Page 18 of Torched Spades
“Johnny, is it?” Mac drawls, the gun aimed between my eyes never wavering. “Well,Johnny, you’re about to get a lesson in sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
I can’t talk my way out of this. The best I can do at this point is to minimize the damage.
Ignoring Mac, I keep my eyes locked on Dice. Something about him feels off, and it has nothing to do with the gun he’s aiming at my face. This guy looks like he’s straddling two worlds without possessing a strand of DNA belonging to either. His skin is as bronze as mine, but his vacant, slate-gray eyes are as much of a contrast to it as his bright red mullet.
Nothing about this bastard fits together.
For some odd reason, I think of Becca. If she thinks my head’s an untapped goldmine, she’d strike oil inside this fucker’s. He’s six and a half feet of square pegs shoved in round holes.
“Alice, I’m going to need you to go to your office now,” I say, making a snap decision I know is going to cost me. “I’m sure you have work to do.”
“You don’t—”
“That wasn’t a request,” I clip, the drastic shift in my tone eliciting her sharp gasp. Ignoring her, I hold the man’s glacial stare like a fucking hostage. “Your guests and I are going to straighten a few things out.”
Wisely, Alice doesn’t force a third warning. I hear the faint sound of rubber-soled shoes squeaking against concrete moments before a metal door slams.
And then there were three.
Mac lets out a low laugh. “You don’t know who you’ve just fucked with.”
Another step.“Actually,pompinara,you don’t know who you’vejustfuckedwith,” I counter.Another step.“And if you have any brains in that big ass head of yours, you’ll keep it that way.”
He didn’t expect that, evidenced by the way both dark eyebrows drive up toward his receding hairline as he cranes his neck to look up at his friend. “Who does this guy think he is?”
Dice’s finger tightens around his trigger. “Some wanker who’s about to learn what it means to cross lines he shouldn’t.”
Once faced with death, a man has less than a second to choose fight or flight. Only, in my reality, there is no choice. All flights lead six feet under.
So, I don’t wait; I act.
In a rush of movement, the three of us collide like rusted magnets. Unsurprisingly, Mac is the first to fire. Anticipating his impatience, I spin sideways, his bullet sailing past me as I slice between them.
While Mac is still trying to figure out what the fuck just happened, I reach around the outside and take his gun.Almost too easy. If this moron was my only problem, things wouldn’t have to escalate.
Unfortunately, two may be a fight, but three’s a funeral. So, aiming the gun at a forty-five-degree angle, I pull the trigger.
At Mac’s irritating howl, Dice’s eyebrows knit together, cracking his stony façade. However, shock doesn’t dull intelligence. He knows damn well the bullet lodged in his partner’s leg was a diversion tactic, so before I can get off another one, he turns around to fire first.
However, I learned at a young age the only thing that’s consistent in life is inconsistency. Never meet in the same place. Never drive the same path. Never fuck the same woman.
And never take the same shot.
The bastard gets off one bullet seconds before I drive both of us into a wall of pallets. We’re fighting for the gun when he punches me in the ribs. Gritting my teeth, I absorb the blow and twist his wrist a full one-eighty until I hear bones snap.
“Shit!” he roars, following the curse with a string of rapid Irish. Not that I care. Now that his wrist is no longer attached to his arm, it easily flops back, offering me the gun.
Since I have no use for Mac’s weapon now and prefer not to have it used against me, I toss it deep inside the pallet. Relieving Dice of his piece, I tap the barrel against each cheek before ramming the muzzle under his chin. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you two; leave on your own terms or leave on mine.” Flashing a vicious smile, I give the muzzle a hard shove. “And I suggest neither of you bothers Alice again, or we’ll see how accurate my aim really is.”
“Who the hell are you?” Mac wheezes from the floor.
“Johnny…” Dice says, weaving every consonant and vowel into a violent promise. It’s all he says, but it’s all that’s needed.
The bloodiest wars are often waged by a single shot.
Withdrawing the gun, I shove the Irish fuck away from the pallets, then motion where Mac is still sprawled out on the floor like roadkill. “Drag his ass the fuck out of here.”
I keep my guard up, half expecting Dice to reach his unbroken hand inside his suit jacket and start throwing knives like bar darts. Instead, he grabs Mac by the collar and drags him a couple of feet before glancing over his shoulder.
