Page 99 of Bourbon and Lies

I underestimated the level of monster this man was, but I won’t let what he’s saying seep in. I need to get out of here. I try shifting closer to the other side of the aisle. I just need to get to that side door. But my foot hits something and it clanks against the concrete.Shit, shit, shit.

It’s a copper whiskey thief that someone left here. If nothing else, and he gets close enough, I’ll use it like a bat. When I bend down, I hear a faint sound of buzzing like the cicadas that have been making noise all summer. My fingertips graze the cool cooper, but I freeze as the buzz is drowned out by the louder shuffle of shoes.Oh no.

“Awww,” he says with sarcasm. “You didn’t make that very hard, my pretty thief.” It’s like being doused with ice water. I don’t move a muscle, but they tremble on their own. My fingers get tighter as they wrap around the long copper neck.

His tall, lanky stature stands at the opening of the aisle and slowly starts looming closer. He has a gun in his left hand, its barrel pointed at me as he casually motions it in a circle. “You made a noise,” he tsks, like I flunked his test of how to hide from a psychopath. “That’s the only rule when you’re hiding. You stay quiet. Thought you would have been smarter than that.” Tilting his head to the side, he canvasses me from head to toe. “Daughter of an FBI agent and all.”

My body coils at hearing him speak about me like he knows me. Looking at me like he has any right to. I swallow the nerves that are clogging my throat.

“You can do hard things, Laney. Never forget it.”

I grip onto Julep’s harness. This monster doesn’t know me. He’s simply reading off facts. Surface-level details that could be found within a few minutes of a Google search if he had my real name. Which he did. But it’s when he raises the gun at me that I hold my breath. I tense up and my fingers ease just enough on Julep’s harness. And she feels it. She doesn’t wait for the command as she launches at him, fast, precise, and catches him completely off-guard.

When she makes contact, I scream out. The gun he held drops and fires as it hits the cement. Julep’s whipping head movements create a frenzy of sounds. Growls from her and howls from him. She takes him to the ground, jerking his forearm back as he yells out and curses. I cover my mouth, panicking about my next moves. I need to get away. But there’s no fucking way I’m leaving here without my dog.

The gun.

I trip over myself, trying to move fast enough to it.

Julep crying out pulls my attention, and I watch as he manages to get a kick into her somewhere and she releases him. She whines, favoring the back leg where she landed. But that doesn’t stop her as she tries to move back in for another bite.

I will not let this happen.

With the gun resting five feet from the wailing and bleeding monster of a man who has no other plan than to hurt me, I make a run for it. Gripping the long copper whiskey thief in my hand, my feet slap the cement without any more hesitation.

“I don’t fucking think so!” he shouts as he drives his shoulder into my gut, knocking the wind out of me as we both hit the ground. The copper whiskey thief clatters to the ground onimpact and slides into an empty, ground-level rack where a bourbon barrel must have been.

I try to suck in a breath and gather my wits to move. I roll my body into the main aisle and will myself to keep moving away from where we collided, but that’s as far as I get, because two things happen. Almost at exactly the same time. The buzzing sound I’d heard of what I thought were cicadas wasn’t a buzz at all, but a rattle. A coiled-up, very pissed-off snake juts out and connects with the monster’s ankle once, twice, and then goes back for a third bite, where it latches on.

“Motherfucker,” he spits out. In another gurgling moan, he yells, “Can’t feel my fucking leg!”

His eyes meet mine for a split second. I’m almost stunned at the sight of what’s happening just a few feet from me. I need to get out of here. But it's the flickering of a flame and its heat that jolts me and has me finally moving. Up from my side, rolling to my knees, and up as fast as possible. I should have known that gunfire and an entire room of highly flammable alcohol are going to cause one very lethal thing to happen. And it’s already begun. I hustle back to Julep, because the way he’s still wailing and now barely moving, he’s no longer the threat. It’s the heat that’s licking closer that has my attention now.

My body gets jerked forward at the same time an exploding sound goes off to my right. If I’m lucky, I’ll have only a couple of minutes to get out of here. I get up, my ribs aching from the impact of hitting the cement floor again. When I reach Julep, she’s conscious and keeps trying to get up and stay up, but her back end keeps giving out on her. I run my hand down her side. “I’m here, sweet girl. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.”

The heat in the room has gotten higher and the sound of oak crackling is my cue that the racks and barrels will give way any minute now.

“We need to go, Jules.” I wrap my arm around her middle and then scoop her up. She whines when I hoist her to get the right grip, but I need to run, and I need to do it now.

“We can’t stop. We need to run—” she shouted at me. Her bloodied body shook uncontrollably, but it wasn’t the time to ask questions. We ran and hoped the fire alarm worked.

“We’re going to be okay.” I repeat the same sentence over and over as my legs keep moving toward the side exit. Just like that night.“We’re going to be okay.”

I knock the door open with my shoulder just as the sounds of another explosion ring out. I need to get as far away from here as possible.

The only thing I can think about right now is getting to Grant. Getting both of us to him. My lungs are burning and my arms screaming from holding her, but I won’t stop for a second, not until I find him.

Fast thumping and a horse whinnying has me straining to see in the dark until I hear his voice, and it’s like a jolt to my very being. I can breathe again.

“Laney! Fuck, LANEY!” The fire starting to blaze behind me is what lights the darkness enough for me to realize that he’s coming right toward me at speed.

“Here,” I barely get out. “I’m here. We’re here!”

I hear him exhale in a rush. “Laney!”

All the adrenaline that had spiked, pushing me to fight, pushing me to run, is fizzling, and I crack. I choke out a sob as I squeeze my eyes shut. “Grant!”

I keep Julep cradled as best I can in my arms. That fucker hurt her. My voice shakes when I tell her, “You saved my life, sweet girl,” my chin wobbling as I try not to think about how she knew to come find me.

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