Page 432 of Filthy Elites

She hissed through her teeth and turned toward Brant—exactly where I needed her. “You shouldn’t have crushed it. Go and—”

My pulse thumped faster with a jolt of adrenaline. Before she could finish her order, I snatched the little pistol out of my sleeve, whipped my arm in front of her chest, and shot three bullets into Brant’s torso.

Holly let out a shriek. She grabbed at me, but I was already darting away and past her. Brant staggered, blood blooming across his chest, but his gun arm managed to follow me.

Thankfully, my toxin was slowing him down, messing with his reflexes. His arm wobbled, and then I was on him.

I caught his hand in mine, yanked it up, and squeezed his finger on the trigger.

The bullet caught Holly in the neck. I’d been aiming for her head, but the slight deviation would do given the circumstances. She gurgled, blood gushing from the artery I’d hit.

Brant swore, but the words mingled with a groan of pain. He slumped to his knees. Holly teetered, clamping her hand to her neck ineffectually. Blood spurted from beneath her fingers. She shot daggers at me with her eyes, but the life was already fading from them.

I stepped well back, wiping my pistol on the fabric of my jacket to remove my fingerprints. “If you’re thinking that I’m going to pay for this, you can forget about that. No one’s going to have any idea this was anything other than a spat between lovers with criminal inclinations. I’ll be removing every sign that I was here before I leave, and the cops aren’t going to look too closely when the obvious evidence will add right up.”

She opened her mouth, but all that sputtered out was more blood. Swaying, she keeled right over. The life had left her before she even hit the ground. Her corpse sprawled there, limbs akimbo, her hair more scarlet than ice-blond now.

Brant had slumped onto his chest. I fought the urge to put one more bullet in his brain, just to be sure. That would only make the policeunsure of how this spat had gone down. His breath rasped and then stopped.

As I checked his pulse, confirming it’d stopped, an engine roared nearby. Tires screeched, and a dark sports car careened around the warehouse into the lot.

Before I could do more than tense up, braced for a bigger fight, all three of the Rosano brothers spilled out into the night.

TWENTY-THREE

Anthea

The three brothersstopped in their tracks in front of the open car doors, staring at me and the scene around me.

“What thefuck?” Darius said. “We heard shots…”

I raised my chin, looking right back at them, and motioned to Holly, who’d sagged totally limp into the pool of her blood, her eyes staring blankly. “There’s the mastermind behind the shootout at the deal hand-off, such as she currently is. And there’s the guy who took the first shots, making both sides think the other was attacking them.” I pointed to Brant.

Felix was outright gaping. “And you just…”

I helpfully filled in the blanks. “This is what everyone is going to know happened: Holly and Brant got into an argument about what to do with all the crap they stole from you and my brother.” Careful to stay clear of the blood on the ground, I walked over to Holly, crouched down, and tucked my gun into her hand. “The gunshot residue will fit, as will the angles of the shots. Enough that no one’s going to bother to look more closely, anyway. I made it the cleanest job I could within the many limitations.”

“And what really happened?” Lucan asked quietly.

As I straightened up, I gave him a coy look. “Didn’t I just tell you?” I rubbed the side of my head where Brant had whacked me with his gun and winced. It didn’t feel sore enough to warrant concussion worries, but I was definitely going to have a bruise there. “Maybe given the fact that they’re here and so’s your stuff, this once you’ll take my word on the rest.”

Lucan’s eyebrows arched slightly. “You set it up so there wouldn’t be any heat on us.”

I shrugged. “Whatever you think of me, I’ve never wanted to screw you over. If I can do a job clean, then that’s how I work.”

Felix let out a disbelieving guffaw. Darius gave a huff of breath and strode toward me. I stiffened all over again, but all he did was wrap his arms around me and squeeze me close.

“I thought you were getting fuckingkilled,” he growled.

The demanding pressure of the embrace steadied me. “Ithought you’d be happier about that possibility, considering how we left things.”

“No,” he said hoarsely. “No fucking way. I just—finding out, after everything—” He pulled back to look at the bodies and then back at me, his eyes blazing with emotion. “You’re a goddamn marvel, Lady Noble. And this is the last time you’re going anywhere without me.”

“Er, shouldn’t I get some say—”

He cut me off with the crash of his mouth against mine, and for that moment, I decided I’d go along with his terms. We could hash out the details later.

I kissed him back with everything I had, my body waking up in an instant as if it’d been waiting just for this my whole life. Darius tugged my body flush with his, the bulge of his groin unignorable.

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