I knew the importance of silence and immediately fell quiet as he hurried us through the copse, then came to a stop, yanking me behind a large tree and shoving me against the bark. I spared a moment to think it was a good thing I’d just ordered replacement suits, because I had a feeling this one was going to need to be thrown in the trash. That was as far as I got before I heard the crashing of bushes behind us, the three men talking to each other loudly and sounding like they were ready to have a good time when they caught us.
“They’re going for the street,” one of them called.
“Like I give a fuck? They said dead, so let’s make sure they’re dead,” another called back with a laugh.
Dom shot me a look. Okay, apparently, these men didn’t care about other people’s lives, even random people on the street. That told me there was a good chance they were members of Los Muertos rather than a smaller gang looking to make a quick buck. They certainly weren’t professionals; this was too rushed, and no professional would go after their target openly while there were witnesses. That information didn’t help because I wasn’t exactly a fighter who could use it in a fight, but it was something to keep in mind if I got through this in one piece.
Holding me against the tree still, I watched Dom’s body tense. Coiling like a spring, he listened closely before leaping out, and before I knew what was happening, he had one of the men by the throat, swung him around, and slammed him into the tree with enough force to make me wince. The man never had a chance to call out before he slumped to the ground, his hands open and limp. His friends backpedaled quickly, going fortheir weapons, and I called out a warning to Dom, who spun around on the guy who’d pulled a gun.
“Jesus,” I muttered as Dom moved with more speed than someone his size should be able to, and caught the man by the wrist, making the shot go wide, probably alerting everyone nearby. Without thinking, I started a timer in my head for how long we had until the cops were called and then showed up. Again, we were in a decent part of town, and since the university was one of Cresson Point’s pride and joys, that meant the cops wouldn’t take their sweet time like they might in other parts of the city. Great if you were a college kid who was scared for their life, not so great when you were a crime lord hoping to get out of the area before the cops came swooping in.
Both men were now focusing on Dom, and I could barely make out what was happening as they had moved deeper into the tree line. I took a step forward to help...in whatever way I could when I felt a hand close around my ankle. With a grunt, I stumbled and felt my leg ripped out from under me. Hitting the ground hard, I rolled over, shocked to find the first man Dom had brought down was not only awake but holding my ankle with a grip that no one who’d taken a blow that hard should be able to do.
“Where you goin’?” he asked, and I watched as he fought to fix his eyes on me.
Okay, that I might be able to work with.
“Where I please,” I said, rolling to one side when he tried to yank me closer, making my weight shift in his grip. His hold slipped, and I helped it along by lashing out with my free foot, catching him in the face. The wet crunch of his nose was unpleasant, but it was matched by the harsh thud of his head hitting the tree and bouncing. His hand went slack around my ankle, and I shoved off the ground, getting to my feet as Iwatched him stir, gripping at his pants to pull out a gun. “You are a stubborn one, aren’t you?”
Now on my feet, I put more power into the next kick, and this time I heard something that might have been his skull give way when it hit the tree. The sounds of fighting were still going on behind me, and I reached down to thenowunconscious man and grabbed the gun he was going for. God, the damn thing had its safety off, what even?—
A horribly familiar grunt pulled me around, and I hurried into the nearby trees to make sure Dom wasn’t in danger. I almost tripped over one of the men on the ground, face down and not moving. I would bet he was alive. The same with the other man, who was a good size, enough to be a contender for Dom, who was struggling with him as he gripped the man’s arms. My eyes widened when I saw the ugly red slash across the front of Dom’s shirt and the knife in the third thug’s hands that he was trying to drive into Dom’s neck. Dom was stuck against a tree, his footing awkward and his arms shaking.
Anger flared, and I went ice cold as I stepped forward. “You forgot something.”
My intrusion was enough to get his attention, and his eyes went wide. It was the last thing he was allowed to do before the blast of the gun in my hand sent a bullet through his skull. His body went limp as he collapsed, with a new hole in his forehead and the knife dropping to the ground beside him. Dom stayed in the half-hunched position he had been in trying to fight off the killing blow, staring at me with wide eyes.
“I...” he began, but I turned when I heard the groan of the man on the ground and pulled the trigger again, adding a hole to his head as well, this time in the back. “Jesus Christ.”
Ignoring him, I kicked the now definitely dead man over. He didn’t look familiar, though I didn’t expect him to. Pulling out my phone, I took a picture of his face and moved to the otherman to get an image of his face as well. I would have to get a third picture, but I tucked my phone back into my pocket and wiped down the gun with a cloth, covering every inch, as I had done more than once before. It wouldn’t be enough to remove the weapon’s prints completely, but it would obscure them and make them useless.
“Can you move?” I asked, then walked toward Dom, tossing the gun aside after making sure the safety was on. The last thing I needed was to set the stupid thing off accidentally. I didn’t see the need to risk making the day worse. “We need to get out of here so we can get you stitched up.”
“It’s not that deep,” he said, staring at the men on the ground before shaking his head. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” I growled, but there wasn’t any point in arguing about it while we were still in danger. “Can you move?”
“I said it’s not that bad, let’s go,” he grunted. There were a lot of things wrong with him at the moment, but again, this wasn’t the time.
“Alright,” I said, bending down to take the jacket off the bigger man, which required more fighting than I would have preferred, but considering Dom looked ready to bolt or freeze, I wasn’t going to ask him to help. When I was done, I tossed it at him. “Throw that on and zip it up. We don’t need to draw more attention.”
He looked at it blankly, as if he didn’t know what it was, then put it on and followed me back to the first man, whose picture I quickly took. When things settled down, I would send them to Will and ask him to look into who they were. If he found something, I would decide what to do about it afterward, but right now our priority was getting out of this park without being spotted by the cops or anyone who could identify us.
I had a feeling that was going to be the easy part, because the tricky part was going to be dealing with Dom.
Oh boy.
DOM
“I’m fine,” I ground out when I found Levi glancing nervously at me from the driver’s seat.
It was a goddamn lie, of course. That bastard had got me good with that knife because I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t paying attention because I got distracted trying to figure out what had happened to Levi while I had been busy fighting the other two men. I couldn’t blame myself for being worried about him. Levi had never claimed to be a fighter, but it had distracted me, which meant I now had a goddamn knife wound in my gut. I had looked at it while putting on the jacket Levi had given me, and it was a little deep, but it wasn’t an emergency; I’d live.
Unlike at least two of the guys who’d attacked us, they were definitely not getting up to tell their buddies about how badly they’d fucked up. And the first guy I thought I’d taken out? I guess he wasn’t getting up either because his skull had been dented from the tree I’d slammed him into. The entire thing had happened so fast, I hadn’t been able to think about holding back, so now I wondered what all that meant.
“You are getting that looked at,” Levi said, and I glared at him.
“Just get me...somewhere we can take care of it,” I told him, knowing I was being stubborn for no good reason but not caring. I wasn’t in the mood to play nice with him at the moment.
