“Hold it steady.” Half out the window despite his broken ribs, Kincaid emptied his mag into the back of the Ford getaway car. “Jesus Christ. Do you need the definition for hold it steady?” Popping back inside the car as bullets flew past, he dropped his empty onto the floor. With sure, quick movements, he slapped in a full load.
“It’s not the driving, numbnuts. It’s the shooting.”
In truth, shooting out the tires of a fast-moving vehicle, employing the highly effective evasive technique of fishtailing from side to side, wasn’t as easy as it looked on TV. And considering they were trying to recover these assholes alive, fishtailing tires were Kincaid’s only option.
Unfortunately, Francisco and Ryerson weren’t required to play by the same set of rules. A spray of bullets hit the center of the hood, messing up the Shelby’s custom paint job and decorating the windshield. A couple of holes were near enough to Kincaid to be labeled close calls.
The bad guys were equipped with rapid-fire submachine guns. One squeeze of the trigger and they were dodging multiple rounds as opposed to single bullets. The superior weaponry of their adversaries made their nines look like peashooters.
“You good?” Chase asked. Hitting the gas hard enough to buckle pavement, he brought the Shelby as close to the other car as he dared without getting them both killed in the process.
“Never better,” Kincaid said, shoving his upper unit out the window for another go at the moving target.
Chase had to admit Grant Kincaid had come as a total surprise. The man had his shit together. While bullets whizzed by his head, he pumped off lead in a slow, steady rhythm.
“Any time now would be great,” Chase shouted.
The fifth bullet found its mark. The right rear tire blew, sending the speeding getaway car into a rear-end swagger of epic proportions. Regaining control, Ryerson slowed but didn’t stop.
When Chase saw Francisco take aim through the rear window with a matching set of fully automatic submachine guns, his preservation instincts took over. Grabbing Kincaid by the seat of the pants, Chase yanked him inside and slammed his feet on the clutch and the brake simultaneously.
He braced himself as the Shelby screamed to a sliding stop, heated rubber digging in and shredding up against asphalt. Still in range, thetack, tack, tackof metal hitting metal had him ducking low and shooting blindly through the windshield. Kissing face with the glove box, Kincaid did the same.
When both guns were empty and the shooting stopped, Chase took a quick peek over the dash. Their target disappeared into the shimmering horizon, the Shelby a smoking wreck left in its wake.
“You think we hit anything?” he asked, sitting upright and wiping blood off his arm. He looked for a hole and found a nice graze, bleeding like a bastard and stinging like a bitch.
Kincaid grunted, brushing glass out of his hair. “Fuck. I hope so.”
The engine on the Shelby sputtered, wheezed, and gave up the fight. “Sorry about your car.”
Looking him in the eye, Kincaid grinned. “Wasn’t my car.” He waved his gun, taking in the wreckage. “Belonged to Gray’s brother, Sam, or Adam, or whatever the fuck you assholes call him. By the way, who the hell is Tara?”
A deep dread settled into the pit of Chase’s stomach. “Shit. You didn’t know about her?”
“No.” Kincaid holstered his metal and ripped a strip from the bottom of his threadbare Tijuana T-shirt. Batting Chase’s probing fingers away from his bloody arm, he handed over the makeshift bandage. “Gray told me Bodak has her. She wanted to offer herself in trade.”
In an instant, Chase’s dread solidified into a rock-solid mass.
As if Kincaid could read minds, he groaned, shaking his head. “Let me guess. You weren’t going to tell her.”
“She must’ve overheard.”
“Oh, she overheard, fucknut. What now?”
Eyeing the van rolling up behind them in the rearview, Chase knocked his head against the back of the seat and left it there. “Now we go face Gray.”
“Shit.” Kincaid mirrored Chase’s body language and slammed his cranium against the headrest, possibly hoping to knock himself out before she did it for him. Then shaking his head left to right and back again, the coward tried to bail. “You know, there’s no real need for me to be there.”
“Nice try, Kincaid. You’re not getting off that easy.”
“Well, thank God you’re an idiot,” the bastard said, staring straight ahead and sounding as relieved as he looked, an evil grin taking over his goateed features. “You’re in way deeper shit than I am.”
“Copy that,” Chase acknowledged, unable to refute the argument.
Hands clenched into fists,Gray stood in the last place on earth she wanted to be. In her father’s COMMs center, accompanied by several members of the JTT. Her heart broken and still hemorrhaging in her chest, she faced off against the colonel in a battle of wills she had no intention of losing. “You don’t understand. Tara’s the one who matters.”
The sound of multiple sets of boots reached her before Chase and the rest of his team came through the doublewide doors. She didn’t turn, refusing to acknowledge their presence. Despite what their thoughts were on the matter, not one of them had any say in the choices she made. She was going to Savannah and to hell with anyone who tried to stop her.
