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Chapter Thirty
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I didn’t want to run, but I had no choice. If I was dead, I’d never be able to get Vee out of Tony’s clutches. But did she even want to be rescued now? I’d overheard what her sister had said. The two men I’d killed back at their home had never been out to hurt them. They’d been sent to get the two girls out of the house, to bring them back to New York. To protect them from their father.
To protect them from me.
If I hadn’t shown up that night, Verity wouldn’t have had to go through everything she had with me. She’d never have believed she’d lost her sister, because they’d have been together the whole time. She wouldn’t have had to go and face her father, because I wouldn’t have killed the two men on the road and she wouldn’t have lost Tony’s trust.
I’d been trying to help her, but I’d been fucking things up for her all along.
Tony pointed his weapon in my direction, and I felt the two men either side of me withdraw slightly, moving away, not wanting to be so close to a flying bullet. Taking the moment, I lunged to one side, the guy on my left losing his grip on my arm, as I smashed my forehead into the temple of the man on my right. A gunshot sounded, a bullet grazing past my shoulder with a sting of pain. The man I’d head-butted slumped to the floor, and I went to snatch up his weapon, but another bullet flew past me. Shouts of alarm and anger followed. I wanted the gun, but I also needed cover or Tony was going to get his wish and I would end up dead.
I darted behind the nearest crate and saw what I hadn’t before—a second small door in the back of the building, which led onto the riverfront. I couldn’t stay here—it wasn’t as though I could hide from them. More shouts came, and a bullet pinged off the crate beside me, sending splinters of wood flying.
Fuck.
My heart wrenched at leaving Vee, but I didn’t have any choice. I burst out from behind the crate and ran for the small door. I heard heavy feet smacking on the floor behind me. I couldn’t even turn and check how many were after me.
I smashed my whole body weight against the door, and, for a moment, I didn’t think it would give, but then it swung open and I fell into the night. It sounded as though everyone in the warehouse was after me, and when I heard Vee cry my name, I almost stopped and took what was coming to me, but I couldn’t. The river stretched out before me, rushing, moonlight creating silverfish flashing across its surface. Would there be somewhere along its banks I could hide until they gave up? Then I would come back again and try to find Vee.
I had no choice.
More gunshots cracked through the night, and I jumped up onto the wall separating the walkway and the river, hoping to jump down onto the bank. But the water was higher than I’d expected, a harvest moon rising the levels, and there was nowhere I could go.
Frantic, I glanced back to see everyone come flying from the door I’d exited from. Vee was with them, and I caught a glimpse of the desperation in her dark eyes. I was about to jump down from the wall, to keep running, when something hit me in the shoulder.
I’d been shot before. I knew what it felt like—the cross between a punch and the snap of a whip. I opened my mouth, unsure of what I was going to say, but the impact had already sent me flying backward. The wall vanished from beneath my feet and I experienced a moment of suspension in the air, before I hit the ice cold water below.
