“Huh. Not what I heard. Dunn sent me up here to have us bring the woman down. Dolan wants to talk to her.”
“Figures Higgins would fuck the message up. He’s watching over her now. I’ll go help you with her.”
“Yeah, sure. First I need to grab something from the armory.”
“What’d you need, Sterns? I probably have it right here on my belt.”
There was a moment of silence. I looked over my shoulder and my blood ran cold as I realized why Forge was holding the guy up. I was standing smack dab in the middle of the room that had to be their armory. There were pistols, rifles, shotguns, brass knuckles, knives, and all sorts of other sharp implements in here. So much in here that Pyre’s brothers would feel like kids in a candy store.
Sucking in a breath, I grabbed a knife off a shelf, then hurried behind said shelf to hide. I bit the insides of my lips as the door opened.
“Never known you to be generous with your weapons, Forge,” Sterns said as stepped into the room.
Forge came in after him, his eyes sweeping around until they landed on me, then focused on the other man. “I can be a helpful guy.”
Sterns snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
I held my breath as he came close to the shelf I was hiding behind. I didn’t dare move, not even to make myself smaller because the movement would catch his eye.
My breath whooshed out of me when he went to grab a gun from the shelf and our gazes met. His eyes widened and he shouted.
Forge stormed forward, but two more men burst into the room. They must have been coming up the stairs at just the wrong time. The room was too small and crowded for a fire fight—and we certainly didn’t want to alert the men down in the pit of what was happening up here—so Forge pulled out his knife.
“I’ll be back for you, sweetheart,” Sterns sneered. He loaded the gun with a fresh magazine and started to turn.
He was going to shoot Forge. The only friend I had in here right now. My only way of getting out. And someone who was sticking their neck out for me.
Gripping my newly acquired knife, I ran out from my hiding spot and hit Sterns’s back. I clung on like a deranged spider monkey while he flailed back and forth, trying to get me off. It wasn’t going to take him long.
I squeezed the knife tight and brought it down in a sideways arc. I’d barely had to look, considering how well I knew human anatomy. My knife slid like butter through the flesh between his ribs, puncturing his lung. I yanked the knife back out and stuck him two more times, to be on the safe side.
He stumbled around while I rode him like a wild horse, unwilling to let him go. I didn’t want him to still try to go afterForge. Or me. Finally, he fell to his knees, clutching at his chest as he wheezed for breath. I backed away from him. He was suffocating. It was a slow, awful way to go, but I didn’t have it in me to end him. It was one thing to shoot a man. But to cut his throat, or stab him somewhere like the throat or heart? I wasn’t quite ready for that.
He fell over sideways, breathing shallow and rapid until it stopped all together. I clutched the bloodied knife to my chest and looked over at Forge.
He’d killed the two men and was standing there watching me. “Keep that,” he told me.
“Do you think they heard us?”
He stared at me as though I was an idiot. Then he waved me forward. “Run back to the back of the building. Back the way we came.” He opened the door and stuck his head out. “Hurry up. They’re coming.”
“W-what about you?”
“I’ll hold them off.”
“Twenty-seven of them?” I asked.
“Twenty-four now,” he told me with a grin. He shoved me out into the hallway. “Run.”
I backed away as the sound of boots on wooden stairs grew louder. Looking from the stairwell to him, I finally turned and ran. I wasn’t sure where to go, but I’d find a hiding spot. I wished again that Pyre was here. Or better yet, that I was tucked against his side at home in my bed. That this was all a nightmare. Bullets started flying around me for the second time today.
CHAPTER 29
Pyre
As soon as we stepped out of the vehicles the sound of gunfire greeted us.
“What the hell?” Jury asked, tilting his head as he tried to figure out what was happening. “Someone beat us here?”
