“Let’s take that alleyway up there. See it?” Jamie asked, pointing ahead.
“Aye.”
We rounded the corner of a brick building and couldn’t backpedal fast enough. About ten guys stood there huddled against a wall, and one raised his gun. Jamie snatched me back around the corner just as a shot was fired, but then they were on us. It was too close quarters for anyone to get off a proper shot, and there were just too many of us as they spilled around onto the sidewalk.
What should’ve been a nice, orderly gunfight downgraded into a brawl—or maybe they were supposed to take us alive? Who knew? Either way, they didn’t try to shoot us, not even when Corbin did manage to get a shot off. My SIG MCX was ripped away by someone first thing, and I felt the loss like it was a wee babe I’d been entrusted with. Corbin would snipe and complain, and I would never hear the end of it.
Adrenaline burned in my blood as I punched and kicked and fought with a smile on my face, knocking down men as they came at me. I took a jab to the side of the head and shook it off. Aspen slammed the man who’d hit me into a brick wall. Finn was on the ground getting stepped on, but that couldn’t be helped.
“Shite. Run!” Corbin shouted.
Aspen squeezed my shoulder, and then he scooped up Finn and took off with Corbin. Someone snagged my arm, and I spun and shook out of the grasp of the man closest to me, but another man planted his fist in my cheek. I smashed my knee into one man’s gut and jabbed an elbow into the face of another. One bloke was left standing, but that was all it took because he got his gun out quicker than we did.
“Feck,” I snarled.
The bloke holding the gun smirked. He hadn’t taken the time to cover his face for this little sneak attack, and he was one of those men who didn’t look like he belonged in this business, all soft lips and sweet blue eyes that promised a fun time. “Joaquin wants to talk to you, you Irish piece of shit,” he said, then slammed his fist into my jaw rather than shooting at me. I didn’t know if he thought that piss-poor excuse for a punch would take me down, but I licked the blood from the corner of my mouth and glared at him.
Jamie sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “My boy’s gonna be angry with me if I don’t get home again. Ya wouldn’t think it to look at him, he’s very pretty, but he has a wee temper.”
“Shut up,” the bloke with the gun said, gesturing at us with it. Sweat ran down his temples.
“Ye a hired gun?”
The bloke glared and hoisted his weapon higher.
“Ye wanna die?”
He snorted. “I have the gun.” He raised the muzzle in my direction as if to prove a point.
Jamie aimed his gun in a speedy split-second maneuver and shot the man while he was busy staring at me. “Ya idiot,” he said to the man that crumpled to the ground missing half his skull. “We all have guns! Ya ever meet anyone dumb enough not to look for weapons before they start running their mouth?”
I laughed and grabbed Jamie’s elbow, dragging him down the street and away from the slowly growing wail of sirens.
“Fuck, what do we do?” Jamie asked as we started running again.
“Ye’re in charge! Don’t ask me!”
Jamie nodded. “Let’s call Corbin.”
“Better not. What if he’s still playing cat-and-mouse games with Joaquin’s men? Do ye know where the safe house is? Let’s just go there.”
We ducked down a side street—this one thankfully free of anyone with guns—and took off our gaiters and gloves before stuffing them in our pockets. Neither of us had any large weapons anymore, so we jogged. Eventually we were far enough away from the shootout location, and Jamie was brave enough to flag down a cab. Once we were in the back seat, I held my breath while Jamie searched through his phone for an address.
“One moment,” he said with a wide smile at the man in the front. “My grandfather rented the place for me, and I have trouble remembering the street names.”
The cabbie seemed completely uninterested, and that was a relief as far as I was concerned. “Meter’s running,” he said by way of an answer.
About a half hour from the time the first bullets flew, the cab pulled up in front of a rundown wee beach house with a sad, dying palm tree in the front yard that probably still cost an arm and a leg. The light next to the door was a shiny beacon beckoning us home. Out in the distance, waves rolled. There was a car in the small driveway, maybe a doctor for Finn. He’d really gotten fecked up, and I hadn’t been wrong about it being a bad idea to take him along.
Jamie was a fecker and left me to pay, so I did, while he stood right outside the open door at my side texting, probably to his sweetheart at home.
Once I was out with the door closed, the cab pulled away. “Ye should’ve left that boy at the mansion.”
Jamie shrugged. “Shite happens. Either he’s good or he isn’t. He was the type who would’ve tested his mettle one way or another. Least your boyfriend dragged him out.” Jamie winked at me.
I smacked his shoulder. “Sure, and who’s gonna tell the McCorkells that one of theirs went through a meat grinder?”
Jamie grunted and that took a bit of the shine out of his eyes as we cautiously made our way to the front door, which opened before we reached it. Aspen pulled me inside directly into a hug. I loved a good fight, but I’d hated getting separated, so I gave him a strong squeeze in return.
