Page 179 of Shadow

“There are. It’s us,” Sin chuckled.

“Great. Sinclair is going to suck my fucking toes at night,” Asylum muttered, tugging on the blankets again.

“You’re the last motherfucker I’d ever suck the toes of,” Sin said.

“Guess we’ll find out tonight, won’t we?” Asylum grunted, grabbing the blankets and tugging again.

They shifted, and he let out a happy sigh.

This was going to be a long fucking weekend.

ASHES

This was fucked.

I didn’t like hurting innocent people. It went against everything I was as a person. I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved because someone was a fuck-up or just plain wicked. I had the scars on my wrists to prove it.

So as I stood with my lighter in my hand, my white mask in place, dressed in all black, I breathed out and said a soft prayer that the innocent wouldn’t be harmed. Church knew everything there was to know about the horsemen. We knew the kings may be in attendance, which made me feel a little better about setting the fire since I wasn’t a Dominic fan. It was childhood bullshit, but I tended to hold a grudge. Of course, now it didn’t matter because I had Sirena.

“You OK?” Sin murmured from beside me, his mask in place.

I glanced at him. All in black. Hood up, just like the rest of us.

“I can’t wait for this to be over so we can get back to Sirena,” I admitted.

“You’re not alone,” he muttered. “Fucking Everett. Piece of shit human.”

I nodded. He wasn’t wrong.

“Ready?” Church came forward, and I nodded. Stitches and Asylum approached. I didn’t need to know they both looked grim beneath their masks. We’d been watching the guests arrive for hours. Lorenzo De Luca was armed to the teeth. The entire place was one giant arsenal with how many armed men he had.

Too bad for Lorenzo De Luca that he didn’t know the city like we did. We’d grown up in the Underground, and it didn’t get that name for no reason. There were tunnels beneath the city that came up in various places.

And unfortunately for Lorenzo, one just happened to come up in the basement of the venue he’d booked for his engagement party.

Church opened the door to the tunnel from the empty building he owned. We could have gone in straight from the Underground, but Church said the less time he spent with his father, the better.

We stepped into the dimly lit hallway where countless people made their final walk, all thanks to Everett’s secret network, and someday, Church’s.

The door closed behind us.

“Creepy,” Sin muttered as the lights buzzed and flickered overhead.

“If you listen closely, you can hear screams sometimes,” Asylum murmured, completely serious. “Usually I’m the one making them scream, so we should be OK.”

“Fucking morbid, man,” Stitches said.

“Focus,” Church snapped. “You know the target. We grab him in the fray. We get home. Got it?”

We murmured our agreement and continued the short walk to the venue.

“Ashes, go,” Church murmured.

I said nothing and walked past him, deeper into the tunnels. I knew where the ventilation system was. I opened one of the grates deeper down the tunnel and crawled inside, really fucking hoping there weren’t going to be spiders. I hated spiders.

I traversed the tunnels until I got where I needed to be, pulled the pin on my grenade, and dropped it down one of the shafts before moving onward to start the fire. The chemicals in the grenade were non-traceable and would work fast and dissipate before we made our entrance. But just in case, Asylum made sure our masks could filter out anything that might confuse us.

I breathed out as I pulled more stuff from my bag and set to work with the smoke and flame. I had to do this right or I’d be fucked trying to get back to the guys.

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