Page 126 of Brazen Deceits

With a nod of thanks, she sticks her head into the cab, taking a pair of gloves from Walker before snatching up a weird canvas covered in fucking computer wires.

She throws open the back of the van. “Chop chop, boys. Do what Trips says,” she says, a swagger in her step.

But I know it’s fake. It’s survival, not sass.

She races up the steps, leaving the three of us to haul the goons out, the sirens inching closer.

The snow tumbles out of the fucking clouds, making the ground slick, but covering our prints.

One, two, three goons on the sidewalk, a crash from the steps making my heart freeze.

A sleek silver Ducati comes tumbling down the stairs, the other three still perched a few feet above the street. Clarashoves another over as I race to the bushes to find the fourth guy almost awake.

Perfect fucking timing.

I slam my fist into his face as Jansen leaps out of the broken glass at the front of the museum, dancing in front of me, his grin certifiable. “Are you sure you won that fight? How can you see out of that eye? Need a hand?”

I notch my chin at the guy’s feet while noticing the ache in my cheekbone and my knuckles for the first time. Jansen scoops up the other half of the guy, then lets out a miserable whimper as we pass the destroyed bikes. He’s not wrong. It’s brutal. She’s brutal. A fragile disaster in the making.

Clara tilts her head, taking in the scene, then snatches the cable-covered canvas off the ground next to the bikes, rushing past us. She tosses the ugly-ass piece of trash Walker made just inside the entryway, then bolts back to the van.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Jansen and I drop the last guy next to the toppled bike.

The sirens are shrill, so close I can taste the danger. Yanking off his jacket, Jansen sweeps out some of our footsteps, at least muddling what happened here tonight.

“I need gloves, then get in,” I tell Jansen as he reaches me.

Tossing me a pair of fine nitrile gloves that are two sizes too small, I check the scene as I squeeze my aching hands into them. It’s chaos. It’ll have to be enough.

Once everyone’s in the van, the sirens screaming from maybe two blocks away, I yank the gun from the bush goon’s holster, marching over to the would-be rapist.

“Ears,” I yell at the van, Jansen immediately pressing Clara to his chest, covering the other side of her head with his palm.

The rage roaring, I breathe deep. It’s time to risk unchaining the animal inside of me, to give it a chance to do what it does best.

Maim. Destroy. Kill.

The full fucking clip empties with percussive bangs into the molester’s motherfucking cock as a smile twists across my face. My beast roars, licking at my soul, begging to do more, to take more, to feed it blood and death.

One glance at the van, though, Clara’s dark eyes frozen on the gun in my hand, forces me to tamp it down. I push the beast back, locking it deep inside. Slipping the gun into another goon’s hand, I barrel back to the van, slamming the door as we peel away from the curb. Clara’s stunned expression mixes with the bitter scent of gunpowder and the ringing in my ears.

One thing’s for sure: that fucker isn’t going to be forcing himself on any girl in a dark alley ever again.

He’s not dead.

But I bet he’ll wish he was.

Chapter 58

Clara

The blood on the floor of the van takes up ninety percent of my brain as we drive to a secluded business district, the guys stopping to peel off the Dick & Willy’s Sewer & Septic decal and toss it into a random dumpster. The other ten percent of my brain is occupied with the smell of gunpowder clinging to Trips.

We drive another five minutes to a different dumpster, and they switch the Illinois plates for Wisconsin ones. Two more minutes down the road and they’re cleaning the blood from the body of the van, wiping down the bumper, pulling off bloody clothes to add to the growing pile of bloody paper towels.

“Trips?” I croak, hoping I don’t have to toss my new boots.

He whips around, half stripped of his bloody clothes, his foggy ink across his chest dense in the half light of the parking lot. “Yeah?”

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