Page 31 of Fight or Fly

Étienne’s eyes darted from side to side as though worried someone might be listening in, despite the loud buzz of conversation surrounding us. “It’s been crazy for the last couple of weeks. Like,batshit. Every mid-level meeting place in the damned city has been hit with raids, and a lot of the higher ones, too. I almost stopped coming here to The Jackal in case they start dropping the hammer on the low-level joints, too—but it’s the only way to get any news.”

Alex exchanged a look with me before returning her attention to Étienne. “Is it just Montreal? Do you know? Or is this happening in other cities, too?”

He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “No clue. The lines of communication have been cut. It’s like we’re under siege, and the longer it goes on the less information there is about what’s happening.”

There were wider implications, but only one that I was focused on right now. I tugged Alex to the side and lowered my voice, speaking close to her ear. “We’re not gonna get anything useful about Beckett if everyone who might know something has already either been busted or made a run for it.”

Alex was as tense as a drawn bowstring. Étienne gave a final nervous glance around the bar and rose to leave, looking like a man who would prefer to be pretty much anywhere else. Neither of us made a move to stop him.

“We need to get back to the others and reassess whether or not to cut our losses and find a different cell,” Alex said. “If someone’s got access to this level of information about the underground, it won’t take long before the safehouse network is compromised, too.”

The instinctual need to make sure Jax and the omegas were safe warred with my need to go after Beckett. I shoved the emotional turmoil aside, unwilling to deal with it.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m not giving up on Beckett yet, though. Not until I know for sure that he’s either dead or out of our reach for good.”

Alex opened her mouth to say something, but the ambient hubbub of conversation in the bar rose abruptly in alarm. Several patrons surged to their feet, and others were crowding toward the line of grimy windows. The back of my neck prickled ominously.

“Trouble,” I said unnecessarily.

Alex was already elbowing her way to one of the windows. I followed, shoving patrons out of the way until I could catch a glimpse outside, where half a dozen unmarked vans were parked across the street. Armed, black-clad figures spilled out of them in numbers that seemed ridiculous for a simple bar raid.

“Fuck,” Alex cursed.

People were already scrambling for the exits—front and back. They were going to be met by a wall of armed police, though... assuming these were actually police and not something even more sinister.

Alex and I were both armed, but not with anything that would stand up to the kind of firepower on display outside.

“We fighting or what?” I asked, having to raise my voice over the increasing pandemonium of panicking patrons inside the bar.

“If anyone in here pulls a gun, they’ll take it as an excuse to mow these people down,” Alex shouted back. “Let’s try to make for a back room, see if we can get behind their lines somehow and sneak out.”

Assuming even a basic level of competence from the grunts outside, it wasn’t a plan with a high likelihood of success—and she knew that as well as I did. Still, I scanned the interior looking for an employees-only door. Alex saw it first and pointed me in the right direction, just as the front door burst open and several small objects arced into the building.

Alex’s hand closed convulsively on my arm, yanking me in the opposite direction.

“Stun grenades!” she cried, a moment before a wall of blinding light and deafening sound slammed into the crowd. I staggered and fell, the screaming that had started when the door opened cut off abruptly as my hearing went away.

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