Alejandro is running full sprint, stroller wheels screaming behind him. Skippy’s corpse lurches around like a wet, sagging puppet.
Alejandro fires without breaking stride. His target drops from a rooftop. I track the fall but don’t slow down, heading straight for the open loading-dock doors. Inside means cover. Narrow walkways. Equipment. Places to bottleneck the idiots who think theycan corner me.
I’m ten feet from the door when I hear a different shot blast across the factory yard.
Deeper. Sharper. High-caliber.
A sniper.
The bullet whispers just past my afro. The dirt several feet to my right explodes in a tight puff. I feel the singed ends of my hair, feel the heat of the bullet that rushed through it.
Oh. Hell. No.
I turn, scanning, hunting—and then I see it. A glint on metal. A silhouette on top of the old water tower at the edge of the factory yard.
Cowboy hat tipped back so it doesn’t interfere with his scope.
The Texan.
Of course.
Colt Harrington. Little bitch baby.
My least favorite mosquito with a superiority complex.
I knew he wouldn’t let New York go. Not after I bested him on that rooftop. He’s been my rival since day one—a competition he invented because he couldn’t stand being anything but the best.
We shared the same initiation ring. Thirteen rounds. Neither of us managing to put the other down. That was the day Kenji stepped in, pulled me out and claimed me as his student.
The whole room gasped almost drowning out Colt’s muttered “mother fucker”.
And he has never, ever let it go.
Always number two.
Always in my shadow.
Always furious about it.
Of course he’d chase this job. Of course he’d risk everyone else’s bullets just for a chance to take me out and crown himself king.
Well, asshole. Not if I can help it.
He gives me a one-finger salute from the tower, and I hear the metallic click of him chambering another round.
I step backward until I’m inside the loading dock, out of his line of fire. Alejandro climbs into one of the platforms, hauls Skippy’s stroller up after him, the whole contraption rattling like a dying shopping cart.
“What’s the plan now?” he asks.
My eyes stay on the tower.
“I need to blow up that water tower.”
I’m on a mission.
Alejandro’s behind me wrestling Skippy’s busted stroller like it’s a cursed shopping cart from hell, wheels locking, frame wobbling, dead guy sloshing. It’s pathetic. And loud. And slowing us down.
I don’t wait for him.
