Twisting that way instead, he lunged forward with a growl, slashing at the man’s arm, tearing through the suit fabric and slicing the flesh underneath open to the bone. The man cried out and immediately dropped his weapon. Trevor kicked him in the chest, sending him flying backward to bounce off the fence. The man’s head hit one of the metal support poles with a thud, and he dropped to the ground, out cold.
Trevor spun to face the other bouncer who was still on his feet, worried he’d shoot Alina, and found her kicking the guy’s ass. She’d obviously ditched her high heels at some point, because she was barefoot as she spun and lashed out with her leg, the slit in her gown making it easy for her to pull off the complex Taekwondo move. Even so, the urge to run to her defense was nearly impossible to ignore. When she planted her heel in the center of the guy’s face, Trevor decided she had the situation under control. He turned to deal with the two men he’d left sprawling on the ground a few moments earlier and found one of the bouncers pointing his weapon straight at him.
Trevor jumped to the side just as the man fired, avoiding a fatal gunshot but still feeling a line of fire cut across the right side of his rib cage as the bullet grazed him. Letting out a growl, he charged forward, closing the distance between him and the asshole before the guy could get off another shot.
He could easily have laid the man’s throat open, but he didn’t. The guy was simply out here doing what he thought was his job, even if it was for an illegal gambling operation. So instead, Trevor closed his hand into a fist and popped the guy a blow across the jaw that staggered the big man. Before the guard could collect himself, Trevor grabbed him and tossed him toward the Dumpster. The man hit the heavy metal bin so hard it slid a couple of inches, then he dropped to the ground unconscious.
The last remaining bouncer must have decided the odds didn’t look so favorable anymore, because he turned and hightailed it for the back door of the club.
Alina started to go after him, but Trevor caught her arm. “Forget it. Let’s get Shishani, and get the hell out of here before anyone else shows up.”
She nodded. But when they turned to look for Shishani, they found him lying on the ground where Trevor had tossed him earlier, a single bullet hole through the center of his chest. Their chance to put Thorn away had died along with him.
“Fuck,” Trevor growled. “A stray round from one of those trigger-happy buffoons must have hit him.”
Alina crouched to check the man’s pulse anyway. A moment later, she stood up. “Do we call the cops?”
Trevor shook his head. “We can’t. It would tip off Thorn to what we were doing. As bad as it sounds, we need to bail. Chances are the police will never find out about this. Dead bodies aren’t exactly good for business, and this isn’t the kind of establishment that can handle the scrutiny of a murder investigation. In an hour, this place will be cleaned up, and the body will be gone. It will be like none of this ever happened.”
Alina didn’t seem thrilled with the idea of leaving, but there wasn’t much else they could do. Nodding, she started down the alley, slowing only long enough to pick up her discarded heels and tiny evening bag.
Trevor looked down at Shishani’s body. He couldn’t find it in himself to care that the man was dead. His bomb had killed John. But he was pissed to be back at square one in his search to pin something on Thorn. Almost pissed enough not to notice how badly the right side of his rib cage burned.
As he turned and jogged down the alley after Alina, a realization struck him. He’d assumed he was back to square one, but after tonight, maybe it was time to start thinking about them being back to square one.
* * *
Alina reached for her door handle the moment Trevor pulled into a space in front of her apartment complex. She was still annoyed at him for hiding that he’d been shot. She’d only realized it because he’d grabbed a T-shirt from the duffel bag behind the seat and pressed it to his ribs.
“It’s just a scratch,” he’d insisted when she asked how badly he was hurt.
The amount of blood on the T-shirt said otherwise. Ignoring the fact that he was driving, she’d reached across the center console and yanked his jacket open, then pried the makeshift compress away from his ribs so she could see for herself. It was a hell of a lot more than a scratch. His white dress shirt was soaked with dark red blood. She’d wanted to head for the first hospital they could find, but he’d refused.
“The doctors would immediately recognize it as a bullet wound and call the cops,” Trevor said. “There’s no way I could explain how I ended up this way, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to risk word of it getting back to Dick or Thorn. I promise I’ll be fine. I’ll fix myself up once I get home.”
Then he’d told her that his idea of fixing himself up included pieces of old T-shirts and duct tape.
“No, you’re not,” Alina had said. “We’re going to my place, and I’m going to bandage you up.”
The moment Trevor put the SUV in park, she was out and heading for the driver’s side. She needn’t have bothered. He was already coming around to meet her like he wasn’t injured at all.
“Couldn’t someone at the DCO complex have looked at you?” she asked as they headed upstairs to the second floor. “They have doctors and a medical facility there, right?”
“Yeah, but again, I can’t go there without taking a risk that Dick or Thorn would hear about it.”
Alina shook her head. Trevor had some serious trust issues, bordering on paranoia. But if all this stuff they were learning about Thorn was true, maybe he had good reason to be paranoid. She only hoped she wouldn’t get him upstairs to find out that his injuries were worse than he thought. Then what the heck was she going to do?
They made it upstairs without running into anyone. Once on the second floor, she practically tiptoed passed Kathy’s door, praying Molly didn’t smell her and want to come right over. That was all Alina needed, a curious Kathy asking all kinds of complicated questions while Molly jumped around like a crazy dog, wondering who the hell this new guy in her apartment was.
“Take off your jacket and shirt,” she ordered as soon as they were inside. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
Trevor headed into the kitchen, shrugging out of his jacket as he went, while she darted into the bathroom. Her supplies weren’t anything a military medic would be impressed with, but there was definitely a lot more stuff than would be found in a typical home first aid kit.
When she hurried into the kitchen a few moments later, she found Trevor over by the table, attempting to wipe the worst of the blood off his torso with the remains of his expensive button-down.
Alina stopped, transfixed by the sight of her partner standing there with his shirt off, blood oozing from a long horizontal gash along his right side. For a second, she flashed back to an image of Fred lying in her arms, blood soaking through his shirt as he bled to death. That visual shook her so hard, she could barely breathe. Cursing under her breath, she got a grip on herself. Her partner was bleeding, and she needed to help him.
“Don’t bother with that,” she said.
