Page 94 of Hidden But Not Safe

The suited asshole dragged the man next to him in front of him, letting him take the bullet instead.

Naz kept moving, kept shooting.

He’d been right. They hadn’t expected him to be so quick.

But there were a shit ton of them. A good dozen on top of those he’d already killed inside. A few of them managed to shoot, but Naz jumped into the middle of them, letting a couple of their cartel members take the bullets meant for him.

His borrowed gun clicked. He was out of bullets, but he’d expected it. He dropped the gun, grabbed the closest man, and used him as a shield while pulling the other gun from his waistband.

It was a mistake. Not because he was shot; the man’s body worked fine as a shield. But he should have released him before the dead weight toppled back, dragging him to the ground.

He got two more shots off before someone kicked his gun away, his arm throbbing in pain from the move. The barrel of a gun was all he could see, not the person behind it.

He didn’t want to die. He couldn’t, not before he got them all. Not before Meg was safe.

He batted the gun to the side, fire blazing along his arm, and the too-close shot made his head ring again.

“Don’t kill him!” the man in the suit shouted. “He deserves more pain than that.”

Naz scrambled for the gun, trying to wrestle it away, but then the first kick found him. They kicked right into his inflamed side. Pain took over.

It wasn’t just one kick. Naz tried to curl into himself, but the pain kept coming. His side melted from the throbbing fury it had become. His ribs felt like they had collapsed. He tried to protect his head, but his bloody ear had become a target.

The voices were back, but they weren’t taking over. They weren’t dragging him into that blind, violent place of his episodes. No, they were laughing at him.

The world swooped, dimming the edges in a different kind of gray. He didn’t even know when they stopped kicking him. His breath wheezed as he dragged air through his nose, saliva dripping from between his lips.

An arm wrapped around his neck, using the leverage to lift his torso off the ground.

Naz opened his eyes.

He recognized the person whose cheek they pushed into the ground near him. Seb’s face was bruised and bloody, but his dark eyes were as direct as they’d always been. His arm lay at an odd angle beside him. There was no sneering smile this time.

“Sorry, Naz,” Seb said. He got a kick for his apology.

A hand gripped Naz’s saliva-streaked jaw, dragging his chin up.

The man in the suit was familiar, and not just because he reminded Naz of Julio. It was the man from the club. The one who had fucked Meg.

The older cartel leader glared down at Naz. “It’s bad enough you killed my nephew, but to steal from me?”

Meg didn’t belong to anyone. He hadn’t stolen shit. Naz tried to shake his head, but the arm around his neck tightened, choking him.

“Where the fuck are my drugs?” Julio’s uncle asked.

The drugs. The biggest delivery of drugs Julio had ever been trusted with. It made sense that they were there about that, but Naz had left the pile of drugs in the warehouse.

Seb was no longer looking at him.

Movement dragged Naz’s attention past the men in front of him, back toward the house. Meg cried out as she was shoved forward, falling to her knees in the driveway.

“Look what I found,” the man who had pushed her down taunted. Blood soaked his shirt and dripped down his arm.

One of the men he’d shot inside must not have been dead. Naz should have capped them before he left.

He should have done so much more.

Flowery material fluttered around Meg’s legs. She’d put on one of the dresses from the closet. Meg hated dresses. Somehow it was worse that Meg was going to die in a dress.

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