More gunfire from the building across the way startled me into action. I scrambled up over the car, not caring that I dented the roof, and ran full tilt toward the building as soon as my feet touched the ground. The loading bay was covered by a sheet of plastic. I had the sense to get my gun ready before I burst through it into the dimly lit warehouse.
In front of me was the reason the noise alone hadn’t drawn the cops. Large metal refrigeration doors were dampening the sound. I opened one and the gunfire immediately had my ears hurting. There were boxes of meat stacked head high in sections, almost like they were ready to go on trucks. To my right a box exploded everywhere, and I cringed as bits of meat went flying. I got down on one knee and hid behind a stack of white boxes, and when I peeked around, I finally saw what I thought might be a King shooting, but we were taking fire too. I set my gun down and took another bomb out of my bag.
Thinking fast, I stood and grabbed a box from the top of the meat pile above me. I opened it, dumped out a few steaks that I shoved between the boxes, and put the bomb inside. My hand shook as I pushed the yellow button, and adrenaline spiked through my veins. My heart raced and my dick filled. This sort of thing always had me sporting wood, eventually, and I let out a laugh as I set the box on the ground and pulled a stack of boxes over onto it.
I put the backpack back on, grabbed my gun, and then slid myself around the boxes. The room was cold and large, with metal walls. I couldn’t see my breath, but I wasn’t dressed to be in here, and I gave a mighty shiver. Mindfully I began picking my way forward through the boxes toward the other end of the room, which seemed to be covered with a plastic curtain, and was where all the light was coming from. I didn’t pass Hunter, but I did see another sizable man in leather with tattoos and a beard and, most importantly, a wound on his right hip. It didn’t look bad, though, so I thought maybe it went in and out again, because he was still going strong, firing at someone toward the back of the warehouse.
I strained to see who he was firing at, and sure enough, it was Justin DeMarco, one of the bastards running the protection racket. He wasn’t the one in charge, but he would do. DeMarco popped up to return fire again on the bearded biker, and I leaned out and put a bullet right between his eyes.
There was a whoop from the Kings and they stood. I hadn’t realized there was more than one tucked away next to the man on the edge of the boxes shooting.
“Where’s Hunter?” I asked and they spun on me, their guns up. Someone shot at me, and I ducked as a box spurted blood beside me. “Shite!”
“Sorry” came a reply that in fact did not sound fecking sorry.
“Where’s Hunter?” I asked again, officially done fucking around. Maybe my tone let them know that I was finished with them because the three men looked at one another in an alarmed sort of way I didn’t usually see on people of their caliber.
“He ran ahead.”
“Of fucking course he did. Why?”
“Because I said David was the one who fucked ya up earlier, and Hunter wanted him.” Corbin sheepishly stepped into view from the side of another mountain of boxes.
“How fucking many more are there?”
“Five, I think,” Corbin said. “Six at most.”
“And he’s by himself?”
Gunfire farther in the warehouse had us all moving forward together as a group. “Why aren’t ya with him?” I asked and smacked Corbin on the shoulder as I took off at a run toward the noise.
“Because he’s young and fuckin’ fast.”
“Not just another pretty face, then?” I asked, half joking, but also partly serious. I wondered what Hunter was like in a fight.
Corbin rolled his eyes as if my shite didn’t bear commenting upon, and we moved on together toward the sheet of plastic that must be keeping the cold where it should be on this end of the meat-packing plant. The bikers were surprisingly good at keeping their weapons out and useful while they moved, almost as good as my own men would’ve been, had I chosen to wait for them.
“When we get stopped, text everyone to hold up,” I told Corbin through a puff of air. Fuck, I needed to spend some more time running.
“Why?” Corbin asked, but I knew he would do what I said. I didn’t answer, was too busy listening to what might be going on beyond the plastic we were fast approaching.
We came to the end of the refrigeration and all ducked under the plastic together. The gunfire nearly deafened me on the other side. Hunter came into view, and I wanted to murder—thing was, I wasn’t sure if it was him I wanted to skin alive or the people shooting at him. What had he been thinking?
There were three men firing from across the room at him where he was barely under cover behind the front of a forklift, and others were sneaking around from behind some boxes to get him in a very deadly game of hide-and-seek. Corbin mirrored me as I dropped to a knee and then fired without thinking. Once, twice, thrice. Three wannabe mobsters down. They fell with surprisingly little fanfare because we’d put bullets directly into their thick skulls. No way was I sure it was me who got them.
Corbin was probably a better shot, but I liked to imagine it was me.
My heart nearly stopped as someone popped around the end of the forklift, gun out, but Hunter twisted and fired into the man’s face. He stood and fired at him again and again and kept going until his gun was empty.
“Get down,” I yelled. A shot echoed from somewhere, not one of our men, and Hunter gasped and sank to his knees behind his hiding spot. I didn’t think, simply stood and ran to him. His big bluish-green eyes seemed on the edge of shock as I slid in beside him and pulled him more firmly behind the forklift, and then I realized I was being stupid and dragged him around to our side. Corbin was sneaking along the edges of the room, probably to try to circle behind Nunzio’s men.
“Ya okay?” I demanded.
“Yeah.” Hunter had his hand pressed to the outside of his left thigh, though.
“Dead-on?” I pressed my hand over his, and his brow furrowed, but he didn’t cry out. His pink lips were so sweet and beautiful, and I’d been so worried. Angry as I was, I pressed my mouth to his, and he sighed into the kiss, his lips opening so that I was tempted into swiping my tongue against the tip of his before I got a hold of myself.
“The hit. Was it square?”
