We both jerked back at the same time.
“Fuck,” she breathed.
I snapped the ledger shut, shoved it into the bag, and yanked the zipper shut. Valkyrie swung the safe open wider and slid the backpack back onto its shelf. No ceremony this time. Just necessity.
She twisted the key, yanked it out, slammed the safe door, slammed the heavy outer door, locked it on muscle memory.
Another burst of gunfire above, closer now. A bottle shattered. Somewhere, someone screamed.
“Move,” she snapped.
We hit the stairs at a run.
The main room was chaos.
Gunshots turned into thunder as soon as we hit the top step. The front windows of the clubhouse were already spiderwebbed or blown out entirely, glass glittering on the floor. Girls took cover behind overturned tables, bar stools, whatever they could grab. Indigo barked positions from somewhere near the door. Medusa was yelling something gleeful and obscene from behind a flipped couch.
The roar of engines outside wasn’t from bikes. It was heavier. Guttural. SUVs.
“Gate’s hit!” Cobra shouted from somewhere by the wall. “They rammed the corner! One vehicle breached the fence!”
“Inside?” Liberty’s voice cut through like a blade.
“At least one,” Indigo answered.
We ducked as another spray of bullets chewed through the already broken glass and punched new holes in the far wall. Plaster puffed. A bottle on a shelf evaporated in a flash of liquid and shards.
“Positions!” Liberty barked. “Keep them off the windows and doors! Don’t bunch up! We have to push them out!”
Valkyrie grabbed my sleeve, yanked me low behind an upended table.
“At least two trucks on the road,” she said. “Maybe more. They’re probing and hitting us at the same time.”
“Cartel?” I asked.
She stared at me and nodded to confirm.
A sharp cry cut through the gunfire.
Not fear. Pain.
It came from outside, near the yard.
“Anaconda!” someone yelled.
“Fuck,” Valkyrie hissed.
A brief pause in the gunfire allowed Liberty and all the others to push outside.
As I shadowed Valkyrie and approached the door, another sound cut across my brain.
A strangled, gurgling cough from the bar area. The unmistakable thump of a body being thrown against wood.
I twisted.
California was behind the bar, orhad been. Now, a man in black was halfway over the counter with his hand locked around her throat. He’d come in through the side window I hadn’t even noticed was broken yet. His other hand was fisted in her hair, slamming her head back into a row of bottles. Glass shattered around them, liquor pouring down like cheap rain. He barked something in Spanish I didn’t catch and yanked her forward only to smash her into the bar again.
Her feet kicked uselessly, boots scraping against liquor-slick floor.
