Page 66 of We Will Rise

“For once your mess has worked to our advantage,” Kaos jests as he shoves a gun in the back of his pants and a knife into his pocket.

Camilla takes two guns and a knife, strapping the latter to her ankle with a holster I didn’t see her put on.

Crew and Bishop take what they need, and I shove what’s remaining into my sweatpants. Not the most ideal pants to hold this many heavy weapons, but they’re just going to have to do.

“Ready?” Crew asks.

We each nod, and Camilla presses her eyes closed, snapping her Mafia queen persona into place and hiding away the woman she only shows us.

I lead the group into the hallway and move toward the stairwell.

Bishop runs further down and hits the button for the elevator, but before I can curse him out for being an idiot, he runs back to us.

“Make them think we don’t know they’re here,” he explains.

I nod and open the door, quickly checking to make sure there’s no one waiting for us before I usher the others into the enclosed concrete space.

Kaos passes me and heads down the first flight of stairs with his gun trained in front of him. When he nods, I head down after him and to the next landing as we move toward the ground level.

We pause at the door that leads to the garage, my hand poised on the handle. There’s a good chance we’re about to walk into the thick of it, but we don’t have a lot of options. The reason this place is a fortress is because there aren’t many entrances, and that’s really going to fuck us over today.

Crew holds his hand up with a frown tugging at his brows.

“The cameras are down,” he whispers.

I run a hand through my hair as my heart climbs into my throat.

We’re going in blind.

They have us trapped, and we have no way of knowing what we’re about to walk into.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

KAOS

Iusually live for shit like this.

The danger. The exhilaration. The unknown.

But usually I don’t have the woman I love pressed against my back in these situations, and that makes that entire mess we’ve found ourselves in all the more terrifying.

A door above us opens, and I press Camilla between the wall and my back, using my body to shield her from whatever danger is coming for us.

“We have to move. We’re better off in the open than being cornered in here,” Bishop whispers.

Camilla squeezes my bicep, and I look over my shoulder at her. “This isn’t my first gun fight, K. We’re all getting out of here alive.”

But she and I both know she has no right making that promise, not when we have no idea what awaits us on the other side of the door.

Kovu only hesitates for a moment before he tears the door open and throws a smoke bomb into the wide-open garage. Bullets hit the door as he slams it shut again, waiting for a moment while smoke fills the space.

He counts to ten and then throws open the door again, this time leading the five of us out.

Crew nods for me to go next, knowing I’m better in a fight than he or Camilla are, and then they follow us with Bishop bringing up the rear.

I wish I could say this is our usual formation, but that would imply that we’ve ever found ourselves in a position like this before, and thankfully this is a first. I just wish Camilla weren’t here.

More bullets pierce through the fog of smoke, but they can’t see us moving.

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