Trick’s cool gaze stays on Enzo’s face, and then Trick moves so fast I don’t register what’s happening until Enzo’s on the floor, his gun skidding away from him as he grabs his crotch. From under the table, Trick must have slammed a fist into Enzo’s balls. Jesus.
Trick stalks across the floor and has the gun in his hand while everyone else is still catching up. Mo holds out his hands, Gibson too holds up his arms in surrender. The dealer pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, watching the scene. Jack Murphy doesn’t move and neither do I.
On the floor, Enzo wheezes and clutches himself, spitting curses.
Then there’s a loud noise upstairs, a crashing, followed by more noise.
“What the fuck’s going on, Mo?” Enzo demands, sitting up.
Everyone else is frozen as footsteps pound down the steps. My breath catches. Connor McCann, aka C, and Sasha Stroviak, aka Anvil, appear with guns in hand.
C’s eyes go from Trick’s face where blood is trickling down from his scalp and then to Enzo on the floor.
Enzo looks at the stairs behind them, maybe looking for his muscle to storm in. No one comes.
“Mo, cash me out,” Trick says, his voice level as he pops the clip from the gun, wipes away fingerprints, and then sets it on the poker table.
“No problem.” Mo jerks into action, spilling cash into a bag and marching it over to Trick.
Enzo gets to his feet, almost foaming at the mouth with hatred. “You come busting in, McCann? Like you own the place?”
“Seems like,” C says with dead eyes. “You the cause of my boy springing a leak?”
“Seems like,” Enzo sneers, brash and unapologetic.
Blood continues to drip down the side of Trick’s head in a line just in front of his ear. He doesn’t touch it or acknowledge it as it drops onto his white dress shirt.
Murphy grins. “Should’ve tapped him lower, Palermo. He’s needed that pretty boy face rearranged for a long time. And that might even have gotten a rise out of him.”
“I’ve got what you’re looking for,” Anvil says, waving his fingers for Murphy to come at him.
No one sane would get into a fistfight with the mammoth anvil-fisted Stroviak, but at the moment I’m not sure any of these guys are sane.
Trick steps up to the table, and his hand takes my arm into a vise grip.
My head jerks up, startled.
“On your feet,” he orders.
I blink, trying to decide.
“Get up,” C barks.
I shoot to my feet, not quite steady.
Trick takes the bag of money from Mo and guides me toward the stairs. McCann goes up first, then us, then Anvil comes up them backward, gun on the room.
They move with economy and precision to a pair of SUVs. I spot at least one man lying unconscious on the ground with blood on his swollen face. My stomach twists. Milt was right. First and foremost, they’re violent criminals.
Trick opens the passenger seat of a Range Rover.
“Get in.”
I don’t hesitate. It’s definitely not the time to argue or do anything that would make them decide to leave me lying dead on the grass. Where is the FBI?
I buckle my seatbelt, not looking anywhere but straight ahead.
Trick gets in and starts the car. Rap blares from the speakers until he turns it down. He pulls away from the curb. Behind us there’s a second Range Rover with McCann and Stroviak in it.
