Jamie snorted as he slipped his gaiter around his neck but didn’t pull it up over his nose yet.
“Mickey McCorkell’s my cousin,” Finn said to me with a big grin. “Are you Cillian Shaughnessy? He told me stories about you.”
“Yes, and I don’t care,” I said as we piled into the back of the plain white van, and Jamie snickered at Finn’s crestfallen expression. Corbin shook his head at all of us. Finn slid onto the bench seat between me and Aspen, and I let it go because we were in a hurry. Besides, he was such a skinny thing that only his elbow knocked against me.
“So, ya know exactly where we’re headed?” Jamie asked Corbin, settling back against his seat in the front. “This is why you’re such a good man to have around.”
Corbin huffed and said something so quietly I couldn’t hear it, but Jamie laughed. I buckled my seat belt while Aspen did the same. My stomach lurched as the van began to move. I stared out into the night, but nothing was truly dark, not in this part of Miami. Corbin drove in a quiet and controlled manner, the way he lived the rest of his life, and I didn’t have a single reason to complain, even though I preferred to drive.
We were on the move already. This round of bullshite hadn’t taken long to jump off. I tried not to think about what might happen soon. We were going to kill some motherfeckers who’d shot at us. I grinned. Yes, I was going to put a bullet in them for even dreaming to take aim at Aspen. I settled back and glanced at Aspen as the van slowed at a red light. He caught me looking and stared right back.
“Shite!” Corbin shouted.
I spun, checking all the windows for danger.
Aspen put a hand on the back of my head and pushed me down about a second before bullets began to fly, and the van jolted hard as it was rammed. I grunted because the seat belt caught hard across my chest, and Finn flew forward. A horrible cracking sound probably wasn’t good as he hit the windshield and ended up on the hood of the van.
“Fuck! That just happened!” Jamie yelled, but there was no time to do anything. I spun and opened fire at the vehicle behind us and Aspen did the same. The SIG MCXs were loud, and I gritted my teeth against the noise. I didn’t think the arseholes who’d attacked expected us to be quite so with it because we shot up the two men in the front seat before they could aim the guns they had in their hands.
Thetingof bullets against metal had me ripping at my seat belt buckle. I pulled up the black neck gaiter, hooked it over my nose, and shoved open my door. Aspen was right behind me. We fell out together onto the street and the windows on the van shattered. I squatted and slammed the door shut, hoping the added layer of metal would be sufficient to protect us.
“Are you okay?” Aspen asked, putting his back to the van.
I nodded quickly, spinning as I caught sight of a tall man with a sneer on his face out of the corner of my eye. I twisted and shot the fecker who’d been trying to sneak up on us from around the corner of a building across the street. I accidentally took out the window on the business, a small insurance company, and winced. That would get the cops around here faster, and we didn’t need anything like that to happen.
“Jesus, this is too open,” Jamie muttered as he came up beside us. I wasn’t sure where he’d been, but I was glad he was alive. This would be a lot more difficult with him dead in the street.
My breath was hot and humid inside the gaiter and I growled. I spied the stupid lump in Jamie’s pocket and stuck my hand in it.
“Hey! That’s a wee bit personal!” Jamie said or more like yelped. “What the—”
I winked at him and held up the grenade.
“Ya weren’t supposed to bring that shite with us!” Corbin yelled as he came up beside us, but it was too late. I pulled the pin while I stood and lobbed the grenade in the direction of the feckers still shooting at us. The van door opened, and I slammed a hand to my chest as Finn tumbled out onto his back, face so bloody and cut up not even his ma would recognize him. He was a right fecking mess. I covered my ears, and everyone except Finn did the same.
An explosion rumbled the ground under our feet.
“Mr. Killough did not approve this much shite,” Corbin yelled with steel in his gaze. “Move, lads.” He pointed back toward the vehicle that had rammed us, and we snuck along the van in that direction. More bullets were fired at the van, but there only seemed to be about two people shooting now, if I had to guess. As we rounded the rear of the totaled car, I came face to face with a shocked man dressed all in black. He looked up at me with wide brown eyes, and I punched him hard while my heart danced. He went down on a knee, and Aspen came around my side and shot him.
“Thanks,” I said.
He winked at me and the amusement in his eyes was so nice that it had me aware of my cock, which was more than pleased to make a showing in the middle of a mess.
Corbin hustled in front of me and stopped before he went out into the open. He turned to look in some shop windows behind us, and I caught what he was watching—the reflection of two men sneaking toward us with their guns out. Everything was silent—for now. Corbin sighed and rolled his eyes, then stood up and fired twice, killing Joaquin’s men before they knew what hit them.
At least, I assumed this was a hit from Joaquin because if we had someone else after us right now, we were good and fecked.
“Let’s go,” Corbin said, racing across the street at top speed.
“Shite, he’s quick,” I grumbled and took off after him. Finn couldn’t run at all, but Jamie helped him hobble along.
“Where are we headed?”
“Safe house,” Jamie said, and I nodded. There were a couple in every city, and we were not doing well, so that made sense. Two women came out of an all-night café as we passed it, saw us, screamed, and turned around to go right back in.
“Bloody hell,” Jamie snarled. “There were more men than what we shot, weren’t there?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Aspen said. “Fuck this. Stop.” He scooped up Finn easily enough, and Jamie gave him a grateful nod. We were able to move much faster that way.
