“How do you?—”
Another ping into the stairwell, and a peek out showed Tomas running hard behind a uniform toward a forklift.A few more men were on their feet now, firing toward whoever stood behind the truck.
Emberly?
“Go,” Stein said.
Colt stepped out and neutralized the shooter by the loading dock.
Steinbeck followed and dropped another man, this one turning on Colt.
More gunshots, these aimed at the men behind a barrel.Stein had a better angle, but it was Tate who shut them down.
Tate moved down the stairs.At the bottom, he crouched and took out another man, who’d risen for a try.
The shooters behind the truck focused on a bigger man who held position behind a dumpster.
Maybe it was Steinbeck’s imagination, but it seemed he’d seen the big fella outside Nimue’s house in Melbourne Beach.
“It’s the Bratva.”
“No duh,” said Tate, who’d dropped behind the loading dock, over the man Colt had eliminated.He pointed to a star inked on the back of the shooter’s neck.“I know these guys.Bratva for sure.”
Tomas and another man hunkered down behind the forklift.
Steinbeck spotted a woman with red hair behind a stack of pallets.Madeline Ribaldi.He remembered her from the gala.She was pointing to the bodies on the floor.
He frowned.He could see one of the uniformed security officers, wearing a vest, but even as he looked, someone was struggling from beneath?—
Britta White.Shaking, her hair bloody, trying to crawl out from?—
His knees nearly left him.
No,no?—
Emberly wasn’t behind the truck, shooting at the enemy...
He took off toward the bodies, but a shot nearly clipped him.And that wasJust.It.
He turned and unloaded on the two behind the forklift, all the way until he reached Britta.Then he hauled her up and carried her, one arm around her, to the truck.Shoved her into the back.“Stay down.”
“I got her,” said a deep voice behind the truck.
He turned and stilled.“Shep?”
“Get Emberly.”Shep held a Glock, clearly abandoning his sidelines-only position.He glanced at Britta.“You shot?”
“No.”She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking.
“Stay put,” Shep said and glanced at Stein.Nodded.
Then Steinbeck stepped back around the truck.
A barrage of shots—somebody behind there had a semiautomatic—peppered the room as Stein ran out toward...
Notthe body.
Please be alive!
