Somehow in between the quick murder plan I concocted, I muttered out a “Yes.” I managed not to cry as my face throbbed in time with my heartbeat while the men backed out of the shop as quickly as they’d come in.
The slamming of the front door was what made me look up, ignoring the nipping discomfort radiating from my sides, I locked eyes with Slim. “You okay?” he asked me, eyes wide.
I nodded but I really wasn’t. My head throbbed and my side hurt really friggin' bad but right then it didn’t matter. I was alive and—
“Blake!” we both yelled out at the same time.
Slim vaulted across the chair while I scrambled up to my knees, my hands and body aching in protest. Blake was lying on the floor, blood pooling around his head.
Don't freak out, Iris!
Slim kneeled over Blake shaking him. The men hadn’t shot him, I knew that much, but they’d probably hit him with the gun or something along those lines.
I dropped to my knees on the other side of his immobile frame, shaking his shoulder lightly. Dark eyes blinked into focus as his hands weakly reached up to start smacking Slim’s persistent hands away.
“Quit it, asshole,” he muttered, reaching to cover his head.
Pulling away, Slim yanked his phone out of his pocket, dialing on it so quickly I didn’t get a chance to wonder if he’d be calling the cops or Dex first.
“Dex, somemenwere just here,” he spoke a minute later. That answered my question.
I leaned over Blake, watching as he got his bearings together, face screwing up in pain. "Fuck," he moaned.
“It wasn't them. We’ll wait for you at the bar. Blake needs to get sewn up,” Slim said into the receiver, his eyes flashing up to mine. I could hear Dex speaking on the other end. “She’s—she’s—they left a message for her pops.” A second later, Slim was pulling the phone away from his face, looking down at the screen, worry etching his features.
With great reluctance, he looked over at Blake and me and sighed. “Let’s get over to Mayhem, bro,” he instructed, hands reaching for his elbow to help him to his feet. I got up and tried my best to help Blake too, my eyes darting over to Slim.
“Are you calling the cops?”
Slim’s eyes went wide as he pressed a wad of napkins he kept at his station to Blake’s head. “No.”
“You want me to call?” I asked him as we cautiously made our way across the street with Blake between us.
He shook his head. “We don’t need the cops, Iris.”
Blake didn’t look over at either one of us during this time, focusing solely on holding the napkins to the cut right above his eyebrow.
“We don’t need the cops?” Jesus. This was mafia stuff. Stuff that happened on television, not in my friggin’ life.
“You really want to call the cops when there'saCroatiangangthreatening to kill you?” he asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
I looked over at Blake who was still completely tuned out of the conversation, and I swallowed. If they had the balls to come into the shop with guns... I didn't want to know what else they were capable of.
“All right.” It wasn’t all right though. My face hurt a whole friggin' lot and my heart was going to burst out of my chest from how scared I still was. But Slim's observation got to me. "They were Croatian?"
He nodded wearily. "I recognized the tattoo on their hands. I had an old customer that had me cover up that gang symbol a while back."
Jesus. This was a friggin' nightmare.
And this was exactly what Sonny had said he didn't want to know—who our father owed money to besides the Reapers.
The moment we crossed the second block over to get to Mayhem, three men were already waiting for us outside. One was the guy a little older than Dex that was really attractive, and the other two I’d never seen before. One of the guys went directly for Blake, only casting me a sidelong look before he pulled bloody Blake inside the building.
“Oh, fuck,” the good-looking man named Wheels muttered when he stopped right in front of me. His eyeswenton a search. “They did this?”
Slim had the grace to repeat what the men had told me in a voice much more balanced than mine couldhave been at that moment.
Wheels groaned in response, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry, doll.”
