A twig snapped somewhere deeper in the yard. Kane’s head whipped toward the sound, his body going rigid. His hand moved instinctively toward his waistband.
“What was that?” Thomas whispered.
Kane held up a finger, listening. The silence stretched taut between us, broken only by the unmistakable crunch of footsteps on gravel—multiple sets, trying to move quietly but failing.
Kane’s eyes met mine for a split second.
He muttered something under his breath. Then louder, his voice shifting into something harder. “I’m done playing games with you, Georgiou.”
Before I could process what was happening, Kane’s gun was in his hand, the barrel pointed directly at my chest.
“Kane, what the—” Thomas started, his voice tight with shock.
“Both of you, shut up.” Kane’s voice carried across the yard, loud enough for anyone listening to hear clearly. “You think you can just walk into my territory and act like you own the place?”
Thomas’s weapon cleared his holster in one smooth motion, trained on Kane, and stepped in front of me.
A shot rang out—Kane firing into the air. The sharp crack echoed off the stacked cars around us.
“Stand down!” Kane shouted. “This is between me and them.”
More footsteps, closer now. At least three sets, maybe four.
“Kane!” A voice called out from somewhere near the front of the yard. “Everything all right back there?”
I didn’t recognize the voice, but it had the rough edge of another Grave Son.
“Just taking care of some business,” Kane called back. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Kane aimed wide again with another shot, this one slamming into the car door inches from my head.
Thomas looked at me, understanding dawning in his eyes. “He’s trying to maintain his cover.” Thomas lifted his weapon slightly and returned fire, the shot going deliberately high.
The moment Thomas’s gun went off, everything changed.
“Shots fired!” someone yelled from the front of the yard.
“We’re under attack!” came another voice.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted. Multiple weapons opened up, bullets ricocheting off the stacked cars around us with sharp, metallic pings that created a deadly symphony of ricochet and reverberation. The smell of gunpowder mixed with rust and oil, acrid and choking in the confined space between the towering metal walls.
Kane cursed under his breath. He had to keep up the charade now.
“Should we move in?” came a voice, closer now.
“I said I’ve got this!” Kane’s response was sharp, authoritative. “You want to explain to Colter why you didn’t trust me to handle these punks?”
The gunfire continued, but more sporadically now. Kane fired twice more in rapid succession, both shots hitting the ground near the car but nowhere close to actually hitting us.
“You got lucky today,” Kane said, loud enough to carry. “But if I see you sniffing around here again, you won’t walk away.”
Thomas elbowed me. “There’s a gap in the fence. We’ll get out, stay low, and wait for them to clear out.”
I nodded.
“Do we go after them?” One of Kane’s guys asked.
“Nah, Colter said no one touches them yet. Besides, I need to search that car and then get it crushed. Colter wants no evidence left.”
