Chapter Twelve #2
The shot fired -- a single, deafening crack that punched through the control I’d been holding since the first one went off.
The impact caught me high on the left side, just below the shoulder, and the force of it drove me sideways into the edge of a table before my knees hit the floor.
Not a clean hit -- the bullet had caught me at an angle, had torn through muscle rather than hitting bone -- but enough to knock the air from my lungs and send the Glock skidding across the floor beneath a neighboring table.
I got one hand under myself and tried to push up, but my left arm didn’t answer the way it should, and the warmth spreading across my ribs told me everything I needed to know about why.
I rolled onto my back instead, keeping the Glock in sight even as my vision began to soften at the edges.
Fifteen feet away, the shooter was turning in a slow circle, the gun moving from table to table, from cluster to cluster, his voice rising into something that wasn’t quite words.
“-- shouldn’t have --” he was saying, the weapon jerking with each broken phrase. “-- told her I’d --”
Behind him, Slider was moving -- slow, careful, one hand still below the bar where I knew he kept a sawed-off for emergencies.
Ten feet to my left, Cass had made it to the edge of the stage and was trying to lower herself to the floor without making noise.
At the far end of the room, the back door stood partially open, a sliver of parking lot visible through the gap.
I pressed my free hand hard against the wound, feeling the give of damaged tissue beneath my palm. Not bleeding as bad as it could have been -- the bullet had gone through clean, had missed the major vessels -- but enough that the floor beneath me was already slick.
The shooter was still talking, still turning, the gun moving in arcs that grew wider with each pass. “-- fucking lying to me --” His voice pitched up, cracked in the middle. “-- should have known she’d --”
I’d seen it before -- the unraveling of a man who’d brought a gun to a conversation and was just now realizing what that meant.
The moment when the weapon stopped being a threat and started being a promise -- when the thing in his hand became the only way the story could end.
I’d been on both sides of that moment enough times to know exactly how many seconds we had left.
Five. Maybe six. Not enough to get to the Glock, not enough to reach the door, not enough to do anything but wait for whatever came next and hope it wasn’t as bad as it could be.
My thoughts didn’t go to the club or the compound or the man with the gun.
They went straight to Willa. I’d stood up in front of my brothers and claimed her and those babies, and I would do it again -- would make the same choice, take the same risk, pay the same price -- without a single moment’s doubt.
The warmth beneath my palm had spread to my side, was soaking into the waistband of my jeans with the insistence of a wound that wasn’t going to wait.
I kept my breathing even, kept my focus on the Glock fifteen feet away, kept my weight balanced on my right side where the bullet hadn’t found its mark.
And then I heard it -- cutting through the shooter’s broken monologue, through the careful silence of the room, through the white noise that had started to fill my ears -- the sound of boots hitting the floor in numbers.
Not one set of footsteps or two, but five, maybe six, moving with the purpose of men who’d heard gunfire before and knew exactly what it meant.
The Kings. I didn’t have to look to know it.
The sound of that many men moving with that kind of focus was something I’d heard my whole adult life -- had been part of, had helped create, had built my understanding of the world around.
The rhythm of boots on concrete, of voices calling positions, of weapons being cleared and safeties being clicked off, was as familiar as my own heartbeat, as much a part of me as the cut on my back or the ring on my finger.
The shooter’s voice pitched up into something ragged and cornered, the gun swinging wildly now, no clear target, no plan beyond the next three seconds.
One chance. That was all I needed. One clear shot, one moment of opportunity, that would let me reach the weapon and end this before it got any worse.
I pressed harder against the wound, teeth clenched, and for one suspended moment, I was somewhere else entirely -- not on the floor of a strip club with a bullet in my side, but in a kitchen three miles northeast, watching Willa stir honey into a cup of tea.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders, her feet bare against the hardwood, the curve of her belly visible beneath the thin cotton of her sleep shirt.
She’d looked up when I’d come in, had smiled that particular smile that was still so new I didn’t have a name for it yet, and had said, “I was starting to think you’d changed your mind. ”
About her. About us. As if claiming her and those babies could have been anything but the most deliberate choice of my life.
“I’m here,” I’d told her. “Not going anywhere.”
The memory faded as quickly as it had come, replaced by the floor beneath me and the heat of blood beneath my palm. The room was still loud -- still full of the chaos that came with gunfire and fear and men moving with purpose -- but it felt distant somehow.
I kept my eyes open as long as I could -- kept them fixed on the ceiling, on the point where the stage lights cut across the exposed pipes, on the future that was waiting for me three miles northeast if I could just hold on long enough to reach it.
The future -- our future -- was still there, waiting for me to claim it.
I made my decision with my eyes open. I held onto that, onto her, onto them, as the room erupted around me and the edges of my vision went dark.