“What is he going to do?”
“More distractions. Cerberus will have planted all kinds of party favors around the property for different situations. He’ll set something off, try to get everyone to move toward that instead of wherever we are. Or at least lessen the number of unfriendlies we have to deal with.”
“What if there are guards at these elevators, and they don’t move?” she asked. “We’ll be sitting ducks when the doors open.”
“We’ll have a slight advantage. They’ll have to be out in the open to shoot at us because they’re shooting into a box.” He pulled her into the elevator carriage to show her. “If you stand here by the control panel, you have some cover from the front of the wall because the walls are smaller than the door opening. We can shoot from an angle. They have to shoot straight in. Bullets don’t bend around corners.”
“That’s not all that much of an advantage.”
“Nope, but it’s something, so we’re going to have to make it work.”
“Or pray the guards run off at the distraction,” Demon added.
Midas came back online. “Okay, God, Loki, and Gilgamesh are storming the towers in three, two, one, mark.”
Two seconds later, there were three loud booms split seconds apart.
Demon looked at Steel. “Think they told Nemo and Gem they were firing?”
Steel considered the idea for a moment. “I’d say the odds are sixty/forty they didn’t fire at the tower they were supposed to be hanging off.”
“What?” squeaked Daleyza.
“Gem’s basically a human cat. She’s got at least three lives left. It’s all good.”
Was he serious?
Then she saw it. A twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Eres un gilipollas,” she groused.
“It’s Nemo, babe. We’ve had bets on where he bites it for years. If it hasn’t happened by now, it won’t. Idiots lived charmed lives.”
“And as much as Midas wants to strangle him on a regular basis, he’d never let one of us put Nemo in that position,” Demon insisted. “Don’t worry, Gloriosa.”
The features on her face tightened. “Did you just call me ‘Glorious’?”
“Umm… yes?”
“You’re not sure?”
“No. I’m sure. It’s… a nickname.”
Ildefanso frowned.
Demon threw his hands up. “She didn’t have one. You didn’t give her one, and the rest of us had to talk about something while you two sorted your shit out. Things have been a little busy to notify you officially,” he snarked.
“I’m so confused,” Daleyza said.
Her husband was staring at Demon, but he spoke to her. “Our clients all get nicknames. When the women were claimed, we kept them in place, and we don’t use their real names as a way to protect them. That way, if anyone ever heard us talking about them, they wouldn’t know who they were. In theory.”
Demon listed them off. “Kubrick. Flame. Gem. Cherry. Mouse. Gloriosa. It’s what we’ve been calling you,” he explained.
“Why Gloriosa?”
Now Demon looked a little uncomfortable, flashing a look at Ildefanso. “Midas, we clear?”
She squinted at him, but he suddenly became very interested in the elevator controls.
