In fact, the closer we get to the warehouse Franco Greene’s supposed to be doing a deal in tonight, the more irate I’m becoming no matter how composed I may appear. All I can see is her in that room with Temple, his gun aimed at her chin and his hands on her battered skin. It’s there in my head like a reel, spinning over and over again to show my inadequacy. I was complacent then. Too late. Amused even with the scenario until it hit me in the face and I realised how much she meant to me. I’m not now.
“Sir?”
I look back from the broken down streets gliding by outside, sneering at how little this part of the world means to me, and focus on the sound of Benton’s voice. “Yes?”
“Five minutes. The other team is setting up. He’s there. Ready?”
I look at Alice for the first time since we got in, twisting my body to face her fully. “Are you?” She stares back, fidgeting occasionally, but those eyes of hers stay steady with mine to show both her reasoning and fortitude about this. A light smile comes to my lips, followed by a sigh of annoyance, and I turn back to Benton. “Yes. Initiate.” He gets straight back to his earpiece, delivering commands at pace. “I hope you’re ready for every minute of your life, Alice. You’ll pay for making me agree to this. I doubt you’ll like much of it.”
She doesn’t answer. She surprises me by scurrying over the back seat to get into my lap, curling herself tight into me. I’d like to show yet more fucking displeasure by not touching her, but there’s no truth in that. No honesty. No reality either. Whatever this is, and whatever I’m doing it for, it’s all about truth between us. This is her truth, and me conceding is my offer to her.
“I should say it now,” she murmurs, as I run my fingers through her hair. “You should know, don’t you think? Just in case.”
“I should always know everything, but just in case does not belong in your head. There is no just in case.”
“But-“
“No.”
She tries to move. “Malachi I-“
“Not a fucking discussion at the moment.”
I pull her closer and frown over her head at the two guys in the front. This is wrong. Every goddamn second of time in this vehicle is wrong, and driving these streets she probably knows like the back of her hand is also fucking wrong. I’m so close to telling them to turn around and leave it’s unnerving my own sense of anarchy.
The roads blur in my own internal fight. They turn to nothing but dark alleys and dark roads and dark people in the world. Insidious people. People like me who hunt the night searching for something to play with, something to destroy. If she wasn’t with me I’d be amused, entertainment by my sport, but she is and I am not entertained by a fucking thing.
By the time the car pulls around a corner and quietly into some old warehousing, cutting its lights, I’m as furious as I’ve ever been. I watch Benton get out, and then look at me to open the window. He talks in his earpiece, checks his weapon. “Ready whenever you are, Sir,” he says. “Four outlying men are already down. Nine inside. We need to be quick now.”
Alice crawls out of my lap and straightens her shoulders, as I scan the area and watch three of my men arrive near these two. Five men – all of them ready to protect her and me. I take one last glance at her, still warring with myself, then grab her hand to pull her out with me. Fuck it.
Here we are, as she would say.
The second her feet hit the ground, we’re surrounded by my team of black and sweeping guns. My hand moves to the back of her neck, pinching in tightly. “You stay right here. In my hand until I say. Yes?” She nods and keeps herself glued to my side, as all our feet cross the dusty ground silently to reach the warehouse. “Such a pain in my ass,” I mutter, eyes fixed on the door we're approaching.
Benton stops and holds his fist up, making us all come to a halt. He talks, moves, and then a volley of shots begin sounding out. The inside of the warehouse lights up like the Fourth of July, cracks and splinters of light shining through the cracks in the doors and windows.
“Devil’s night,” she mutters, trying to get around me.
One hand tightens on her neck, the other hand holding her chest back from moving forward.
“But I want to see,” she says. “Need to.”
I twist her face into me. “No. Stay the fuck still.”
The men around us scramble, pushing us sideways until we’re backed up to the wall and they’re shooting at something out there in the dark. My hand goes to her head, pushing it downwards in the noise and chaos. More shots. More death, I suppose. I pull on one of the guys, making sure her whole body is hidden behind him and me, and scan out into the gloom as one single run of light streaks through it towards us. Another shot comes in from another angle, pulsing shot after shot in the direction of the light in the distance until it stops.
I’m grabbing a gun from one of their holsters before I know what I’m doing, too fearful about her to be calm in this panic like I normally would be.
And then it’s silent.
Only shouts and commands coming from inside the warehouse. My team.
Alice tries to move in my hold. I don’t let her. No goddamn way is she moving until these guys say it’s alright to move. One of them leaves us and sprints off into the darkness, sweeping himself around the outlying area before coming back to me. “Clear.”
I nod and turn for the door, finally feeling some of my own anarchy swelling through me now this first part is done and she’s still breathing. The whole team moves with me, their bodies still covering us no matter how much the word clear has been uttered. Nothing is clear as far as I’m concerned until she’s done whatever she needs to do and we’re out of here.
Chapter 18
