“Kill ’em then. Ain’t no use in holdin’ ’em,” Gideon said. His words sounded like a growl.
“What I was thinkin’.” Haze nodded.
Gideon looked at the Vicious Kings, who waited patiently for their next orders. He’d felt the tension as soon as he walked downstairs that morning, and now it made sense. His niggas were pissed off, just like him, and he knew shit was about to get messy as hell.
“So, what we gon’ do?” Gideon asked.
Haze’s jaw clenched. “Ain’t shit else to do but gear up for war. Fuck all this waitin’ shit. I want that nigga’s head.”
Gideon nodded slowly, glad that he and Haze had always been on the same page. Thoughts of rage filtered through his mind as he thought about what would have happened if Glimmer was still at the bar when all this went down. They were after her. He never would have allowed them to take her, . . . but still. He knew he could never be too safe or too careful when it came to her.
He got lost in his thoughts as the club went over the next steps. Gideon didn’t care too much about none of that. All he cared about was making sure Glimmer was kept safe.
The only soundin the compound gym was Glimmer’s heavy breathing and her weak blows to the punching bag.
They hadn’t been weak earlier. She started out strong, but they had been at it for so long that she was ready for a shower and a damn nap.
“That’s all you got for me, baby?” Gideon asked as he looked at her with a frown.
Glimmer stopped her attempts at attacking the punching bag. “I’m tired of this, grandpa!”
Although Gideon had been wound really tight over the past week, he managed a chuckle at her reference to one of their favorite movies,Holes.
Gideon swaggered over to her and pinched her chin. With a grin, he said, “That’s too damn bad.”
Although that was the line in the movie, Glimmer knew he was dead ass serious. She groaned. “For real . . . I’m tired, bae,” she whined.
“I know.” Gideon sighed. “But I need you up on game when it comes to protecting yourself.”
She nodded. Glimmer appreciated that he wanted her to know how to protect herself. It reminded her of her father. Speaking of her father, he was on the same page as Gideon. The harder she worked on learning to properly defend herself, the prouder of her he was. She couldn’t lie; the moment she found out about there being a price on her head, Glimmer was ready to do whatever she could to stay alive. But the way Gideon pushed her felt like a bit much. Juke was no better. He encouraged Glimmer not to complain and to do as Gideon said. She wondered when her father had started taking Gideon’s side, anyway.
“I don’t even leave the compound, bae. I think I deserve a bit of a break.” She pouted as she wiped sweat from her brow. Glimmer was never one to sweat, but over the past week, that had changed completely.
Gideon eyed her. She saw the stress lines all over his face. They made him look so damn mean. That wasn’t the man she knew though. It wasn’t the man she was falling for, so she reached up and smoothed those lines out until he smiled.
Gideon grabbed her hand and kissed the part of her palm that wasn’t wrapped. “Trick knows where the compound is, my love. Just because he hasn’t come yet doesn’t mean he won’t. He’s already proven to be a little slow in the head for putting a price on yours.”
Glimmer’s heart dropped, just like it did any other time she was reminded of Trick’s ill intent toward her. “I hate this.”
Gideon looked down at her lovingly for a moment. “Give me thirty minutes in the gun range, and we can relax for the night.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes and expelled a long breath instead. The thought of a relaxing night with Gideon sounded perfect. Over the past week, if they weren’t doing some sort of training, he was out trying to find Trick with Haze and the rest of the Vicious Kings. “Fine.”
Before last week, Glimmer didn’t even know there was a basement to the compound. She should have known because it used to be a family hangout spot back when she was a teenager, with a movie theater, bar, and a large hangout area. Apparently, the Vicious Kings renovated the space into a gym with a gun range in the very back, complete with soundproof walls and an entire wall with ammunition and guns.
They walked toward the back of the basement, and Gideon selected a gun for her. She had no idea what kind it was, just that it was a different one than she’d used the other days. That was Gideon’s rule. He wanted her to get comfortable with all guns.
Inside the soundproof doors, Gideon handed her the gun. Glimmer went through the motions of loading it and making sure it was ready to shoot. She looked up at him frequently to make sure she did everything right. Gideon grinned and nodded in encouragement. She was a fast learner, so he didn’t need to step in and help her.
“When you get a head shot, we can be done,” Gideon told her.
Glimmer’s brow raised. “Is that all?”
He smirked. “You sound confident.”
She didn’t speak. What he didn’t know was while he was out running the streets with the Vicious Kings, she and the queens came down here and practiced shooting. They’d all been a bit on edge since the shooting at the bar, so this gave them a bit of peace. Since it had been a couple of days since she and Gideonhad come to the gun range, he didn’t realize how good she had gotten.
She put on her noise canceling headphones and focused on the paper target that was already up and ready for her to go. Tuning everything out around her, Glimmer got into the correct stance with her arms outstretched and the gun gripped firmly in her hands. She took in a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. She hit the target in the chest, but that was okay. She rolled her neck before trying again. She squeezed the trigger three more times before she stopped to let the paper settle. When it did, she saw two holes in the head, and she beamed.
