He doubles over with a wheeze and it throws the other guy off balance. Brooklyn manages to worm her way free of his grip and throws herself forward, slipping in the mud. I seize my opportunity and get the guy in my sights. I squeeze the trigger.
The shot is saved from being immediately fatal by the jerky lunge forward the man makes toward Brooklyn. It tears into his shoulder instead, sending him reeling back to land in the muck ass-first. He lets out a furious roar of pain, but I don't stop to put another slug in him. The ugly one has drawn his piece and is brandishing it at me. I squeeze the trigger again and once more miss my target when he moves. Instead of hitting him mid-chest as I intend, it digs a furrow into his waist and bursts out the other side in a spray of red. He goes down, howling like a wounded animal, but not before getting a shot off in my direction.
It hits, though nowhere vital. It slams into my right arm and I almost lose my grip on the gun. Pain spasms its way down the length of my arm, followed by a warm slide of blood.
I hurtle into the clearing, but I'm not fast enough to catch the prettier of the two as he staggers upright and hobbles toward my Eagle. He manages to get astride it before I'm halfway to him. The key is already in the ignition, prepped in case Brooklyn and I need to make a quick getaway. I never imagined that precaution would result in theft.
By the time I reach Brooklyn, the coward has taken off, disappearing through the darkened path out of the woods and back toward the highway. The remaining man is clawing his way through the mud toward the car. I slam my boot down onto his chest the moment I'm in range, forcing him a few inches deeper into the mud. He wheezes and I finally get a good look at who he is.
This must be Axel. I've heard of him before. Good to know our scouts weren't lying to us. He's an ugly motherfucker, alright, with a face like a lumpy potato. He's glaring up at me, his lopsided jaw set in defiance. I aim my stolen gun between his eyes and smile unpleasantly at him, trying to ignore the tremors running through my arm.
"You're going to tell me every single detail you know or I'm going to shoot you."
"You can't kill me," Axel says confidently. "You'll never figure out what our plans were."
"I think I can guess," Brooklyn mutters. "But I won't object if you shoot him."
I glance away from my captive for a second, raising an eyebrow at her.
"He's working for a man named Dallas Antony," she informs me, beautiful face twisting into a scowl. "He's one of my father's oldest friends. And apparently, he's in love with me. He kissed me just before I screamed."
An instinctive wave of jealousy crashes over me. Nobody gets away with touching my girl. I wish I could shoot him again. The second I get this Dallas guy in my sights again he's a fucking dead man.
"Don't flatter yourself, you little slut," Axel spits. "This isn't just about you."
My foot collides with Axel's jaw hard, and blood flies from his mouth. His head snaps almost completely to one side and he lets out a half-shriek of pain. His entire curls up like a dying spider, as though it could protect him from further harm. I shove the gun at him again.
"Talk or I'll shoot you."
"You can't kill me," he repeats, though it's harder to tell this time. His mouth is swimming with blood and he spits a tooth into the mud.
"Who said I'd shoot you in the head?" I say, then redirect the gun to aim at his leg.
"Fuck you!" he snarls.
I pull the trigger. His knee explodes in another shower of blood and white bone fragments. Brooklyn jumps and cringes away from Axel's next scream. I don't take my eyes off of his as I redirect the gun to point at his remaining knee.
"Talk, you ugly fuck," I hiss. "You have five seconds. Five...four..."
"F-fine! Fine, I'll talk!"
"What the fuck is Dallas after? Besides Brooklyn?"
"He wants to knock Calamity out of the picture. Brooklyn's just a consolation prize if he can make his way to the top. Everyone was pissed when Calamity didn't join up with the leader of the Hellions. They approached us a few weeks ago with a proposal. A truce to end the Spades. Then we have an understanding with each other. They want to sell and set up a tax on the working girls. We got the same system. But Calamity said no. So we were going to grab the girl and lure him to a warehouse on the edge of our territory."
I glance over at Brooklyn. "Is that true? That he didn't side with the Hellions?"
She shows only blank shock in response. Apparently this is news to her too.
"So you planned to lure him into an ambush and then axe him?"
It seems like poetic justice that Calamity Gardel should meet his end in an abandoned warehouse, just trying to rescue his kid, the same way my father had. Unfortunately now that Dallas is looking to install Brooklyn as the spoils of his victory, it leaves me in the position of having to side with the monster. I never thought I'd see the day where Calamity was the lesser of two evils.
"Yes. That was the plan. But now that we know she's with you, Dallas isn't going to stick to it. My bet? He sicks Calamity Gardel on you and then shoots him while is back is turned."
Brooklyn lets out a low, agonized sound. She knows Axel is right. Calamity's hatred of my family will blind him to the Judas in his midst and he'll die trying to kill me. The thought pisses me off so much that I let my foot fly forward again, kicking Axel in the head. This time I hit him squarely in the temple and his lights go out like I've flipped his switch.
"Oh God," Brooklyn whimpers. "Did you kill him?"
