Page 75 of Break for Me

I probably shouldn’t have sounded that desperate about it.

“We work for her stepdad, Jersey,” she said. “And I don’t mean he’s the one footing the bill for her contract. He runs our organization.”

The scream that pierced through the dead air around that building kickstarted my heart and I was sprinting back toward the door before I’d given myself a second chance to think about it. There was more to what Memphis needed to tell me, but she was headed somewhere that I wasn’t going to like and I could feel that in my soul. I trusted her judgment enough to know that I needed to get in and back out as quickly as possible if there was any chance for all of us to survive what I was about to do.

“Memphis, if I go back in there —.”

“We’ll figure it out, Jersey Boy,” she said. The way her voice quivered suggested that she wasn’t anywhere near as confident as she was trying to sound for my sake. All I wanted to do was tell her that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, but how could I promise such a thing? I was about to barge back in here and re-kidnap the bane of my existence to seal our fates as the next team to be retired by this particular job. I paused with my hand outstretched toward the door.

“Do you want to see any of this?” I asked.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

I ripped the little camera off my jacket and stuffed it in my pocket before I pulled the gun from its holster.

fifty-three

TRISTA

I squeezed my eyes shut when I heard the first gunshots. I couldn’t believe anyone would end it that quickly. I hadn’t even seen Nate yet. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t walk right up behind me and shoot me with no warning.

I spent a second wondering if my last thoughts alive had effortlessly flowed into my first thoughts as a dead person in whatever afterlife I’d found myself.

My brain told me to stop being a dumbass when I could still feel the intense, burning pain in my thigh from the knife that had been jabbed into it and left there. I opened my eyes to find that the three men who’d been standing around me scattered and were now shouting at each other. I looked around in every direction to try to grasp what was happening and my stomach threatened to empty itself at the sight of the body on the floor beside me.

So, there were only two men left shouting at each other. The third was choking on his own blood as it poured out of a hole in his neck. There was more shouting and more gunfire; and then only the sound of footsteps and my panicked breathing remained.

“I’m going to need you to find me a doctor, Memphis,” Jersey said from behind me. He was untying my hands while I sat and stared at him in absolute disbelief.

“It won’t take long for word to spread, find me somebody low on the list,” he said. “Somebody they wouldn’t think to warn right away.”

He knelt in front of me again and started to untie my ankles.

“It’s a knife,” he said. “Stuck right in the middle of her left thigh. And it is bleeding rather profusely.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Hearing your version of the description is most helpful.”

He stopped when I was untied and stayed where he was to look up at my face. I swung my right fist at his face as hard as I could and knocked him back flat on his ass.

“Fucking took you long enough, asshole.”

He laughed while he ran his hand along that frustratingly perfect squared jaw that I just punched.

“Well, yes and no,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly a slap.”

“No, Memphis. I punched him right in his stupid face,” I added before I tried to stand. I couldn’t put any weight at all on my left leg and even contracting the muscle there to attempt to get myself into a standing position was the most excruciating pain I’d ever felt.

“Alright, Rambo,” Jersey said getting back to his own feet. “Just wait a second.”

He scooped me right up out of that chair and carried me back toward the door. This ridiculous human sat me on the ground to let me lean back against the tire of his car while he retrieved a fucking towel to lay across the seat before he sat me inside the car. On the towel. Because God forbid I bleed on his precious leather.

“We aren’t going to have much time, Memphis. Find me somewhere to take her. I’ll call you back through Seph here in a second.”

He took the radio from his ear and put it back in his pocket while he leaned in to buckle the seatbelt across my body. He knelt beside me right outside the door to look at me another time.

“Are you coming with me?” He asked.

“What?”

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