Page 100 of Once A Crime Lord

“Yes.” It was almost over.

“Here.”

He held up a man’s jacket with a zipper in the front. She stepped out of the car and nearly crumpled. She grit her teeth as she forced her quaking legs to support her. She couldn’t lose her head now, not when she was so close. Blade stared at the warehouse as she stripped off her stiff, filthy sweater and slipped into the jacket. Her shredded leggings showed nasty scrapes from her run in the desert. She zipped the jacket and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.

The echo of gunfire reached her. She started toward the sound, but Blade caught her arm, pulling her to a halt.

“They’re clearing the way,” he said and tapped his earpiece.

“I need to—”

“Lyla, we could be outnumbered ten to one. Just wait. You’re not invincible. You’re no help to your mom if you’re dead.”

She grabbed her gun and stuffed two magazines in her pocket. Her mind was a spinning whirlpool of fragmented thoughts and images. The sounds of the battle taking place in the warehouse beckoned to her. Violence and death—they were becoming her constant companions. An image of her father’s body flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes and waited for the stabbing pain in her chest to recede.

“I guess target practice came in handy.”

She opened her eyes to find Blade watching her.

“You did well,” he said.

The price of admission into the underworld was blood, and she had spilled more than her fair share. No matter what she did, the underworld kept dragging her back.

“Look at me.”

She focused on Blade who looked disgustingly capable. His hand rested on the butt of his gun, and his clothes, while soiled, weren’t ripped and covered in blood as hers was. His eyes, while bloodshot, were alert and clear.

“Carmen told me everything. You did what you had to,” he said.

She couldn’t take a full breath. She felt as if there were glass shards in her chest.

“You were everything I could have hoped,” Blade continued as she tried to hold herself together. “You were cool under pressure and executed with the precision of a professional. You didn’t let emotions get in the way. You did well.”

Her fingernails bit into her palms.

“It was either you or them. I’m damn glad it was them.” He stepped close and cupped her chin in his hand. “You hear me? You did the right thing.”

“I did the right thing by killing my father?”

“It was either that or have Nora and Carmen dead before sunrise.”

Her throat swelled. She dropped her face forward until it hit his chest. She tried desperately to contain the maelstrom inside her. If she let loose, she wasn’t sure she could put herself back together again. He slid his hand into her tangled hair and said nothing. She grabbed a fistful of his jacket and clenched her teeth against the need to scream.

When Blade stiffened, she looked up and saw that he had one hand cupped over his earpiece. A muscle leaped in his jaw.

“Copy,” he said and looked down at her. “Let us take care of this.”

“Is she alive?”

He hesitated, and her heart stopped.

“It isn’t pretty. She needs to go to the hospital. Let them bring her—”

She ran toward the warehouse with her gun in hand. One of Gavin’s men was manning the door. He held up a hand as she approached, but after a glance behind her, he stepped aside.

Although the exterior of the warehouse looked like a rust bucket, the interior was brand new. The warehouse towered three stories high. High windows let in light from every angle. On the first floor were three rooms with the doors wide open. She glimpsed drugs in one room and money in another, but her eyes were on the second floor where a group of men gathered in front of a set of rooms.

“Lyla, you don’t want to see this,” Blade said from behind her.

---