Gunfire exploded again, lighting up the night. I felt the air shift as bullets zipped past my shoulders. In the distance, sirens started, but we’d be long gone before any cops could show up.One shot clipped the edge of the pallet behind me. Another pinged off the hood of a car as we reached it.
Marco wrenched open the driver’s door. “Get in!”
I yanked open the back door and dove inside. Another man slid in beside me. Tires screeched as Marco slammed the accelerator. The car lurched forward, fishtailing slightly before gaining traction and jetting away to freedom.
Shots chased us down the road, but the distance widened. The pier became a blur of metal and shadow behind us.
Only then did the adrenaline crash enough for me to feel the full throb of the wound at my side. My shirt was sticking to my skin.
I leaned back, breathing hard. The night outside the windows felt colder now, emptier.
“Nico?” Marco asked quietly, eyes on the road.
I swallowed. “Gone.”
Silence filled the car, heavy and thick.
I reached into my pocket with a shaky hand, pulling out my phone. My fingers were slick, and it took longer than it should have to unlock the screen, type a message to Jonathan and Devin. Short. Direct.
Alex: Nico’s dead. Cargo lost. Ambush at 9.
I hit send.
Then the world tilted just slightly, darkening at the edges, and I focused on my next breath, my next second. Each second that brought me closer to the woman I wanted to see again.
17
FRANKIE
The waiting was torture. Worse than any orgasm denial, especially since there was no guaranteed pleasure at the end of it. It was more likely to end in pain.
I’d been pacing Devin’s apartment for so long the weathered floorboards may as well have worn down to grooves in the pattern of my footsteps.
Every time my phone lit up, I jumped, even though I didn’t even have Alex’s number, and the only two men who would be able to update me in this world were in the room with me.
Panic wasn’t logical. Neither was, well, whatever this ache was in my chest at the thought of Alex not being okay. He had to be okay, right?
When Jonathan and Devin had showed up at the penthouse, half-carrying me out to a car immediately without telling me exactly where we were going despite my protests, I knew something horrible was happening.
I’d surprised myself first by immediately asking, “Where’s Alex?”
Somehow, the presence of two of the men didn’t feel quite right without the third, and I didn’t want to examine exactly what that meant for our larger group dynamic.
The guys’ silence in response told me more than I wanted it to. Even now, Jonathan sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, staring so hard at the blank TV screen I could practically see some violent show of his mind’s making reflected in the blackness.
Devin leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed tight across his chest, trying to shoot me an occasional smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.
But it told me nothing, too—nothing of any real value besides that Alex was in danger and they were just as worried as I was. It was all so unexpected, considering they’d seemingly known the man for years, whereas I could easily count how many days I’d known the three of them.
We’d forged such a strong connection already.
Great sex could do that to a girl.
There was nothing sexy about it when Alex finally burst through the door of Devin’s modest apartment, though. He still looked like his gorgeous, statuesque self, but he was whiter than the normal elegant pale he wore. Instead, he looked sick. Bloodless.
Then I could see that he was bleeding from his side.
That his elegant hands, the ones that touched me with such expertise, were covered in blood, too.
