaimed, trying to get free and see his injury. Ghost, outweighing him pinned him down, keeping his body sheltered.
I raised my gun, ready to end this once and for all.
Grimaldi shifted, making Haz his armor even as he brought the gun back to his head.
“You know, you were right,” Grimaldi mused as though my friend bleeding on the floor and my everything in his grasp were the highlight of his day. “There’s no reason to send men to deal with my problems when I can just deal with them myself.”
Hazard shouted and started kicking and punching like a wild animal.
“Haz, no,” I said, trying to find a shot as he struggled. I’d rather shoot myself than accidentally hit him.
Grimaldi noted my hesitation and smiled.
My heart stopped, my roar of denial silenced by the boom when he pulled the trigger.
My vision went black, agony blinding me as an inhuman howl gurgled from the deepest, darkest part of me. Deafened, too, by agony, I didn’t hear the sound, but the way it vibrated the room was undeniable. The shadows I had tangled with all my life swelled, and I let them fuel me as I lunged.
Being blind and deaf was no hindrance with death as my guide, for those senses were weak compared to what I unleashed.
Like a tornado, I ripped through the room, across the water and broken glass, firing off a few shots and then tossing aside the weapon because I wanted to drain any life Grimaldi had left with my bare hands.
I didn’t think, bowing to my baser instincts to exact revenge even while knowing there would never be enough.
My vision flickered, a dark veil lifting just enough to see a bloodied Grimaldi under me, eyes bulging as my hand gripped his throat like a vise. The blue tinge to his lips was too colorful. I wanted him colorless. I wanted him obsolete like a black-and-white TV.
His eyes flickered between emptiness and fear. A battle between life and death.
Something slammed into my side, but I shook it off, gouging my fingers into the bullet hole I’d put in Grimaldi before. His mouth gaped in pain, a sudden contrast to the softness suddenly breaking into the wrath consuming me.
A tickle of hair against my beard made me blink, and then Haz’s face filled my vision.
I let go of death and grabbed on to life, filling my hands with it and feeling my chest ache. “Baby,” I rasped. “Oh God.”
“I’m fine, Kieran,” he told me. “I’m fine.”
I couldn’t quite understand, but damn, his face was beautiful. Even with tears staining his cheeks and a rivulet of blood trickling from his ear.
Blood.
My hands gripped his face tighter, my thumb swiping through that bright-red stain.
“I moved. The bullet went by my head,” he explained.
“Blood,” I said, staring at my stained thumb.
“It was loud,” he said. “Think my eardrum burst.”
“Alive,” I stated.
He nodded.
I let out a sob and crushed him to me, death succumbing to life.
Someone wheezed. I looked down, realizing I was still pinning Grimaldi and he was fighting for his life. His face was busted, the blood vessels in his eyes burst, lips swollen, and his throat crushed.
“Death doesn’t give. Death only takes,” I snarled and snapped Grimaldi’s neck.