Page 28 of Stealing Cinder

The bodyguard reaches for the ax handle. I reverse my grip and bury the blade in the crown of his skull. The steel connects with a sound that is part crack, part wet compression, and his legs go out from under him. He drops straight down, knees hitting the hardwood, and then pitches forward onto his face. The handle stands upright from his head like a crude marker. Blood pools fast across the polished floor.

One down. Four to go.

I leave the ax where it is and spin toward Edgar.

He has Cinder by the hair. A fistful of pale blonde strands wrapped around his knuckles, pulling her head back at a sharp angle. Her spine arches and her feet slide against the blood-slicked floor as he drags her toward the hallway. A raw sound tears from her throat, fury and pain ground together, and her nails rake across his forearm hard enough to draw four parallel lines of red.

Edgar throws her, but Oliver is there to catch her.

Holding her to him and shielding the two most precious people in my life with his body, he roars, “Get the fucker already and let’s end this.”

Cinder wraps an arm around her belly when I look at her. “I’m okay. I promise.”

My Glock clears the holster before she finishes. The barrel finds the second bodyguard bursting through the hallway behind Edgar, a heavyset enforcer with a pistol drawn and sweeping toward Cinder and Oliver.

I pull the trigger.

The gunshot punches through the foyer and the recoil jolts up my wrist. The round catches the enforcer between his eyes. His head snaps back and the pistol drops from his hand, clattering against the baseboard. He folds in a heap that blocks half the hallway.

Two down.

I cross the foyer in three strides and take Cinder’s face in my hand. Blood that is not hers slicks across her cheek. Her fingers grip my jacket lapel and pull, hauling herself against me. Her pulse races under the skin of her wrist where it presses against my neck.

"Are you hurt?"

"I told you I'm fine." She grinds the words through her teeth and her eyes burn with a fury that tells me she is far from fine, but she and our baby are okay.

I tuck her behind my back while Oliver reloads. My Glock tracks the hallway where two more enforcers are already shoving past the body I dropped.

Behind us, two distinctive clicks punch through the noise. I know those sounds the way I know my own heartbeat.

My other friends join us.

Oliver stays to my left, his weapon drawn, face wiped clean of anything resembling emotion. Bastian rolls his neck and loosens his tie until the knot hangs midway down his chest. He stubs his cigar out on the banister without looking and the cherry hisses against the wood. His grin spreads wide and hungry. Valerian plants himself at the base of the staircase, his gun in his right hand, his freshly lit cigar clamped between his teeth. Smoke curls past the scarred ridges of his jaw and the sheer look of anger on his face sends the butler back into hiding .

Over the past few months, all three have put down the guns and stepped back from violence. I guess love does that to a man. But right now the amount of rage pouring through the four of us is enough to level this city in a night.

They've all watched men abuse their power and kept their mouths shut for the sake of peace. Kingpins don't start wars over principle. Wars cost bodies, and the bodies come from the people they love most.

There are lines, though. Lines that exist whether peace demands they be ignored or not.

I just found mine.

And my friends just stepped over it with me.

"Took you long enough." I chamber a fresh round.

"We were finishing our cigars and it was a bad choice to try and stop you from beating Edgar." Bastian squares up beside Oliver, and the diabolical glint in his eyes says he has been waiting for a reason to hit something all night. “But it would have been nice to be invited. That’s all I’m saying. I could have a few more reasons to punch the man in the face.”

“This gaudy decor for one,” Oliver pipes up.

Enforcers pour through both ends of the hallway. Six, eight, I stop counting at ten. Edgar has more men on his payroll than I gave him credit for, and every single one of them is armed and funneling into the foyer. The air turns thick with cologne, sweat, and the oiled metal scent of weapons being drawn from leather.

The butler is brave enough to appear again. This time at the mouth of the corridor behind Cinder. Mid-fifties, stiff posture, white gloves now stained with blood at the fingertips. He grabs Cinder by the arm and hauls her sideways.

"Mr. Silvani wants the girl secured in the west wing."

Cinder's body whips toward him. Her knee drives up between his legs and connects with enough force to lift the man onto his toes. His mouth opens in a silent scream. His grip on her arm goes slack and he crumples to the floor, both hands cupping his ruined groin, the white gloves pressed against his trousers as his face turns a shade of green that clashes with his livery.