Nora hasn’t seen it yet; her eyes are focused on the plates sitting on her palms, but when she turns to walk to me, she looks over the faces of the people sitting at the tables in front of her and stops. Following the direction of everyone’s stares, her body flinches, and she freezes in fear.
The little fucker points his goddamn gun at her and says, “Stay right there, sweetheart, and we won’t have a problem.”
Nora looks terrified, and my chest squeezes.
My heart slows down as I focus the anger that’s bubbling and building in my chest on my next move. He’s going to regret pointing his gun at my girl.
Her chest is rising and falling quickly; I also know how hot those plates are. I move my attention to Callum, who is already looking at me, and the asshole is smiling. He raises his eyebrow in question. Are you ready? I nod and stand up to get the asshole’s attention on me.
17
NORA
OH, MYGod.
What is happening?
That gun is pointed at me. My stomach drops, and my feet become one with the floor, and all I see is the round barrel of the gun looming in front of me.
In my periphery, I see Tuck stand up, and my heart beats faster when the guy turns his gun on him. What is he doing? Did he get the guy to turn the gun on him on purpose?
The guy reads my mind. “What’re ya doin’, man?” His voice is kind of whiny, like a young guy. I don’t think he expected anyone to move.
Tuck lifts his hands in surrender and points a finger at me, letting the guy know he’s moving in my direction. The guy breathes harder, the barrel of his gun following Tuck’s every move.
I’m so scared that I don’t notice the heat from the plates soaking through the rags until Tuck stands in front of me, blocking the guy from my view to force me to look at him. He lifts one of the plates with the rag under it, setting it on the nearest table, then looks at the guy. “These plates are hot.”
“Yeah, whatever, man. Go sit down so I can get the money from the till.”
Tuck calmly smiles at him. “One more.”
Turning to me again, he’s so… composed, his eyes are locked with mine, and he winks at me. Seeing the fear on my face, he smiles reassuringly as he lifts the second plate from my hand. While keeping his voice low so just I can hear, he says, “Get down, sugar. Now.”
As soon as the plate is lifted from my hand, I drop to my knees and fold forward as Tuck spins and throws it at the guy like a frisbee, hitting him in the face. The guy goes down, screaming and holding his nose that has gravy and mashed potatoes on it, dropping the gun. Covering my head with my arms, I hear another man yelling, “Drop the gun!”
The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds, but it also seemed to move in slow motion. There’s a scuffle and grunting, and when I look up, Tuck has the guy pinned face down on the floor. He’s on his good knee on one side of the guy and his injured leg is straight out to the other side, a grimace is on his face.
He’s patting him down roughly, looking for other weapons, and growls, “Anyone ever told you it’s not nice to point a gun at a lady?”
“You broke my goddamn nose, asshole.” The guy on the ground yells, and Tuck yanks his mask off, making the guy scream in pain as the hole in the mask catches on the tip of his nose. Just as I thought, he’s young, and he’s gushing blood all over the floor.
Tuck leans down close to his face. “You’re lucky that’s all I broke.” Then he yells, “Secure.”
The voice from before yells from across the room. “Secure.”
I’m still folded over on the ground with my hands on each side of my head, watching what’s happening, when Tuck looks at me. “You okay?”
My throat is refusing to work, so I just nod.
Concern is in his eyes as he looks over my face. “I gotta keep him in place until the police get here. Are you okay to get up and go sit at my table?”
I feel like I’m in a dream as it feels like I’m turning my head in slow motion to look at the table he was sitting at earlier. It feels like I’ve slipped into an alternate world. The people who were sitting at the tables are leaving quickly, and there is movement all around me. My hands are shaking so bad next to my head, and I look again at the bleeding guy on the floor.
“Nora. Sugar.” I hear Tuck’s voice, but he sounds far away, somewhere behind the pulsing river raging behind my ears. “Don’t look at him, baby. Look at me.”
I can’t stop staring at the blood. There’s so much blood, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much.
“Stony!” Tuck bellows over his shoulder.
