I don’t get to count how many.
Cassian shoves me with a yell and I smash into the window, glass giving way around me as I crash through it and out into the open air of the outside world. A scream tears from me, stolen by the rush of passing air as I fall down, down, down.
The last thing I see against the backdrop of blue sky above me is Cassian throwing himself out the window after me.
14
RUSLAN
“Where is she?”
I’m out of the car before Valentina’s even brought the vehicle to a stop, and her yell of my name melts into the din of gunfire taking over the street and front garden of the house currently engulfed in violent orange flames.
Tracking Cassian’s card didn’t take long, but every second was a second too long and the carnage before us sets my heart racing like a power drill.
The house is ablaze, flowers and bushes are crushed under the bodies of masked men littering the garden, several black sedans and multiple cop cars scatter across the road, and Raven crouches by the remains of a small stone wall with a gun in hand and sweat beading her forehead.
“Joker!”
“Ace?” Her wide eyes land on mine and she puffs out her cheeks. “I called in backup. Cassian’s inside with backup and we’ve got?—”
Two things happen in the same breath.
An explosion rips through part of the house and takes out the right-hand outer wall in a ball of vibrant flame and black smoke, and shattering glass on the left-hand side shows two figures flung right out the top floor window.
I recognize Ivy instantly and my racing heart catches in the back of my throat. A split second later, Cassian’s body follows and Raven’s hand darts out to my thigh.
“No!” I surge upward, but Raven’s sharp nails in my thigh bring me right back down to cover as a hail of gunfire ricochets off the wall we’re hiding behind.
“Are you insane?” she hisses through clenched teeth. “Trying to get yourself killed!”
“I’ve got to?—”
“No! Stay your ass down!”
Everything inside me screams to get to Ivy and Cassian, but Raven’s right, so I stay beside her for the moment. “Fine. Fill me in.”
“Soon as I saw the cars, I put the call in. The entire place is surrounded so no one’s getting out. I didn’t have time to work out the specifics, so no matter what happens, the cops are making arrests regardless of who is here, you understand?”
“Sure, I don’t care.”
Another hail of gunfire and a scream rises up from the middle of the street where a cop on the move gets shot in the leg and hits the tarmac with a yell. He’s dragged out of the line of gunfire almost immediately.
“I don’t know how many are inside. They must have come in the back because the ones in the garden are from these cars.”
“Right.” Valentina, breathless from her sprint to meet us, skids to a stop on the grass and drops to her belly.
Relief floods Raven’s face. “How do you wanna play this?” she asks.
“I’ll take three of the officers right up the path. We’ll move fast. Raven, you need to take shots at whoever is shooting from that upstairs window. Don’t need to hit them, just keep them in cover. Ruslan, you need?—”
“I’m going for Ivy and Cassian.”
Valentina shoots me a narrow look. “If you get shot, then I’m not helping you.”
“Love you too.”
She rolls her eyes and slowly lifts herself onto her haunches. “This is such a fucking mess,” she murmurs.
