There was no time for Raptor to smile.
A round came up from the floor at a nasty angle. I heard the crack an instant before I saw it hit.
Raptor jerked like a puppet with its strings yanked. The bullet caught him high in the neck, just under the jawline. Blood fountained in a pulse.
He collapsed back onto the carpet behind the table, gun skittering away.
“Fuck!” I hissed.
I was moving before I realized it.
I slid across broken glass and spilled booze on my knees. My knees and palms sliced open; I didn’t care. I got to Raptor as he grabbed at his own throat, eyes huge and wild.
I clamped my palms over the wound to apply pressure. Blood soaked between my fingers instantly, hot and slick. Too much. Way too much.
“Stay with me, kid,” I snarled. “Look at me.”
His eyes tried to focus. They were that clear, stupid blue that always looked too young even when it had seen ugly things.
“I—” he choked. “…”
“You did good. You hear me? You did good.”
Another barrage rattled the glassring. Someone cursed and went down behind us. Dante shouted something in Italian and leaned out to fire another measured pair of shots.
Abenzio moved to cover him—and that’s when the next hit came.
The bullet caught Abenzio in the side of the head. It took a chunk of him with it. He dropped like a cut rope, his brains and blood painting the wall beside the VIP bar in a pattern that would haunt whoever had to clean this place.
My gut twisted.
Azzarello stepped slightly behind Dante. Too close. Too convenient. His aim tracked not down at the shooters but up, toward the back of Dante’s skull.
Turnpike saw it first.
“Down!” he roared.
He launched himself across the distance like someone had lit him on fire. His shoulder hit Dante’s midsection hard enough to lift him into the air. They both crashed to the carpet as Azzarello squeezed the trigger.
The round meant for the back of Dante’s head took a chunk out of a mirrored pillar beside where he’d been standing. Sparkles of glass rained down.
“Motherfucker!” Jersey snarled.
Time snapped.
Azzarello twisted, gun swinging toward the man who’d ruined his shot. Jersey was faster. He rose in a smooth, terrible motion, gun already leveled, and puttwo bullets center mass into Azzarello’s chest.
The traitor staggered back, his expression more offended than surprised, then toppled sideways into a cluster of empty champagne glasses. They crashed to the floor around him and the sound of shattering bottles could be heard through the roar of the ongoing battle below.
Jersey dropped back behind the table, breathing hard, eyes sharp.
“Dante!” Turnpike barked, shoving the man back down behind cover fully. “You still breathing?”
Dante blinked up at him, hair mussed for the first time in probably his entire life, red suit spattered with other men’s blood. He nodded as he looked at Azzarello’s body with a surprised look on his face. The one you make when you realize you just cheated death, and didn’t even see it coming.
“Good,” Turnpike snapped. “Now start acting like it.”
He shoved Dante’s gun back into his hand. The three of them—Turnpike, Jersey, Dante—rose and began taking shots through the jagged frames where VIP glass had once been, working angles like they were back at a range instead of in a nightclub apocalypse.
