When they burst into the room, I brace myself and wait until they’ve run over the door before I shoot. Bullets ricochet across the room, zooming past my ears as I shoot them down one after the other. Nathan storms at one of the Bonesmen who comes too close and rams his knife into his throat, then roars when he pulls it out. His eyes almost blaze with fire after every kill he makes, vengeance turning him into a psycho killer. And it puts a goddamn smile on my face.
“I’m gonna kill you all!” Nathan screams, shoving his knife into someone’s eye.
“Please…” my victim mutters, but I shoot a bullet straight between his eyes.
They should’ve thought of mercy before they tried to attack us.
Blaine skewers the Bonesmen on his katana like he’s counting bodies in his head, trying to beat Nathan at the killing game.
I guess Milo really picks his friends with care.
When one of them attacks Blaine from behind, Nathan shoots him down. “You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t ask for help,” Blaine retorts. “But thanks.”
“Behind you!” I yell when Nathan’s too distracted by Blaine’s words, and I shoot another Bonesmen down before he can put a butcher’s knife into Nathan’s belly.
More gunshots follow, and I lift the table and hide behind it for cover, rising only to shoot. Meanwhile, Blaine and Nathan are having a knife match in the hallway beyond.
“Don’t get carried away!” I yell.
A bullet grazes my face and tears off my mask.
I duck behind the table.
Fuck.
If even one of them sees my face, it’s over.
Those Bonesmen will come hunt me for the rest of my life. Maybe not the ones from this establishment, but the others surely will. These fuckers are the worst of the worst, and they won’t stop until they have what they want—revenge.
“You think your little game will work?” one of the Bonesmen yells. “We’ll fucking rip you to pieces! Your bodies will never leave this fucking club!”
When I look over the table again, I can see Nathan and Blaine being pushed back into the room by the sheer volume of enemies. Shit. We’re losing. Fast.
“Focus on weakening them!” I yell, taking another shot. “We don’t need to kill to get through!”
“The fuck I’m leaving any of these bastards alive!” Nathan yells back as he thrusts his knife into another one’s heart.
Suddenly, I hear more gunshots up ahead, but they’re not focused at this room. As I shoot down more Bonesmen, it appears some of them are turning around. But why?
“Fuck, they’re pushing us back,” Blaine calls at me. “Kai, shoot down the one in charge!”
“Trying!” I yell back, shooting my shots, but the fucker is fast on his feet.
“Where is Romeo?” Nathan growls at the Bonesmen.
Fuck, they don’t know who we are, and now he’s going to reveal us.
“Nathan, don’t!” I yell back, but he’s incensed, and he pulls out the silencer Blaine gave him, saving it for last to shoot three to four guys at once until the silencer runs out of bullets.
“SHOW YOUR FUCKING FACE, ROMEO!”
“He’s not fucking here, you dimwit,” a bald one yells. “But I’ll be sure to let him know you came looking … and give him your head.”
More Bonesmen push their way inside the room, so I push the table forward and shove it up against the door to keep them out. “Help me lift it!”
Blaine jumps into action and helps me push the table into place to seal the door. It won’t keep them away forever, but it’s enough to give us some time to catch our breaths.
“There’re too fucking many of them,” Blaine says.
“I don’t fucking care!” Nathan growls at him. “I’ll kill every last one of them for daring to take Ro.”
“I’m not fucking dying on your behalf,” Blaine growls back.
Nathan pushes against the table with all his strength. “Then why the fuck did you come?”
“None of us are fucking dying today,” I retort.
“We’re outnumbered,” Blaine responds.
More gunshots can be heard, but they’re not aimed at the table.
Suddenly, I hear cries and groans from behind it. Then loud thumps, like bags of potatoes dropping to the floor.
“Do you hear that?” Blaine says as he peeks over the table.
“Wait, it’s not safe,” I growl.
But all the gunshots have ceased, and I don’t hear a peep from beyond this room.
“It is,” he says, his fingers clenching around the top.
I slowly rise above the table, and my eyes widen the second I spot the bodies littered across the hallway. All of them, dead.
“Quick,” I bark at Nathan as we drag the table away.
But as I stop and stare, my whole body feels as though it’s turned into dust.
Lana stands in the hallway, a severed head in her hand. She chucks it through the hallway, and when it’s done rolling, the ghostly eyes make me do a double take.
It’s the fucker who was leading the charge.
And all of them are dead.
She’s breathing wildly, clutching a knife in one hand, a gun in the other, and has blood spatters all over her clothes. I swallow in awe at the sheer destruction in front of me. None of us knows what to even say.
