She scoffs and arches a brow. “I haven’t had any since you tore them off me in the farmhouse, remember?”
“Oh, I more than remember. I think about it constantly,” I laugh, taking her hand and leading her toward the stairs. “Let’s do this. And remember, your ass sticks right on mine until you have a clear shot at the door, and then you run like the devil just clocked in for overtime.”
She lets out quick, shaky breaths, psyching herself up to step right out of her comfort zone and into a war that she should never have been brought into, and as we slowly creep up the stairs, I feel her nerves radiating out of her like static before a lightning strike.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I inch over to the side and gently curl my fingers around the handle before carefully pushing down and releasing the latch. Pushing it open just an inch, I peer out into the room to find that Aria was right. It’s definitely an old restaurant that’s seen much better days.
A quick scan tells me there are at least ten men in the main dining hall of the restaurant, but there’s no telling who else could be stashed away in here.
There are bricks of cocaine piled up on the table and an older man with glasses, madly typing into a calculator. From the sweat coating his forehead and dripping down the side of his face, my guess is that he didn’t come here voluntarily, and from the numbers he’s running, he doesn’t have good news for the Bone Reapers.
I don’t see Lux anywhere, and that pisses me off. This is probably going to be the only shot I have at ending his life, but just because I don’t see him here, doesn’t mean that he’s not about to meet his maker. I need to be alert, need to make sure she gets out, even if it’s the last thing I do.
Reaching back, I curl my hand around Aria’s wrist, grasping her tight. “Ready, baby?”
“No, but it’s now or never.”
“That’s the fucking spirit,” I tell her, and with that, I silently push the door open before springing into the room, pulling Aria along with me and keeping her at my back as I angle us toward the door.
Heads snap up, searching for the threat, but I’m already on them, releasing Aria and grabbing the head of the man sittingdirectly in front of me. I snap it with ease as the asshole next to him reacts a second too late, giving me the chance to grasp the back of his head and slam it down against the table, knocking him out cold.
The others in the room barely have a clue what’s going on, and that proves these morons are nothing more than shitty drug runners. They’re barely kids, probably recruited fresh out of high school, and they have absolutely no business being in a place like this.
Some start to run while others freeze, gawking as they hesitate to reach for a weapon, and unless they try to step to me, I’ll leave them alone, but the ones who dare stop me from getting Aria out of here will more than meet their maker.
Men are running everywhere, and as they approach me, I quickly take them out one by one.
Someone shoots from across the room, and I instinctively shove my hand on the top of Aria’s head and push her down to the floor. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE,” I yell over the sound of the gunshots as bullets whiz past me, distantly noticing that the sweaty accountant has also dropped to the ground. Only he doesn’t need to be told to get out. He moves on his own accord.
Aria crawls across the filthy floor, but as the bullets keep coming and one lodges right into my shoulder, throwing me back a few steps, Aria stops. Her eyes go wide, realizing I’ve been shot, and a ferociousness comes over her as she throws herself onto her back, aims her gun, and shoots like a fucking mad woman on a mission.
She’s un-fucking-stoppable as she takes out the shooter, and for good measure, she takes another two out while she’s at it. And fuck, if I weren’t in so much pain, I’d be rock-fucking-hard for her right now.
“Fuck,” I grunt as the burning pain pulses through my shoulder, rendering me almost useless, but I keep fighting, keep pushing through the pain, because nothing else matters.
“Menace, go,” I have to remind her, only the little she-devil appears at my side, her gun aimed directly at the asshole swiping at me with his blade.
“I bet I could pull this trigger faster than you could even piss your pants,” she growls, her tone filled with venom, but it’s enough to bring him pause, and as he really looks around, he realizes none of the other men are still standing. He’s on his own.
His hands go up, not ready to die for this shit, and the second he steps back and drops the blade to the floor, Aria wraps her arm around my ribs and starts pulling me away. “We need to go,” she hisses as my gaze searches the restaurant one last time, making sure none of these assholes are about to jump out at us the second our backs are turned, or hell, making sure Lux isn’t hiding out like a little bitch, letting his men take the fall for him.
Aria leads me away, and I hate how much weight I have to put on her as my body starts giving up on me. I keep my back to the door, not willing to take my eyes off the threat for even a second, and as Aria pulls us away, I take the gun from her hand, ready to use it at a moment’s notice.
Every second of our retreat is filled with tension, and the second we step out the door, I whip around, taking the lead as I grab Aria by the arm and take off like a fucking bullet, getting us away from the restaurant.
She presses the key fob for Talon’s car, searching for where it’s parked. “There,” she calls out, pointing a little further down the road.
Seeing our road to freedom, heavy relief pulses through my veins, and as I take another step, the exhaustion quickly startsweighing me down. “Menace,” I murmur, putting more and more weight onto her.
“Come on,” she groans, shoving her hand against my chest, trying to keep me up.
“Baby, I—”
I drop to the ground, my knees slamming into the sidewalk as the blood pours from my shoulder, darkness dancing in my vision.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Aria seethes, the richest panic in her tone. “I swear, we didn’t get this far just for you to die on the sidewalk. Keep going, Stone. I just need you to make it to the car. Please. Get up. Get the fuck up.”
My head lolls, and as I fall forward, I catch myself on my hands, but Aria’s not having it as she grabs at my arm, pulling me back up. “One foot up,” she begs, needing my help to make this happen, unable to bear my weight on her own.
