“The fourth?”
“No, thecode.”
She gave him a huge smile. “Ah. Now I see. Thank you so much.”
Romero smiled back and dragged Solene closer. Then he blinked in confusion, and Deacon watched a painful expression cross his face.
Solene darted away, her hands unbound and no longer behind her back. A knife stuck out of Burleigh’s chest. “Fuck you, asshole.” She hurried to Deacon’s side. Vi didn’t raise her gun. She was about to say something when Romero’s backup arrived.
Violet fired even as she was shot from behind. She dropped the phone, then grabbed it and lunged behind the couch as more shots sank into Solene’s comfortable sofa.
Deacon was dizzy trying to keep up. No, he was dizzy period.
“Behind you,” Solene yelled, and he turned to see a dead gunman, shot by Vi’s pistol. “She saved us. I think.” Solene appeared shaken, angry, and worried as she tried to stop his bleeding.
“You have a half dozen more converging,” Vi said, her voice filled with pain. She scooted back on the floor, then toward the side door leading to Solene’s back deck. “Good luck.”
She darted outside even as a familiar roar made his head ache. “Traitor.”
“Hammer?” He blinked and saw Hammer race into the room, gun at the ready as he followed Vi outside. Seconds later he returned and ducked as more bullets fired through the glass. “We have company.”
They must have been on a boat, because Solene’s backyard was on the Sound.
Deacon wanted to ask questions, but he grew lightheaded, heard Hammer yelling at Solene to put pressure on his wounds, then swore he saw Hammer and Noel battling more assailants. And the lights went out.
