CHAPTER 27 #3
Her eyes widened, and her gaze dropped to my hand, then snapped back to my face. I gave her one last desperate look, then forced myself to step back and push through the staff door Cruz had just disappeared behind.
The door shut behind me with a soft click, and I stopped dead.
Cruz stood maybe five feet away, his hands raised slightly, palms out. In front of him, the saleswoman held a compact pistol steady, the barrel pointed center mass at Cruz’s chest. Her face was calm, but her finger was on the trigger, and her eyes were cold.
Another example of how the palms out move had never done anything. I needed to start making a record of this.
Cruz’s usual smirk was gone, and in its place was the flat, lethal calm he wore when things went bad and he was plotting.
The saleswoman didn’t turn toward me. She kept the gun trained on Cruz as though she’d been waiting for me to walk through that door. “Jagger,” she said evenly.
I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. “Claudia. That’s what you told me your name was.”
Her lip curled, and this time she did turn her head just enough for me to see the contempt in her eyes.
“I told you my name was Brandy, you piece of shit,” she snarled at me .
. . with an interesting new Irish lilt. Her gaze flicked back to Cruz, the gun never wavering. “But my real name is Saoirse.”
I groaned. “Do you know how insufferable he’s going to be knowing he was right? He’s going to be impossible to deal with. So thank you very much.”
Cruz tilted his head, the calm in his eyes sharpening into something else, like he’d just spotted a flaw in her armor and was already planning how to exploit it. “Well, Saoirse,” he said silkily, ignoring me, “did O’Dalaigh tell you you’d die if he sent you here? Or did he leave that part out?”
She hissed at him, low and venomous. “Shut up.”
The gun trembled—just a fraction—but we both saw it.
“It’s a simple question,” Cruz continued. “Did you come here thinking this would be a one-way ticket to his dick . . . or what?”
She bared her teeth at him. “Cormac O’Dalaigh loves me.”
For half a beat, there was silence as we stared at her incredulously. Then Cruz barked out a laugh. I followed right after him, the sound ripping from my chest. “Claudia,” I drawled, “that’s hilarious.”
Her eyes went glacial, and a second later a shot cracked through the room. The sound was deafening in the tight space.
The bullet screamed past Cruz’s ear, so close I saw a strand of his hair lift with the heat of it, and plaster exploded from the wall behind him.
Cruz didn’t flinch . . . but we both stopped laughing.
“You’re not cackling now, are you?” she asked as her gaze slid to me. “And by the way . . . Jagger,” she said, her voice turning almost conversational, “your little girlfriend isn’t so stupid.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw.
“She watches, and she listens, and eventually she’s going to start asking the right questions.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked casually like she’d just mentioned a scheduling conflict instead of a potential nuclear detonation in my personal life.
Saoirse smiled. “Just enough.”
Well, that was fun. It better not mess with my plans, or I was going to kill her and then bring her back and kill her again . . . out of spite.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement, a shadow where there hadn’t been one a second ago. Maddox was crouched low behind a stack of shipping boxes near the back wall. He nodded at me.
Cruz must have texted him the second he’d realized who Claudia was.
Saoirse, Jagger. Get it together. You’re just being rude at this point.
Cruz shifted his weight subtly, a simple adjustment that masked his calculation of distance and angle. “Saoirse,” he said gently, “you’ve got one chance here. Put the gun down. We can help you.”
She threw her head back and laughed, and it was grating against my ears, if I was being honest.
“Help me?” she repeated. “I don’t need your help.”
The gun stayed steady, trained on Cruz’s chest.
“Cormac’s men are already here,” she continued. “We’re buying up properties on Fremont Street through shell companies. We’ve been moving shipments through your docks . . . stealing things from right under your noses.”
At that, Cruz and I exchanged a look. I was going to get that weapons shipment back from them really fucking soon.
“You think this is your city?” she went on. “It’s not. It’s changing. It’s already changed. And when I walk back to him with your head”—her eyes glittered—“I’ll be richly rewarded.”
Cruz smiled faintly. “That so?”
“Our men are everywhere. Cops. Council members. Judges. We’ve been laying the groundwork for years.”
Maddox shifted another inch behind the boxes.
Saoirse’s expression turned almost reverent. “The end of the Syndicate starts today.”
“Its technical name is the Vale Syndicate,” I offered.
“What?” she snapped as Maddox got closer.
“I just mean it’s really insulting if you don’t call us by the right name, ya know? Unless you actually do prefer to be called Claudia,” I said.
She screeched and pulled the trigger. The shot exploded through the room at the same time that Maddox lunged, one arm hooking around her throat and the other slamming into her wrist.
He was one second too late.
Cruz’s body jerked as the bullet hit him in the chest. He staggered back a step, then another, before dropping hard to one knee.
The gun clattered across the concrete as Maddox wrenched her arm behind her back. She fought like something feral, heels scraping, nails clawing, spitting curses in Irish as he forced her down.
Thank fuck Cruz always wore a vest.
He coughed once, looking mildly inconvenienced as he pressed a hand to his chest. “Fucking hell,” he muttered. “That one’s going to bruise.”
I exhaled slowly and stepped forward. Saoirse froze when she saw my expression. She should be scared. This was taking far too long. Eden was out there waiting for me in fucking lingerie . . . and what if she’d heard those shots?
Maddox had Saoirse pinned now, her cheek smashed to the floor and her arm twisted high enough to dislocate if he felt like it. She thrashed once more, then went still when he tightened his grip.
“You really should’ve listened,” Cruz said, pushing himself to his feet with a grimace. He rolled his shoulder like he’d just taken a hard tackle instead of a bullet.
I crouched down in front of her. “You know what O’Dalaigh’s biggest mistake is?” I asked conversationally.
She glared at me, breathing hard.
“Thinking we had no idea about any of that.”
Her eyes flickered as I tilted my head.
“The police are good, by the way. We dumped your three men into Lake Mead three months ago.”
Maddox clicked his tongue. “And you took care of Paulie’s place, didn’t you?” he asked me.
I grimaced at the reminder of the condoms . . . and the sock. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Maddox patted her back. “Cormac’s been sloppy.”
“That’s a lie,” she hissed, thrashing against him again.
Behind me, Cruz stepped up, adjusting his jacket over the vest. “You won’t get rewarded for this,” he said. “You’ll get forgotten.”
Her jaw trembled as Cruz crouched beside me, his voice dropping to something lethal and cold. “And as for the end of the Vale Syndicate?” He leaned closer to her ear. “It doesn’t start today.”