Page 38 of Summer's Edge

“What’s the status?” Hunter asks.

“The guard’s heading back to Clive’s room,” Gene says. “If you hurry, you can take him down before he reaches it.”

Hunter needs no more direction than that. He bursts through the first door and then into the hallway, the rest of us right behind him. The guard is walking down the hallway, but turns as soon as he hears us running towards him.

I reach him first and stab him in the throat before he can make so much as a peep.

“One down, four to go,” I say quietly.

It’s not that I enjoy killing, I don’t. But the ability to do a job well while helping my brothers carries its own satisfaction.

“What’s happening in Clive’s room?” Hunter asks Gene.

“Two in the anteroom, two in the bedroom,” he says. “They seem to know you’re coming.”

“Let’s not keep them waiting then,” Hunter says and kicks down the door.

We were ready, but so were the bodyguards. A bullet whizzes past my head so close it singes the hair on my cheek. But I only notice that in aby the waysorta sense.

For all their supposed superior training and fighting skills, the two guys are dealt with quickly. There’s still no movement from the bedroom where the rest of our targets are, though I can hear a guy repeatedly asking what’s happening on the other side of the door.

“That’s Clive,” Hunter says darkly. “I’d know his asshole voice anywhere.”

“Sounds like a total wuss,” I say.

“He is. He likes hurting defenseless women.”

Trixie’s ring isn’t the only reason we’re here tonight. That’s just icing on the cake as Hunter put it. The main reason is that we’re breaking up what’s left of Clive’s sex trafficking operation and putting the guy out of business for good.

“Let’s bust in,” Chance says. “No time like the present.”

This time, the door doesn’t yield as fast as the first did under Hunter’s kicks. But after a few more kicks, it does. This time, there are no bullets flying as we enter. And the room is so dark I can’t see anything but a very fat man’s wide-eyed, sweaty face. The room smells of sour fear smell and medicine.

“One’s by the window, the other by the closet,” Gene’s voice comes through the headphones just in the nick of time before one of the guards comes at me from the left.

I manage to block his first punch, but the second lands in my stomach, momentarily taking my air. Ruin fights him back and away from me, but by the time I regain my wind, he’s losing the fight too.

Cornered men fight fiercely. That’s always been true and it’s very true right now. Hunter, Jax and Chance have managed to down the one by the window, but the one Ruin and me are fighting just won’t go down, no matter how many punches I land on his face and head.

Ruin finally finds an opening and plunges his knife into the guy’s stomach.

Over by the bed, Hunter is holding his own knife to Clive’s throat. “Where’s the ring?”

“What ring?” the guy asks.

He’s trying to sound tough but he’s stuttering. Sweat is rolling down his face in fat drops.

“You can die fast or slow,” Hunter says. “Tell me where the ring is and I’ll make it fast.”

“How about I don’t die at all,” Clive suggests.

“Oh, you’ll die,” Hunter says menacingly.

Clive falls silent after that, his labored breathing drowning out all other sounds in the room. This could take hours. We don’t have hours.

“The ring?” Hunter asks and cuts the guy's bicep, making him yelp in pain.

Clive glances at the nightstand by the bed and I rush to it on the off-chance that I’ll find the ring there.

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