Page 98 of Corrupt Me

How did any of us come out of this fight alive? The sudden tension thickening the air was an undeniable premonition of bad things to come.

“You didn’t actually expect me to show up alone, did you?” Tristan cockily said to Angelo, ready to put a second bullet in him.

I trusted Tristan not to shoot me accidentally, but everyone else in the suddenly crowded warehouse…no fucking way.

“Chaos,” Angelo hissed, his eyes burning into the guy standing behind Tristan.

Chaos made Angelo look like a saint. He lacked all of Angelo’s refined nature and handsome features. I highly doubted Chaos was his given name, but it aptly fit him. Every inch of the six-foot-plus man oozed chaos. He wore a beanie on his head. I had an inkling if he took it off, he would be razor-bald underneath. What he lacked in hair on his head, he made up for in facial hair. His beard was so long he could have easily braided it.

“Angelo,” Chaos greeted with equal disdain, the two bosses sizing each other up.

“Your rival seemed a more fitting bet than the authorities. And we know how much you like a bet.”

“Let’s see if your gamble pays off, Malone.” That was all Angelo managed to get out before chaos erupted.

“Ever, down!” Tristan’s voice bellowed through the warehouse.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Guns went off in sequence as I hit the ground. My hands covered my ears, and I curled against a tire.

I’m going to fucking die.

I didn’t know what to do or where to go, but cowering and staying still was not it. Getting my body to cooperate was another obstacle. Somehow, I got on my hands and knees. I felt like a lost kid crawling on the ground in a crowd of strangers, praying I wouldn’t get trampled or shot.

Would this nightmare never end?

I couldn’t tell left from right, and I didn’t know if I was headed toward safety or going deeper into the pits. The next time Tristan wanted to leave me at a shitty motel, I wouldn’t argue. My ass was staying planted and making friends with the cockroaches.

The gunshots were deafening, reverberating in my head, but as much as I would love to crawl under a car and hide, I needed to get to Preston who wasn’t far from Tristan. Getting there meant walking through a minefield. I needed a way to get there that wouldn’t expose me, and I needed this great escape plan now before a whizzing bullet found its way into my flesh.

Holy. Shit.

The cars.

That was my light bulb moment.

I was already half under Preston’s car. It didn’t take much to shimmy myself the rest of the way, flattening onto my belly. This outfit was trashed. Like I was in a military combat simulation, I low crawled to the other side of the car, only a few feet from the next, but fuck me, if it didn’t feel like I had to cross a canyon.

“Ever!” Triston screamed.

Did he think I was twiddling my thumbs? What did he expect from me? To pop my head up and say here?

I did my best to crawl toward his voice. Feet scrambled around me from others using the cars as shields. It looked like I wasn’t the only one with the same idea…kind of. I was the only one underneath them.

The shots continued to go off but with less chaos and more controlled precision. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

I couldn’t think beyond the need to keep moving, but even that didn’t last long.

A hand snatched my ankle, and the small ground I’d gained under the following car began to vanish. “Where do you think you’re going, sugar?” Angelo asked, hauling my ass toward him.

Uh, fuck no.

I wouldn’t end up in this bastard’s clutches again. I used my other foot to kick out like a wildcat, hissing and clawing. One of my blows hit him in the face hard. Blood squirted from his nose.

“You bitch,” he cursed, his fingers releasing me to touch his face.

I wasted no time, scrambling away to the other side. A pop went off behind me, the bullet ricocheting off the tire rim, missing me, thankfully. I made it under the next vehicle, a truck, leaving me with more headroom but also more exposed. And I wasn’t alone.

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