Page 73 of Knockout Queen

“All you have to know is where to find Gregory.”

“Fuck,” the guy screams. He’s shaky and white, like he’s coming down off a high. I don’t think it’s that at all. It’s the fucking adrenaline tearing up his insides. The sad reality is, he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Well, he does, but none of the choices are good.

“If I were you,” I say, my voice shaky. “I’d pick the one where you might end up alive. And then if you do live, I’d leave the Heights for good. Don’t turn back. Don’t wait. Just leave because nothing good can come from being here.”

The guy locks gazes with me, and the fear in his eyes is so overpoweringly strong that my stomach tightens. I can’t save everyone in the Heights. Also, some of these fuckers don’t deserve to be saved. This guy is pleading now, but what shit has he done? What did he think was going to happen when they told him to drive a getaway car for a dude that was going into a club to get a girl? That doesn’t sound like any kind of shit I would want to be mixed up in.

“Talk. Now.”

The guy clenches his jaw, breathing in and out deep like a feral animal. “He’s at the old saw mill just outside of town.”

“How many guys?”

“Shit, I don’t know.”

“Think goddammit,” Mag yells. He pushes the barrel of the gun to his forehead, and I try not to cringe. It might get messy here really quick, but I’m the one who wanted to come back. I can’t make the guys regret it.

The guy cowers. “I think there were ten when we left, but I don’t fucking know. I didn’t count.”

Mag sweeps his gaze to Johnny and me. He nods at us then motions behind him. “Johnny, get her in the car. I’ll take care of this.”

I avoid any more eye contact with the guy. I don’t think they’ll let him live, but those might have been the old rules. These are the new rules. I just don’t know what they are.

Just as I’m thinking that, a gunshot rings out. I wobble on my feet but keep my chin in the air.

We can’t have him telling Gregory we know where to find him. If he gets a heads up, he’ll slip out of our grasp again and our plan won’t work. Getting to K was always going to get messy. I close my eyes and breathe out. When this is all over, I won’t have to do any of this again.

Self-preservation. It’s the Heights’ motto.

“Did you see Jax make it out?”

Johnny shakes his head. “No, but I hear you had a wonderful dance.”

I roll my eyes at him. What a time to be jealous. In a minute, we’re about to head out of town to take someone out and he wants to talk about how I danced with another guy. “It was nothing, and you know it.”

“Don’t care,” he says. “I can’t stand the thought of other people’s hands on you.”

I glance over at him with a teasing smile. “You didn’t seem to have a problem last night.”

“That’s different,” he bites out.

I’m sick, but a thrill runs through me. He’s accepted this. All of this.

Johnny pulls the door to the backseat open, and I brush a kiss across his cheek as I get in. “Jax was just trying to help, babe. He thought it looked suspicious that I was just sitting there.”

“Next time, he can leave the thinking to me.”

Johnny hauls himself inside, forcing me to slide over in the seat. Somehow, Magnum’s already in the driver’s seat, waiting for us. “Where are Brawler and Oscar?”

“Just waiting to hear from us,” Mag says. He meets Johnny’s gaze in the rearview mirror, and Johnny takes his phone out for the second time tonight and dials a number. “We got her. Safe.” He pauses for a few moments. “Yes, meet you at the location?”

Mag pulls away from the curb. Through the heavily tinted windows, I notice two men dressed in black approach the area where the dead bodies lie. I tell myself not to look, so I just watch as they bend over to retrieve them and then I immediately meet Johnny’s gaze. He’s smiling at me. “You did so good tonight.”

I shrug. “I didn’t think anyone was going to come.”

“They were slick with the fire alarm. I’ll give them that. Good thing we had guys posted at each of the exits, but when we saw those two dumb fucks loitering around, we knew they had to be Gregory’s men. We tried to get the asshole before he even went into the club, but they parked, and he made a straight shot for the side door.”

“I wonder how they knew I was in the club...”

---