Page 112 of Ricochet

No way I’d convince the woman to follow my command. She’d proven time and again how stubborn she could be. All I could do was protect her. “You stay behind me. If shit gets crazy, you bolt. Don’t come back. Promise?”

“Promise.” She kissed me again, and I stepped in front of her, taking the lead.

“So, that bullshit you pulled with me, the shooting lesson. That was—” I picked up my fallen rifle, awkwardly toting it in my non-mutilated hand.

“I thought it was sweet, you showing me how to use a gun.”

A bullet sparked beside me, and both of us halted. Flanked by two burly men with beards, both wearing leather vests, Culling aimed his rifle from the center of the top balcony above us. Two seconds later, bullets sprayed over the open space, a beat after Aubree and I ducked behind equipment. Separated from me by a narrow walkway, she crouched low, keeping her gun tucked close.

A quick peek around the mill showed Culling, heading toward the stairwell, leaving his goons to fight for him.

With a wave, I caught Aubree’s attention and swept my gun left and right, demonstrating that I planned to cover her and for her to run.

She nodded, but a strange, nauseating sensation hit my gut when the corner of her lip kicked up, like she planned to do something fucking crazy.

Sure enough, she bolted from her hiding spot, before I had the opportunity to shoot.

CHAPTER 50

Aubree

Bullets rained above me, and their shells clanged to the floor, as I kept low, shuffling across the open factory toward the staircase. I planned to go after Michael—he’d broken away from the other two men, heading for the door of a stairwell. Had I hinted at the plan, Nick probably would’ve shot me himself, because when he’d told me to run, I was pretty sure he meant the opposite direction.

Toward safety—not straight into the mouth of hell.

Then again, he’d have probably advised me not to have Cox drive a patrol car straight into the building, either, but that’d turned out just fine.

I dashed toward the staircase, and a hot jolt of pain struck my calf.

“Fuck!” Grabbing my leg, I fell forward and lifted my pant leg, where a bullet had hit my calf. A quick examination showed a long path of the bullet at the surface of my skin. A grazing. I ignored the pain and pushed to stand up.

“Aubree!” Nick’s voice thundered from behind me, just before a shot struck one of the bikers.

I glanced back, to see the second biker had already descended the staircase at the opposite side of the room. About fifty yards behind, he made a dead run toward me, but Nick slammed his rifle into the guy’s face, knocking him back.

I kept on, after Michael, not willing to let the bastard get away. Up the staircase, I hobbled after a flash of his black suit, as he entered the stairwell.

Shooting twice had bullets bouncing off the closing door, not even close to hitting their target. Legs burning, I pushed through the door.

Michael appeared one level below me, and I forced speed from my muscles, leaping three stairs at a time. I fired another shot into the black abyss below, and missed, as he rounded another landing. Bullets pinged as I blindly shot into the dark spiraling staircase.

The desperation to catch him kept me from caring that we headed straight for the basement of the building, until he disappeared and a cold chill swept across my skin.

Gun aimed, I twisted left to right, all the way around, looking for him.

The sudden stillness raised the hair on the back of my neck, and before I could spin to what had given me that eerie feeling, a blade lifted my chin at the same time arms enveloped me.

“Drop the gun.” That bone-chilling voice I’d heard in nightmares chimed inside my ear.

“Fuck you.”

Flames licked the thin skin of my neck, where he sliced the blade, and I flinched. “In case I haven’t made it clear to you before, I am perfectly capable of ending your life.” He licked the side of my throat. “Almost as easy as I ended your father’s.”

Anger snaked through my gut, and I balled my hand into a fist. “I knew you killed him, you psychotic piece of shit.”

“Why … that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said, darling. Walk.” He wrenched the gun from my hand and held it level, jerking it to the side for me to take the lead. “Into the tunnel.”

A long, dark tunnel stood before me, lit only by the opening at the end, about two hundred yards away, that appeared to lead outside the building. The shine of metal piping lined both sides of the brick walls. Sludge squished beneath my boot, and the scent of mold and stale air overwhelmed my nose, as I trudged along, in front of Michael.