Idropped Duke with a solid shot to his chest. He collapsed to the ground without a sound, his gun dropping beside him.
Conrad’s face went from angry, to downright atomic. He reached for his own piece, and his man behind me grabbed for me.
I had about five seconds, and I needed to make it count. I sprinted across the room, ducking to avoid the shot Conrad blasted in my direction, and grabbed Blaire by the arm. “Hide!” I screamed.
There was no way to get out the door I’d come in without going past the massive guard who’d brought me in, so we’d have to fight our way out.
I pulled Blaire into the maze of wooden crates, a poor cover but better than nothing. Grabbing her face between my hand and my gun, I examined her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She pulled away from my hands without meeting my gaze. “How are we going to get out of here?”
The odds weren’t in our favor, but they weren’t bad either, three to one. Unfortunately, we were just short a gun. “We draw out the other two, and take care of them first. For all his talk,Conrad’s a coward, and will send them in before he comes for us himself.”
Speak of the devil. His taunt echoed around us. “What’s wrong, Blaire? Don’t you want to come out and show me howtoughyou really are?” His voice dripped with sugar.
“I don’t have a gun,” she whispered.
“I know. It’s okay. I’ll take care of it. You stay hidden.” Blaire wouldn’t meet my gaze, but we didn’t have time for me to interrogate her, let alone for her to process the shock of what we’d just learned.
She frowned. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“If it comes to it, I’ll give you the signal, and you do what you can with your hands.” I didn’t like this option, but it was better than nothing, because these men wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. On the other hand, if her memories really had come back, which I thought they had, she would have some knowledge of hand-to-hand combat, even if she was a little rusty.
“A signal?” A crease appeared between Blaire’s brows, exhaustion scrawled clearly across her face. “What kind of signal are you thinking?”
“Kick his ass.” I smiled. “How’s that?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re the worst.”
A gunshot pierced a wooden crate beside us, causing us both to jump. “Fuck. Stay here.”
I peered around the corner of the stack of crates, barely making out the shoulder of the bigger guard. I fired, missing him, and he shot back, a crate behind us cracking. Steadying my hand, I fired one last round, landing it neatly in his forehead. He dropped like a ton of bricks. One down.
I reloaded my gun, nodding for Blaire to follow me around the crates. Even numbers now. Just Conrad and his lackey left.
“I think you’ve spilled enough blood for one lifetime,” Conrad’s voice called. “It’s time to come and pay the piper, now.”
The open space near Conrad’s office was empty. I pointed, and we inched forward. When I snuck a glance around the next row, Conrad stood with his back to the crates, gun drawn.
Conrad, I mouthed to Blaire. She nodded, understanding completely. When I moved next, it needed to be seamless. A second too long, and Conrad would shoot to kill—either me or Blaire; I’m not sure he cared at this point.
I stepped out from behind the crates, gun steady. Conrad trained his gun on me, but I fired just past his head before he could do anything. “Drop it. Now.”
Conrad raised his eyebrow, and held his hands up. He put his gun down on the ground. “Let’s not do anything hasty.”
“Hasty?” I barked out a laugh. “You’ve been haunting me for years. I wouldn’t call this a hasty move.”
“Yes, well.” Conrad looked past me, toward the empty space in front of his office. “Before you kill me, you might want to turn around.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see the last guard with his arms wrapped around Blaire. His hand covered her mouth, even though he still looked pained from Blaire’s knee to his groin. Still, he held her tightly. When I made a move to free her, she jerked her head.
She was right. Stray from the plan, and there was no telling what would happen. Stick to the plan, and we might both get out of this alive.
Keeping my gun trained on Conrad, I turned so I could see both men at the same time. “Just let her go. It’s over, Conrad.”
He shrugged. “You can say it’s over. I can say you killed my son. Is something like that ever really over? So, here’s the game. You shoot me, and Brad chokes her while you watch. Or, you let me go, and I let you die before I kill her, so you don’t have to see your beloved bleed out in front of you.”
A lifetime of resentment boiled down to this moment. The steady gun I held between my hands. This man had let me fade away in prison, let a young kid with his entire life ahead of him take the fall for something he’d done.
