Page 60 of The Fixer

Pressing my face into that tumble of red hair, I wanted to believe it was true. I let the sway of the car lull me into a false sense of security, the thump, thump, thump of the tires over the pavement soothe away some of the disgust I felt every time I looked in the mirror.

That moment ended too quickly. It ended with the quick click of something in the front seat. Ended with me looking up at Santini and finding a gun pointed at my face.

“Fucker.”

I yanked Eliza off my shoulder, throwing her harshly to the floor, then dove on top of her just as the gun went off. The car swerved following that single shot, and even though Eliza was freaking out beneath me, I popped my head up.

“The fuck was that?”

The car swerved again and the squeal of tires issued outside. “We got a tail,” was Santini’s response.

Scrambling into my seat, I peeked into the back. Blood splattered the rear window around a single fracture in the bulletproof glass. Laying at a crooked angle in the tail end was a dead man wearing a black ski mask.

Santini cursed under his breath, spinning his wheel and careening around a corner. He braked fast and my body slid partially off the seat, putting too much of my weight on Eliza’s back.

“Jet!” she cried, pure terror in her voice. It was if she could see the two cars that were following us, the other beside us, boxing us in. I reached a hand out to calm her, scared beyond measure that I wouldn’t be able to keep her safe.

“It’s okay, sweet girl,” I told her, trying to hold on while fishing my handgun from behind my back.

Santini pulled the car hard to the right, then jerked it left, tossing me head-first toward the door. The impact sent shockwaves up my arm and into my shoulder, my hand hitting the door at the same time the SUV hit one of the cars at our side. The car crumpled like an aluminum can on the sidewalk as it hit a concrete barrier alongside the street.

One down, two to go. Except as the two cars behind us jockeyed for position, a bunch of their friends showed up. Half a dozen motorbikes joined in the ranks, surrounding the SUV and closing in. Santini hit the gas, lurching forward and causing Eliza to cry out, the bikes trailing behind for just a second before they, too, sped up.

There was nothing I could do, not without opening a window and taking a shot. Putting myself, my friend, and Eliza at risk.

“Get the fuck down,” Santini bellowed seconds before a burst of gunshots shattered the relative silence of the car. Each thud off the glass or the side of the SUV ricocheted inside my head like an explosion. I slid down in my seat, half my body covering Eliza as I tried to keep my full weight off her.

Santini slammed on the breaks and one of the motorbikes hit our back end, the man driving slamming into us with a hard thud. “One down,” he yelled out, though he said nothing about the other five.

I peeked my head up, chancing a glance out the back. One car was still close, but the other had been cut off in traffic, the distance between us growing with every harsh breath. “Jesus, fuck! What the hell, Santini?”

“Don’t know, boss. Just stay the fuck down and I’ll try to get us out of this mess.”

Another jerk of the steering wheel, another thud against the side of the car. Santini sped forward and the roar of engines echoed off the buildings, reverberating like thunder through the night. The damn bikers were taking risks I never would have expected. The kind more suited to the sprawling streets of cities like Miami or L.A. than the cramped, dark recesses of New York.

“Hold tight!” Santini yelled, and I gripped the back of his seat in time to keep from being whipped to the right. Another thud sounded, followed by a horrid crunch before the car lurched and bounced, back tire landing hard on the pavement before he raced off. “That’s three.”

“How many are there?” came a whimper from below me. But before I could respond, before I could reach down and assure her everything would be okay, something thunked against the back of the car.

“The fuck, the fucking monkey?” Santini’s curse was followed by the sound of shattering glass. “Need a little help!”

Gun first, I popped up over the back of the seat, only to find some asshole trying to climb through the rear window. I didn’t hesitate to shoot, didn’t hesitate to put two bullets through the middle of his head.

And I didn’t hesitate to duck for cover as the car the man had surely jumped from came up close. Santini turned left, racing through traffic, eyes flashing to the rear view before the car jerked right. The sounds of the bikes diminished, but the speed of our car didn’t slow in the least.

“I think I lost them.”

I popped my head up again, searching through the back window to try to find any hint of the crew that’d been following us. Scrutinizing the buildings as we raced by them, trying to figure out where the fuck we were.

“Let us out.”

“What?” came a cry from the footwell as Santini shook his head.

“Can’t do it, boss.”

“It wasn’t a fucking question, Santini. Let us the fuck out.”

“Jet?” Eliza cried, hand gripping mine as I reached for the girl. Her eyes were wide with terror, and surely, she was questioning the state of my mind. I pulled her up to the seat beside me, held her close as I turned my eyes to my friend.