Page 49 of Royally Ruined

Now they were chuckling, some more freely than others. Of the seven men, only two had their guns aimed at Costello now, and none were on me.If I just keep talking, they’ll see reason.As bad as things can get, I knew that communication could smooth things over. I’d seen it numerous times. Once I’d watched my father talk a man down from jumping off a building.

In life, there are those who cool the flames.

And unfortunately ... there are those who light the fires.

“Hey, assholes!” Donnie growled. “She’s playing you. The instant you let Costello Badd leave, he’ll round up his family and murderall of us. The only way out is to pop him in the skull, so do it already! Do it!Do it do it do it!”

He began to scream a constant stream of demands. The hairs on my neck went up; death was coming for me. For all of us. Maybe the Deep Shots weren’t sure about the power the Valentines would give them, but they were certainly sure that the Badds would kill them for endangering their oldest son.

Costello pushed Donnie down against the counter, so hard the noise resonated through the condo. It shut up his shouting, but that didn’t smother the fight-or-flight response rolling through the Deep Shots.

Something pinged sharply off the marble—close to Donnie, closer to Costello. “Look out!” I screamed. The bullet had missed, but no one could be lucky enough to dodge so many from multiple guns.

Bodies swarmed around; I tried to focus on Costello. He was the only solid shape to me in the blur of motion. Flashes of color lit him up; his speed stirred his hair. And through it all, he kept a neutral expression on his face.

He fired back twice. Just like at the fair, he hit each of his targets. Two men fell to the floor, wailing in pain. “Scotch!” Gina cried out. Baffled, I looked up and saw that she was waving at me from the elevator. Had she escaped, or had her captor released her?

Rush was bearing down on his gang mate, and with rising excitement I realized we werewinning. Donnie was being pulled behind the counter by someone, and the others still standing were facing off with one another. The Deep Shots were warring among themselves, right here, right now.

“Go!” Rush shouted, throwing a beefy shoulder into the chest of his assailant. “Get out of here, this is under control!”

I didn’t think it was, but I ran anyway. Gina motioned for me, Costello beating me into the elevator with enough speed to slam his palm on the buttons and shut the doors behind us. Thedingas we descended away from the firefight above us was unsettling.

All three of us were breathing heavily. “Gina,” I said, jumping into her arms. She squeezed me back, patting my shoulder with a light laugh.

“What?” she asked. “Were you worried about me? Didn’t you see I was just having a little party?”

“How did they find you?” I asked, listening as the bullets faded away.

Her eyes turned down at the corners. “They were waiting here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, why would—”

“They were waiting for me,” Costello said. He was leaning on the wall with his arms folded, gun still tight in his fist. “Gina showing up was a happy accident for them.”

Letting my friend go, I crossed the short distance between me and Costello. I pulled up short, sensing the animal rage still wafting off him. We’d fled the fight, but whatever made him capable of such coolness in the heat of battle hadn’t gone back to sleep.

I thought about what he’d told me, about his father and his training. Costello looked down on me silently; his skin was vibrating. It made the air around him shiver. It mademeshiver, because seeing him in the wild ... fighting for our lives ... it hadn’t just been exciting, it had been scary.

He thinks I’m terrified of him.He wasn’t surprised I hadn’t hugged him. He’d been waiting for me to see this side of him. Costello’s body language screamed, “Don’t touch me, you don’t want to get close to a monster.”

Gritting my teeth, I dove forward and curled my body around his. The elevatordinged once more as we reached street level. “This isn’t your fault,” I said into his ear. He tensed in my arms, the gun hard against my ribs. It should have reminded me of Darien, but it didn’t. Costello was nothing like that man. “You couldn’t have known they’d come here.”

He was a knot of cemented muscles. “I should have. If I’d been more aware ... thought about it harder, longer. I—”

“You would have done exactly what you did up there,” I said fiercely. Again I hugged him, and this time, he relaxed—just a hair, but I felt it. “You’d have kept me safe. Costello, you protected all of us. We’re alive thanks to you.”

His arms went limp. Then, in a furious motion, he caught me up and embraced me hard enough to drive all the air from my lungs. Behind me I heard Gina gasp. Costello whispered, “I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Ever.”

He held me at a distance, our eyes focusing and fully seeing each other’s. He wasn’t calm and collected as he had been before. Deep in his pupils, something had gone fragile, wavy.

Gina said, “I hate to interrupt, but we need to go.”

“She’s right,” he said. “Rush can’t keep this quiet; everyone will know I’m behind this now. We’re going to be hunted by everyone.”

By his own father,I thought with a tremor.

Costello released me. I snatched my phone up from the floor where I’d dropped it earlier, then followed Gina and him out of the building. He looked from side to side as we entered the quiet street. He mumbled, “I need to think ... Fuck, where can we go where they won’t find us? If we could get somewhere safe, just for a bit, I could figure something out. I know it.”

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