At Keira’s yell, Charlie’s instincts kicked to the forefront, and her body took over before her mind could catch up. She grabbed Carrigan and hauled her to the ground. They hit with a bone-jarring thud. She expected the other woman to screech and shove her off, but Carrigan pressed herself even closer to the floor and kept her head down.She’s done this before.
Charlie lifted her head to look around, finding Keira crouching under a table near the back of the room. She was paler than usual, but her eyes were bright and her expression determined. They stared at each other, and she couldn’t help feeling a bit ridiculous. “Keira, what’s—”
The rest of her sentence died in the boom of gunshots and the cascade of glass showering the seats they’d just been sitting in. Something hit the top of the table hard enough to knock it over, but she was already moving,shoving Carrigan in front of her and army-crawling across the floor to a more secure spot.Where are Liam’s men?
More shots rang out, and then the screech of tires. Charlie counted to ten, then twenty. At thirty, Carrigan twisted to face her, shaking glass out of her long,dark hair. “Well, shit, gold digger. I guess we have to be friends now, since you just saved my life.”
She hadn’t, though. If Keira hadn’t yelled, she wouldn’t have known there was danger until it was too late. Charlie pushed herself up to a crouching position, wincing at the cuts covering her forearms and knees. Most of them were small—though it was hard to tell with all the blood—but there was probably still some glass embedded.This is going to suck.
“You okay, Keira?”
“Yeah.” She sounded a little shaky, but the glass hadn’t reached her spot.
Charlie’s stomach lurched at the bullet holes in the wall above their table, though. If she’d been standing there…
She wasn’t. None of us were. Stop worrying about what-if andmove.
“Stay down.” Charlie didn’t think the shooters would come back around, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
Carrigan had her phone out. “Get back here now…Yes, I know I said you could grab food. Plans have changed.Now.” She hung up and immediately dialed again. “James. I’m fine.” Her eyes met Charlie’s, and she gave a wry smile at the lie. She was just as cut up, if not more so. “Okay, not totally fine. There was a drive-by.” A pause. “Yes, you’re right. The O’Malley house is closest. I’ll be there. Love you.”
Charlie belatedly realized she should probably be making a call of her own. She winced as she grabbed her phone,the move pulling on half a dozen cuts. The phone had barely rung when Aiden picked up. “What’s wrong?”
Of course he would know something was wrong. The only reason she would be calling was if plans had changed, and they never changed for positive reasons.Stop stalling and tell him what happened.She took a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm her racing heart or remove the shakiness from her voice. “There was a drive-by.”
“I’m on my way.”
“What? No. Aiden, you can’t. I’m okay. We’re all okay.”
She didn’t know if she was telling the truth about the O’Malley men who’d been stationed out front. It sounded like Carrigan had let her security detail go get food, since it didn’t seem necessary to double up. She swallowed hard and knew without a shadow of a doubt that they hadn’t made it if they’d been in the last place she’d seen them—right outside the window. “I…”
You can do this. You’ve faced down worse than this.
It was a long time ago, though.
She did her best to draw on her training about how to operate in an emergency. What had Carrigan said? “We’re coming back. We can get to the house faster than any other place—and it’ll be faster than it would be to wait for you and then turn around and go back.”
“I’m coming with a group of my men to meet you halfway. Can you reach the car?”
She started to say yes but stopped. Normal drive-by shootings—it was so sad that such a thing existed—were over as soon as the car drove away from the scene. But she couldn’t be sure there was anything normal about this situation. “I think so.”
“Then get your ass inthe car, bright eyes.”
She hung up and looked around the room. “Aiden’s sending men to meet us.” They had to get out of here. The restaurant staff hadn’t ventured out, and she wasn’t in the mood to hunt them down. “Keira, come on.”
The younger woman stood on shaky legs, her eyes too wide. “I’m going to kill that motherfucker.”
Charlie didn’t ask what she meant, just turned to Carrigan. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” She shoved to her feet, teetering a little in her heels. She made a face at the blood running down her legs. “I guess that’s one way to ruin a pair of shoes.”
“My least favorite way.” Charlie’s jeans had saved her legs from the worst of it, but Carrigan’s bare legs…“Do you have a doctor on staff?”
“Keira can call Doc Jones as soon as we get to the car.” She sighed. “You’re a New Yorker, right? I guess that means I’m driving.” She pulled a gun out of her tiny purse, checked to make sure it was loaded, and nodded. “Let’s go.”
They still had to get out of the restaurant. It made sense to leave the back way, into the alley, but Charlie had to know if there was some kind of body count.
If we hadn’t left today…No. She couldn’t afford to think like that. The men knew what they were potentially signing up for when they took jobs as enforcers for the O’Malleys.
