“Everyone out!” Emory commanded and rushed into the lounge, where half a dozen masked men opened fire. He picked off one before diving behind a table for cover.
“Emory!”
His vision blurred with Mirabelle’s scream from upstairs, a scream he hadn’t heard since they were children, a scream reserved for terror only Ivan could inspire. Emory bolted for the stairs, but the pulse thundering in his ears dampened the chaos. Jack shouted something after him. He couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter.
Upstairs, a barrage of bullets had torn through the store. Mirabelle huddled beneath the counter with Gio bleeding in her arms.
“Amelia!” she shrieked and pointed down the hall.
Emory spun around to the back door propped open.
Outside, a Moriarty street soldier struggled to get Amelia into a car. She writhed like wild, her legs kicking and fingers clawing at the hand over her mouth as she was shoved into the backseat of anSUV. Emory hurdled over toppled stools and sprinted down the hall.
Legs like lead, he couldn’t move quick enough as the car lurched forward. He fired his gun and the bullet broke glass. Another round busted out the back window. It wasn’t from him, though. He ran into a hail of gunfire to get to her. Momentum couldn’t stop him. He slammed into the side of the car and tore open the back door.
Amelia scrambled toward him. He had her in his arms but, with a violent yank backwards, she broke loose from his hold. The street soldier, one of his own, had her by the hair, his hand around her throat. In a crimson haze, Emory landed a fist against the kid’s face. His nose cracked with a spray of blood, enough to momentarily stun.
Emory couldn’t say how he got her out, just that she desperately clung to his shoulders as his knees buckled. They tumbled to the ground as bullets ripped around them. Emory huddled on top of Amelia. She curled into a tight ball beneath him. There was nothing left to do but wait. Wait to die. Wait for it to end.
We won’t get out of this alive.Emory tucked his arms beneath her and drew her into his chest. Amelia shook against him and gripped his shirt to pull him closer. They’d die like that, fused together for someone else to pull apart.
The salvo slackened, though, and the car sped off. Emory didn’t know how long he and Amelia held onto each other. Long enough that others stumbled outside and some feeling returned to his legs. He rolled off of her then, his teeth gritty with dust as he squinted at the sun.
His vision cleared, and he pushed from the ground, but his lungs burned with each frenzied breath. As his men piled into cars around them, Emory pulled Amelia to her feet. The back lot was empty and so too was the street beyond.
Gone.The same old story and nothing ever changed. Ivan vanished, and Emory reeled in the aftermath. Mirabelle dashed toward him, but the flurry halted with the rattle of Jack’s walletchain. Tears wet his cheeks, and he hurried across the lot with Gio’s limp body in his arms.
“Stubborn fucking bastard!” Jack cried and placed Gio in his car’s backseat.
The world went deadly quiet then. All eyes landed on Emory as they awaited his command. Everything came apart at the seams, and they looked to him to stitch it back together. What the fuck did they want from him? Battered and bloody, he just wanted an escape. Instead, he swore he drifted from his body as a calm, unifying force stepped in.
“Get him to Dr. Gordon. He’s on call a couple miles north,” Emory told Jack then turned to his captains. “Corey, take six men and go with Jack. Disco, work LVPD for damage control. Give them my apologies and tell them to expect my call. The rest of you, follow me back. I’ll call Liam and tell him to lock it down.”
Without argument, the men moved in solemn concert. Lost in the squall, Amelia stood motionless as the men scrambled around her. Emory slipped his hand in hers and drew her gaze with a squeeze.
“I need to get you out of here,” he said and led her to his car where Pete already waited.
“Give me your keys,” he hollered from the driver’s side. “I’ll drive back.”
Emory tossed his keys to Pete and slipped into the back seat with Amelia. They peeled out of the parking lot and sped down the street. The highway burned away like wildfire in a race against time, even as the noises still rang in Emory’s ears—the screams, the gunfire, the pounding of his heart.
His phone rang with shrill insistence, each call quicker than the last and voices shouting through the other end—Liam locked down the home front; Gio likely wouldn’t make it through the night; the Velascos had blood on their hands and hell to pay.
The scenery slipped by in a blur, and Emory stewed in the tattered pieces of his thoughts. He should’ve seen it coming. The signs were there, the writing on the wall. He was too stubborn tosee. It was his fault. He’d shoulder the blame but had only paid part of the cost, the debt not yet settled.
Beside him, Amelia stared in a daze until everything gave way all at once and a sob escaped her. She buried her face in her hands and swiveled away from him. Tears were an exhibition only a privileged few were allowed to see, and he’d trained her well not to seek comfort from him. That divide had kept them apart long enough.
He reached for her, his fingertips sweeping across her back to cup her shoulder. She stilled at his touch and lifted her face from her palms.
“Come here,” he said and pulled her toward him.
Amelia slid across the seat with little coaxing and nestled against his chest. Emory held her close, his cheek resting atop her head.
“I’m sorry, Amelia,” he whispered with a sigh that rustled in her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
He felt her nod against him, but she had the grace not to ask what he was sorry for.“Everything,”he would’ve told her; sorry for her losses, too many to count; sorry for the road ahead because it’d only get harder.
Amelia lifted her head to look at him. Blood coated her bottom lip. She licked it away and gripped his forearms.I want you closer,he thought, and it must have occurred to her too, so they moved in unison until their foreheads rested against one another.
