Eyeing the bullet spray, he frowns, dropping out his empty clip from his gun and slapping in a new one. “They’re hemming us in, but they’re not shooting at us directly.”
The left gunman is back in my sights.
Breathe, focus, pull the trigger.
The shot goes slightly off but it’s enough, the side of his neck and shoulder explode in a spray of gore and he falls out of the helicopter, dropping like a sack of meat.
There’s a rush of boots I can barely hear over the chopper blades, but when the door slams open, my heart drops. They’re not ours.
Lucas and I swing our guns toward the newcomers, they’re the threat now and feck, they’re good. We benefit because it's clear now that they’re not trying to killme. Every one of them is shooting at Lucas and tendrils of panic are curling around my heart. He takes down two of them and lets out a pained grunt.
“Shite, your shoulder!” He’s still firing grimly as blood streams through the hole torn in his suit jacket.
I canna let go of my gun to try to stop the bleeding. My next shot is clean, the man flies back, half his head missing.
Three down.
The dust from the pulverized concrete is so thick that no one can see where they’re shooting and the helicopter blades are whipping up a frenzy of debris as it lands.
“Next pillar over!” Lucas shouts, and we roll. It’s got to be killing him, rolling on the wound.
Feck. The helicopter doors open and two more men jump out.
It’s Dubois’ people. It has to be.
Lucas must come to the same conclusion. “There’s a concrete lip that runs along the front of the parked cars.” He grabs my arm. “Stay low and run to the stairwell, ye can skirt the back of the gunmen and get down the back way. I’ll hold them off.”
I shake my head frantically.
“GO!”he roars.
There’s a new volley of gunfire, huge, percussive ammunition that takes out the front windscreenof the helicopter and blows the pilot to pieces. Now Dubois’ men are on the defensive and when the dust clears, they lay sprawled around the parking lot, nothing more than piles of blood and bone.
A blonde woman strides over to the wreckage of the helicopter, shoving what’s left of the pilot out of his seat and shutting down the rotor blades. Black-suited men descend on us, I recognize Raul from before, he puts a hand down to help me up. “Nice to see ye again, Mrs. Stewart.”
Lucas’s hand, bloody from his own damn wound, slaps Raul’s hand away, helping me up himself.
“Nice to see ye too, boss,” Raul says, refusing to take offense.
“We need to get Cat out of this area immediately,” Lucas says, grim and hyper focused. “What’s the situation with the MacTavish flats?”
“They pulled out fifteen minutes ago right after the helicopter fired on ye here, it must have been a diversion.”
Another man steps up, opening a med kit and checks Lucas’s wound and packing it with gauze. “Went straight through, we’ll get it stitched when we have ye out of here.”
An armored SUV pulls up. Lucas, the medic and I are packed in the back and we’re blazing out of the parking garage in seconds.
“We’ve been waiting for Dubois’ next move.” Lucas dinnae make a sound as the medic pulls out a suture gun, clipping the torn flesh from the bullet hole closed. “He’s been keeping ahead of us and cozying up to politicians and the like, knowing we canna get near him. “
“He’s too vindictive to leave this alone,” I agree. “It’s likely he knows I pulled data about C-1161, so he’s desperate to retrieve it.”
“He’s desperate to retrieveyou,”Lucas corrected.
“All snod,” the medic says cheerfully, packing the wound with clean gauze and tape. “I’m Alex Robertson, Ma’am,” he nods to me. “Pleased to meet ye.”
“Another buddy from the service?” I shake his hand, ignoring my husband’s glower. “Glad to meet ye, and very happy that ye have the training to patch Lucas back up.”
He chuckles. “It’s not the first time, Ma’am. The man is a patchwork quilt made of scars, burns and bullet holes.”
