Page 36 of Twisted Empire

Maddie had taken the passenger seat next to Beckett. “Where exactly are we going?” she asked.

“My family owns an entertainment complex out here at the far edge of the suburbs,” Beckett said. “We use it to launder most of our money from our less legitimate local activities. It’s almost as far from the city proper as the farm, and it’d be a significant blow if something happened to it.”

He turned the wheel to veer down an exit ramp. I twisted on the bench to peer out the side window.

“It’s just up ahead,” Beckett said, and his phone’s ringtone started pealing. He fished it out of his pocket while holding on to the steering wheel with his other hand and glanced at the call display. A frown darkened his expression. “It’s one of my men who was stationed out there—I talked to him less than an hour ago when we left.”

He hit the speaker phone button and set the phone down in the cup holder slot. “What’s going on, Matt?”

At the same moment, gunfire boomed through the air—fainter through the windows and louder as it crackled from the gun’s speakers. My stomach plummeted. Before the man even spoke, I knew what’d happened.

I’d been right—but I’d figured it out too late.

“The pricks just swarmed us,” the guy on the other end of the phone hollered. “How far away are those reinforcements? Fuck.”

More shots reverberated through the speaker. Beckett spat out a curse and slammed his foot down on the gas. “We’re just a couple of blocks away, and the others should be right on our tail!”

He blew through a stop sign without a hint of concern and careened into the huge parking lot around an expansive entertainment center. Movie posters lined the wall of the cinema that bulged from this corner of the building.

But the people who’d come to enjoy those movies and everything else the complex had to offer weren’t getting much entertainment right now. Shrieks and cries carried through the air as we screeched to a halt at the edge of the parking lot. Only a little relief flashed through me at the sight of three more cars tearing around the bend to follow us.

We were going to need all the help we could get. Beckett leapt out, and we did the same, but we stayed braced behind the doors to use them as shields as we took in the scene before us.

At least twenty figures waving guns were spread out across the parking lot close to the complex. Several of them were taking shots at the outside of the building, shattering a window here, smashing a store sign there. Others yelled at patrons who were now fleeing toward their cars.

They weren’t killing those innocents—not yet, anyway—but they were doing their best to terrify them.

“Don’t let us see your faces around here again!” one shouted loud enough for me to hear over the gunfire. “And tell your friends to stay away too.”

Beckett sucked in a ragged breath. “They want word to get around that this happened—that it’d be dangerous to come here. Dry up all our business. Fucking assholes.”

“Not just that,” Slade said with an anxious note in his voice. “I think those guys right by the building have gasoline cans.”

I squinted through the dimming evening light and realized it was true. Three figures were splashing liquid from what looked like gas cans against the walls of the complex.

They were planning to burn down even more of Beckett’s business. Scaring off his customers was just a side benefit. And it meant that even if we stopped the fire in time, they’d already caused plenty of damage.

The other cars skidded to a halt around us. Men poured out of them, and Beckett hollered to them with a wave of his hand.

The attackers around the building looked our way and fired several more shots at the building before swiveling around. But they didn’t even try to take us down. They dashed toward the vehicles they must have arrived in.

All except two of the men with the gas cans, who paused just long enough to flick open lighters and toss them into two separate puddles of gasoline.

Flames hissed to life at the same time as our side opened fire. “Be careful of any pedestrians!” Beckett was urging, but as far as I could tell, all the ordinary people had already fled the scene. Thank God.

A couple of the attackers fell under the hail of bullets, but most dived into or between their cars in time. The fire roared up the two sides of the building like twin demons, ready to dig in their claws.

Beckett glanced between the retreating attackers and the building and appeared to decide that it wasn’t worth going for revenge if his property went up in smoke in the meantime.

“Let them go!” he shouted. “Focus on putting out the fire!”

“With what?” one of his men hollered back.

A few of his people raced forward with bottles of water, but even I knew those weren’t going to get very far. My mind spun with all the knowledge I’d accumulated across my life, and I whirled toward the spot where I could predict the water main would be located.

There’d be a hydrant somewhere along it… There!

“Over here!” I called out, running toward the yellow structure I’d caught sight of down the street. Several of Beckett’s men followed me, but it must have only taken them a few seconds to figure out what I was after.

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