Page 34 of Antonio Miles

Boots pounded from the direction of the main room. Likely Denton’s hired security, or the off-duty cops Knight had warned us about. Didn’t really matter who they were, only that they were coming. They were armed, and they knew the building better than we did, and that gave them a distinct advantage.

I pressed flat against the wall and inched along it, keeping low. A man in a dark jacket rounded the corner ahead of Hawk. Hawk dropped him with two shots to the chest as I crouched watching and taking in the whole scene. The man crumpled and didn’t move.

Another appeared behind the first. He fired wild and panicked, not taking time to assess his situation, and it cost him. Hawk took cover behind a service cabinet. The guard’s shot went wide, pinging off the steel door of the loading bay, but Hawk’s was dead on the mark and the guy dropped like a stone.

Antonio moved now, working his way down the corridor toward the junction. He fired twice and another body hit the floor. The air stank of cordite and the copper tang of blood.

I reached the junction and crouched beside Hawk. He didn’t look at me, his focus never wavering from the corridor ahead.

“Talk to me, guys,” Antonio barked into his comm.

“All clear on my end,” Kass’s voice came back.

“Finch?”

“With me, and the girl,” Kass answered. “Sully’s got the rear.”

Antonio nodded once. He reloaded, ejected the magazine, slammed in a fresh one with the heel of his hand, the motion was fluid and practiced. Yeah, this wasn’t Tonio’s first rodeo, so to speak. Tonio glanced at Hawk and me before continuing on.

I moved with him, always sat at his back with my hand in his back pocket as he and Hawk worked the corridor. Two more shots brought another body down.

We were about to round another corner when a man in a black tactical vest circled into view from behind a service panel. He moved silently, his weapon raised as he pointed it at Antonio’s back. Tonio was focused on the junction, on the firefight ahead, and he didn’t see the man coming at us from an angle.

“Tonio!” I cried out as I raised my gun. My finger found the trigger and I squeezed.

The recoil snapped my arms up slightly, but the man jolted. His weapon discharged into the ceiling as he pulled his shot in surprise. Plaster dust rained down. He staggered, turned, and I saw his face. He was young and clean-shaven. The surprised look on his face gave me a pang of regret I tried to quickly squash. This guy was on the wrong side of humanity today and needed no sympathy from me. If it hadn’t been for Seth and the men and women from Kiss of Death, that young man would have been the one preventing me from fleeing on my own. Then the guy crumpled, going down hard. The pistol clattered across the tile.

Antonio spun. His weapon came around, then stopped when he saw the body. He looked at me. I was still holding the gun in both hands. The body on the floor didn’t move.

Antonio whirled around, his hand closed over mine, lowering the gun as he studied my face hard. “Tessa? You good?”

“I’m fine,” I said. My voice sounded strange in my own ears. Flat. Too fucking calm. “He was going to shoot you.”

“I know.” His thumb brushed over my knuckles. “I also know you’re not fine, but thank you for not letting me die.”

I looked down at the body. The man was maybe thirty. He had a wedding band. His eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. I’d taken his life and my hands weren’t even shaking. I think that scared me more than the killing itself.

The fight wasn’t over, but all I heard was a roaring in my ears as my breath came too fast. I knew I was in shock and needed to pull myself together, but it seemed an impossible task.

Antonio checked the corridor, then holstered his weapon and took my face in his hands. “Listen to me. You did what you had to do. You did nothing wrong, Tessa. I promise we’ll talk about it later. Right now, I need you present. With me. Can you do that for me, honey?” I nodded. My throat was tight. “Good.” He kissed my forehead, hard, then released me. “We need to move. Denton’s pulling back. Rainman with him.”

I handed Tonio back his gun, then thought better of it. I did thumb on the safety. He met my gaze with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m good. Really. Just shaken up.”

“You sure? I don’t want to take the gun since you obviously decided to keep it, but I’d like to not get shot either.”

I shut my eyes and took a steadying breath. When I opened them, I focused on Antonio and him alone. “I can do this. I’m good.”

He leaned in and gave me one more brief, hard kiss. “That’s my girl.”

I’d killed a man to save the man I loved, and I knew I’d do it again if I had to. What did that make me?

We moved deeper. The corridors narrowed, the amber lighting gave way to harsh fluorescents in the service areas at the back end of the operation. Left at the junction, right at the dead-end that wasn’t really a dead-end, a disguised door led to a short stairwell down.

“Well, Billie be frigged,” Kass muttered. “Don’t see that every day.”

The vault door sat at the bottom of the stairs on the far wall. The biometric panel beside it glowed amber. Denton’s thumbprint or his iris was the only thing that would open the thing.