Page 122 of Vicious Chaos

Two.

I grab the chain around my neck and pull suddenly, yanking the man who holds it into the cage with me. As soon as he’s within distance, I wrap my arm around his neck, grabbing one of the knives from my thigh and slicing across his throat.

One.

The man with the mic pulls a gun from his waistband. I pull the chain toward me and wrap it over my shoulders, making sure it stays out of anyone else’s reach as I step over the dead body of the guard. He’s just starting to lift the gun to aim at me when the first grenade goes off. The explosion rocks him on his feet. The second explosion keeps him from regaining balance.

As soon as they go off, the entire room rushes out of their seats.

Rachel stands in the center of the upper level, raising her own gun as she takes a single shot. I don’t have to watch to know the man with the mic, now lays dead on the stage. The loud screech of the mic hitting the stage ricochets through the room.

I jump to the front of the stage. Several of the men and women here pull out their own weapons. Rachel and Alec pick off people in the crowd from their viewpoint above. Nicholis watches their back, quickly hitting the few people who chose to sit at the top.

Mikey and Ronan guard me from the back. Hitting any guards that attempt to rush me from behind.

Kade rushes through the side door, heading straight for me. He tosses me an automatic rifle and I grin savagely as I catch it and train it on the crowd. The rest of my men fan out behind him shooting into our side of the crowd, while Ian, Holden, and Tyler come from the other side.

Max and his guys move in from the back, boxing in every sick fucker that was excited for this heinous event. No one is escaping. Our teams systematically move through the aisles, taking out every person they pass. Screams and gunfire ring in my ears. Making it almost impossible to think through the chaos unfolding before me.

We have the entire crowd penned in between us. Several of the people attempt to fight back. Launching themselves at the men, trying to knock them out or steal the guns from their hands. It’s impossible to watch everything unfold, to check on every person on our side.

There’re too many people still rushing around, some are hiding, our men are still moving. Still shooting their guns. Blood runs in small red rivers down the aisles and begins to collect at the base of the stage.

It was almost too easy. Too fast. We aren’t done yet, but the majority of the people in this building have at least been hit. It’s hard to tell exactly which shots were fatal though as we all fired so rapidly, without any real precision.

When there’s no one left standing, the others begin to slowly work through each aisle, finishing off each and every person that managed to hide from our aim by tucking behind the seats.

Kade jumps on to the stage in front of me.

“I have to get this off of you,” he begs and I see for the first time the real strain this part of the plan put on him. He gets his lock picking kit and quickly unsnaps the metal collar off from around my neck.

I take a deep breath as I gently press my fingertips against the now tender skin. The metal chain slips from my shoulders and hits the stage with a loud clunk. I didn’t realize just how much they were really weighing me down. How tight the collar was and how much it restricted my breathing.

“Thanks, Stranger.” I smile up at him, relief flooding through me.

“You’re shaking,” he says.

“So are you,” I respond, laughing. My whole body is vibrating, but not out of fear. Out of fucking victory. I almost can’t believe how well we fucking pulled this off. How can so many hours of planning be over with so damn quickly?

I throw my head back and laugh. Unable to hold it back, even as the odd gunshot goes off behind me, eliminating another person who lived through the first round of fire.

We had been worried that the crowd would scatter like rats, be able to reach the exits while we scrambled to keep our people unharmed.

Rachel starts back down the stairs, they might have taken the most risk behind me since it was only the three of them up the second floor. The wide smile she wears keeps me from worrying though.

I arch a brow as I watch Alec carrying Nic down the stairs, the two of them arguing as per usual. She just shrugs, like it isn’t a big deal that I can see Nic bleeding from here.

“He’ll be fine,” she explains. “Just a flesh wound.”

Declan appears at my side, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much.”

Alec drops Nic roughly onto the stage, making him curse loudly. It’s hard not to laugh when Alec just flips him off. “You said put you down. That you were fine on your own.” He makes a point of looking over his body, his eyes lingering on the blood. “Guess you were wrong.”

I snort. I swear, only siblings would have quite that level of savagery towards each other. Well, I'd probably be the same way with Nic. Maybe it’s just him. He really does make it so easy to give a hard time.

Max leads a few of his guys up to the stage, I catch his attention and he makes his way to me.

“You all good?” I ask.

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