She did all of this … on her own.
I thought she’d take Rory and flee, that she’d let us fight it out until our last dying breaths.
“You came back,” I murmur.
“You were overrun,” she replies. “I wasn’t going to let them kill you.”
And here I was, thinking there was still a slight chance she hated us enough to leave us here to die.
Not a chance in hell.
A smug grin spreads on my lips. “No… that privilege belongs to you.”
She smiles back and steps into a side room. “You can come out now, Ro. It’s safe. But don’t open your eyes.”
Little Rory steps out, shivering and all.
Nathan’s face visibly relaxes when he sees her alive and well, and he immediately runs toward her to pick her up and wrap his arms around her. “I’m here, Ro. You’re safe now.”
“Are you coming or what?” Lana asks us.
Blaine winks at me, and we both run through the hallway, hopping over the bodies as we make our way to the exit near the curtains. Everywhere I look, blood cakes the walls and floors, Bonesmen bodies covering the area. It’s like a giant massacre took place. Only one girl responsible for nearly half the dead.
And when I look at her, confidently striding through the building, I realize I have fallen madly in love with this cutthroat god of a woman.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
We all look over our shoulders, but Lana pushes us farther out the door. “Go!”
BANG!
She shoots her shot, but after fighting so long, she misses the vital points, and the bullet hits the Bones Brotherhood guy in the shoulder instead.
“You … What the fuck is a Rivera doing here?” the guy yells before she seals the door shut.
“RUN!” she yells, and we all bolt through the street, Nathan with Rory in his arms while Blaine offers backup. Adrenaline shoots through my veins, sweat rolling down my back, my lungs dragging in the oxygen as I run as fast as I can.
The guy slams open the door behind us, but we’ve already jumped into the vehicle, Blaine beside me on the passenger’s seat, and I start the engine and race off. He runs out onto the street, and with ragged breaths, both Lana and Nathan look out the rear window from the back seat to see him swear and raise his fist.
But we’ve made it out alive, and he’s not fast enough to catch up.
“Can I open my eyes yet?” Rory asks.
Nathan slowly pulls away his shielding arms and says, “Yes. You’re safe now.”
She opens her eyes and blinks as she looks around.
Lana’s blood-smeared face strikes fear into her eyes.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lana says, holding out her hand. “I’m still me. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
She rubs her lips together but still lets Lana touch her shoulder. Rory begins to smile. “You saved me.”
Rory jumps into her arms, and Lana stays frozen to her seat for a moment like she doesn’t know what to do with all that love.
“Cute,” Blaine muses. “If we forget all the dead bodies she left.”
“Hey,” Nathan warns, making a gesture near his lips. “Zip it.”
“I’m just saying.” Blaine shrugs. “She’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“True,” I say, glancing at them through the rearview mirror.
“I heard so many bangs. I was so scared,” Rory mutters.
“But you got through it,” Lana replies. “You’re a big girl.”
“Because I had you,” Rory replies. “Will you be my new Auntie?”
Nathan bursts out into laughter. “Whoa, hold your horses, Ro.”
“What? Can’t she be? Can I have more than one?”
“If you want to call me Auntie, I’ll be Auntie for you,” Lana says. “But my name is Lana. Lana Rivera.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” Rory says, making Lana blush as she tucks her bloodied hair behind her ear.
But something gnaws in the back of my mind that I just can’t let go.
“That guy back there … he said it too.” I look at them all through the rearview mirror, but in particular Lana. “He knew who you were.”
She swallows. “We all knew the risks when we came here.”
“You should’ve run with Rory when you could,” I say.
“And leave you all to die?” she retorts, her eyes as stern as her voice.
My lips part, but I don’t know how to respond.
Something about the idea alone that she killed all those people without a single scratch on her gives me chills.
“You killed all of them yourself?” I ask after a while, curious if she had any help.
She looks right back at me. “You’ve only seen me kill for sport. But this? This was personal. And I don’t take that lightly.”
Nathan glances at her, his neck turning red as his eyes slide over her bloodied clothes and face, inspecting every inch as though it’s the first time he’s really seeing her for the enthralling, powerful woman she is.
“But that guy … he saw your face,” I say.
Nathan glances at me through the mirror too now along with Lana.
“We destroyed their chance of getting more money,” I add. “And they’ll put the blame on her.”
“Let’s worry about that later,” Lana says, clearing her throat. “I just want to get home and have a nice, warm shower.”
Blaine laughs as he shows off his bloodied outfit. “You and me both.”
