Page 57 of Frenemies

“We’re in a room full of volatile chemicals,” Mannix pointed out.

That’s when the realization struck Beast and I. We looked at each other, then at the wet trail of chemicals on the cement floor in front of Tanner. Beast tried to yell to him, but it was too late.

Tanner popped up from behind the table and sang, “Woo hoo.” Then he tossed the bottle.

Dread settled in my gut as it twirled through the air, flame flickering. Not because of the possible explosion it might cause, but because Diesel, a man who’d just been fully patched in last night, rushed out.

I tried to stop him, even reached out and yelled as I watched a bullet sail through his skull. Then, the bottle crashed to the ground.

I could hear the fire roar to life. I felt its heat, but I couldn’t see it. All I could see was the pool of blood growing under Diesel’s body. He should’ve never been here. The kid was too new, and I knew that. Why the fuck did I let him come?

Beast kicked something while Mannix yelled a string of curses, and Tanner laughed and made his way over to us. I barely noticed any of it. I was trapped, staring into the dead eyes of one of my men.

Accusation glimmered back at me as I imagined telling his mother that her son wouldn’t be coming home because I fucked up and took him somewhere he should’ve never been. Not even the bullets ticking into the plaster would shake that image from my head.

“Kill that crazy motherfucker!”

That voice, however. . . .

I tore my eyes off my fallen man and glared over the wall of fire slithering through the middle of the warehouse. More specifically, I glanced at the two men in the center of the group. Jax snarled at Tanner as he ran across the room, but it was the other man with the scar on his face that I wanted.

“Woot.” Harris raised his arms, firing both his pistols while marching closer to the inferno separating them from us. “God damn, Playboy. You sure know how to throw a party.”

Tanner dodged every single one of his shots, ducking behind objects while twisting his body out of the line of fire. Motherfucker even did a damn flip.

It was the perfect time for me to take out Harris, and I would’ve too if Mannix hadn’t grabbed my collar and pulled me back behind the wall.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I had a clear shot,” I argued.

“So did they.”

He leaned over me and popped off a few while Beast reloaded.

Fuck, he was right. I’d been so focused on taking out one man that I walked right out into a hail of gunfire. Even now, it was hard for me to let it go.

The sparkling eyes of my baby boy kept flashing through my mind, urging me to step out there and tempt fate. Then I saw another pair of eyes. Bright green ones that wouldn’t have anyone to protect them if I was dead.

Beast rolled across the floor and flattened his back on the wall opposite of us. Tanner followed a second later.

Mannix shot him a dirty look as he straightened up next to Beast and yelled out, “Hey, Jax. You should really think about sending your guys to shooting lessons. Harris couldn’t hit the broad side of barn.”

Harris didn’t like that. He charged forward, ready to walk through the fire until Jax pressed his hand on his chest.

“You motherfucker! One of these days, I’m going to remove that horseshoe from your ass.”

“Hey, stay away from my ass, you sick fuck,” Tanner smiled and shot me a wink.

Harris growled out a roar of anger, and a second later, the area was riddled with bullets. A cloud of drywall dust erupted in the air while specks of concrete from the floor ticked around us.

I couldn’t help but snicker. Tanner was an annoying little prick with a knack for getting under people’s skin, and Harris was no exception. He never did like Tanner, said that the kid couldn’t be trusted.

He was so insistent on it that I almost believed him. He was my brother’s best friend, after all. Turned out they were the ones that couldn’t be trusted.

We ducked down away from Harris’ wrath and waited for the next onslaught, but it didn’t come. Everything got quiet when Harris stopped firing. Besides the dying crackling of the fire, the only thing I could hear was steady footsteps.

Were they leaving?

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