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“And what is your plan to stop me, huh? Especially when you've gone to all the trouble of giving me the perfect setting.” He gestures to the open room toward his men, who will kill me before I get a single shot off. “Do you think you can walk out of here and I’ll be a changed man? You know me so much better than that.”
“I don’t care if I walk out of here or not,” I tell him. “As long asyoudon’t. The police are on their way. You’re as good as gone.”
He laughs, tilting his head back. “Oh, my goodness. How adorable you are.” He finally levels me with a glare. “No smarter than you were when I pulled you out of the gutter. No better than a hole to be used for pleasure.”
I click off the safety, but my hands are trembling too greatly for me to be assured of a clean shot, even this close.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” he continues. “You’re not going to shoot me. Baby, you know you’re not going to hurt me.”
“She might not, but I will.” Devan steps out of the shadows, and his hands are steady. His aim true.
And for the first time in a long time, Broderick’s expression gives a hint of what’s going on inside of him. He’s unnerved.
“Welcome, Detective Bishop. It’s good to see you’re still a functioning member of Empire Bay’s finest after what I did to your partner,” Broderick says. “I nearly figured you for the type of person to crumble under such trauma.”
The guards still have their weapons aimed in our direction, but as Devan steps up beside me, his warmth thawing some of the ice in my veins, my stomach settles.
“I don’t care how long it takes me, but I’m going to make you pay for every sin written on your black soul,” Devan says evenly.
Broderick chuckles. “You think you’re the man to do it?”
“I know he is,” I answer for both of us. Right before I fire a bullet right through Broderick’s kneecap and hit true.
TWENTY-FOUR
devan
The hiredsecurity Broderick brought tonight clearly don’t expect Aria to actually shoot their boss.
After so long under his thumb, why would they? She’s been the model protégée, employee, and lover. According to her. I saw it for myself, the way he looked at her. The way he grabbed her and kissed her as though he had a goddamn right.
But the bullet shoots through flesh and bone and comes out the other side, and I watch, in slow motion, as Broderick drops. Aria’s face is screwed up into a grimace, her lips moving with words I can’t make out even from beside her. Blood spews from the wound in an arch across the cement floor.
She rips into him as he goes down, and the others explode into motion. “You’re nothing but a monster! A fucking monster.”
I pull Aria behind me and fire off a shot at the closest guard before he does the same. The first one falls, but it’s not by my hand. My shot goes wide.
Naomi’s up in the crow’s nest overhead, so to speak, and her aim is impeccable. Damnit if she’s not one of the best shots I’ve seen since leaving the academy.
The guards are good, too, and this close, it’s almost impossible for us to make it out of here in one piece without some sort of casualty. As long as Aria is safe, that’s all I care about. Aria.Aria. She’s got to make it out of here. After everything Broderick has put her through, I'll be damned if he gets another piece of her.
My trigger finger is itchy, and I fire off five times, getting the second guard in the chest, the stomach, and the shoulder in quick succession. His body whirls before he goes down hard, managing to fire before his heart stops and his bullet grazes my uninjured arm.
Wincing, I push the pain to a dark part of me I’ll examine later when the adrenaline has worn off.
The third guard covers Broderick’s body with his own and urges his boss toward the door, although the middle-aged man can’t walk. There’s no cover in the center of the room. Nowhere for them to hide.
My clip is empty, and I shuck the gun aside. Naomi sends her shot wide to herd Broderick and his man back toward us, cutting off their escape. She keeps sprawling an arc of bullets until they’re forced to turn back toward me.
“You bastard!” Aria is screaming from behind me. A clang sounds, and I know she’s lost her hold on the gun. “You’re selling kids. You know what happened to me, and you’re still doing it! You’re doing it to hurt me, and I’m not going to let you get away with it.”
If he hears, he makes no move to comment, his face ashen and his leg useless.
“Hold your fire!” I call to Naomi.
Her last shot pings into cement, but the two men have stopped.
The guard has his arms around the other man, Broderick sagging, his knees buckling as I watch. Blood drips from a wound in his chest as well.
