“Stay sharp,” Bluey said to me, and I jumped.
“I’m on it,” I said, raising the scanner.
The guys strolled down the sidewalk toward the house all the cars were parked around. Two of the bikers snuck into a yard along the way and dragged someone out of the shadows. It seemed like maybe the Italians had someone acting as lookout for them, but no one was running out of the house to fight, so maybe their man hadn’t been paying attention.
It took me a second to notice his dick was sticking out of his pants, and I groaned. That was one of the downfalls of having lookout duty. Lots of time alone let you think of some ways to amuse yourself that really didn’t let you do your job, even if you thought you could do both. Jerking off and not paying attention were the worst things you could do if your only job was to be a set of eyes. One of the bikers smashed the Italian face-first to the sidewalk and stomped on his back.
When the crew got to the house, they crept around it, and I lost track of almost everyone. There was more chatter on the police scanner but nothing worrisome. My spine tensed as I watched one biker crouch under a window. There must’ve been some sort of signal I couldn’t see because the sound of smashing glass happened all at once, a loud cacophony. My stomach swooped as the biker tossed the tear gas grenades inside. Less than a minute later, there was so much gray gas pouring out of the broken window that it looked like the house was on fire. The front door burst open as about twenty men and a few women ran out with their shirts pulled up over their faces.
Each one of the fleeing Italians had guns out, and they were easy to spot. I almost swallowed my tongue.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “This isn’t going to be a fistfight.”
Someone must’ve caught sight of the bikers or one of the Company men because a gunshot rang out.
After that it was chaos.
I couldn’t really tell what was going on from this far away. Gunshots rang out into the night. Bikers were street fighting with guys wearing shorts and T-shirts—who didn’t really remind me of the mafiosos I’d met in New York City. Then, someone hopped into their car, and I ran around the back side of the van, still watching what was happening over the hood. The car came tearing along the street, the brilliant blue paint catching in the soft lights lining the sidewalk.
“Shit.” I hid behind the van as the car changed course and powered through the parking lot, knocking over the row of motorcycles on purpose, but then the driver lost control. The car, which I registered numbly looked a lot like an old El Camino, headed directly toward the van. I ran for the business as the car smashed into the front end and kept going—toward me.
“No, no, no.” I raced around the corner of the red tin building.
The car was directly behind me as I flattened myself against the wall and it clipped the corner. A horrible beeping began to go off—probably from security equipment inside. The car bumped onto the street on the other side of the lot, and I gasped as a window went down and a gun pointed at me. I dove back around the front of the building, but the sound of a gunshot was loud and my arm burned. I barely glanced down because I knew whatever had happened, it didn’t hurt enough for me to be seriously injured.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and typed out a text to Cillian with shaky fingers.
Finn: Security alarm is going off. Bikes damaged. Van damaged. We need to get out of here.
I deleted the part about the alarm, bikes, and van, only sending what was least likely to get us into trouble. I’d barely slid my phone back into my pocket when a thin man I didn’t know came rushing toward me, and he wasn’t one of the bikers. His brown eyes were wide with panic. He hesitated, which gave me the advantage, and I punched him, heaving my entire body into the blow and sending him sprawling. My fist ached as I kicked him in the gut. He tugged a gun out of the shorts pocket he’d had it stuffed in, and I dove down to shove his arm to the side, but the gun went off.
The deafening sound hurt my ears.
His eyes widened.
We both glanced down.
I didn’t feel any pain.
When I backed off it became clear the guy had shot himself in the gut, and the bullet had come out of his chest at the top on the left side. There was a hole and blood had exploded everywhere. The light quickly faded from his eyes and he didn’t struggle against me, so I could only assume the bullet had ripped through his heart.
“What the hell!” I shouted, exasperated. Legend had acted like it wasn’t okay to shoot people, yet half the crooks we ran into were armed. I was beginning to feel naked without my gun. I hopped to my feet, feeling sick. “Fuck!”
The sound of boots on the pavement startled me, and I glanced up in time to see everyone racing back. The fucked-up bikes were lifted to their wheels, and if they didn’t start the men began running them off in all different directions, obviously just trying to get away from the scene of the crime.
Cillian stared at me, then pointed at my bloody clothing. “What happened?”
I jerked a thumb at the dead guy bleeding out on the ground. “His fault, not mine!”
“Of all the bloody bullshite. I put ye back here so ye wouldn’t get hurt.” He slapped me upside the head. “This is why I don’t like young ones out.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Fallon grabbed Cillian’s arm and tugged him toward the van. “He’s okay. Let’s go!”
The scanner in my hand crackled to life. “VKR to any unit to attend to a report of shots fired in Diamond Drive, Alice River. Code 2. Multiple reports of multiple shots fired.” A woman’s excitable voice belted loudly from the scanner.
“302. VKR, we can proceed,” a cop answered.
