Page 69 of Heartless
The next movement came faster than my eyes could follow. All I saw was Big G swaying his upper body like he was leaning forward with laughter. Next, a gunshot rang out and one of the escorts clutched his chest as he fell to the ground.
All my senses heightened to focus on the scene below me, my whole body as tense as a tripwire. Big G shot the second escort before he had time to react, and then both men were on the ground. The first man who’d fallen had an empty holster.
Shocked stillness gave way to chaos. Shouts and running exploded from the front gate as Tash’s guards realized two of their men were down, and the culprit was someone they just released.
Big G shouldered his stolen gun and fired into the soldiers running toward him. In the distance, a Jeep made a sharp U-turn and accelerated hard toward the lone gunman.
“For Dallas!” Big G shouted at the top of his lungs. “For the Sons of Odin! The Steel Demons wish you a long and prosperous fucking life!”
“Fucking idiot,” I grumbled through my teeth. “Stupid goddamn fucking idiot.”
The windshield of the oncoming Jeep shattered, but not from Big G, who was still focused on the men on foot ahead of him. Grudge had his long-barreled rifle pointed right at the vehicle and began picking off passengers and the driver.
Right, we still had to cover him, despite him outing himself like a fucking dumbass. I took careful aim at another swarm of soldiers heading for him, nailing their squadron leader right in his forehead.
“We’re under attack!” someone yelled. “Snipers in the canyons! Get the Jeeps out there!”
Fuck, we couldn’t afford to stick around. Why in God’s fucking name would Big G endanger us like this?
It’s a suicide mission,I realized.
He had to have known he wouldn’t make it out of this alive, even with us covering him. But now Andrea was at risk, and we weren’t expecting first contact from her for weeks.
Big G’s body jerked as he received a bullet to his shoulder. He just switched hands on his gun and returned fire, his strength already leaving him. Grudge and I picked soldiers off as fast as we could, but there was no way we could get all of them. And now they knew our positions, and who we were affiliated with.
Everything about this mission had been fucked up. If Andrea wasn’t subsequently captured because of this shit, I would consider it a miracle.
I pulled away from the ledge just as Big G fell to his knees. More soldiers were swarming in, and there was nothing we could do for him. Half-crawling, half-sliding down the hill on my side, I tried to ignore the feeling of abject failure in my gut. I had done my part, but it felt like I’d barely done shit. And now another one of our own was dead.
That pulled forth a lot of confusing feelings for me. I had never liked Big G, or even cared about him, really. But he was still a Steel Demon, a brother-in-arms. Foolish as his final actions were, he did it for the club. For the ones we lost.
I sprang to my feet at the bottom of the hill and took off running, hoping Grudge was already retreating too. Jerking my bike out of the bushes and weeds, I turned the ignition before even jumping on. I threw a leg over and hit the throttle hard, kicking up rocks and dust as I searched the fading daylight for Grudge.
I didn’t dare turn my headlight on, and thankfully didn’t need to. My silent brother raced down his hillside like a bat out of hell, hair and beard whipping back as he pushed his bike hard.
“Grudge!” I yelled, maneuvering closer to him.
He glanced at me, then made a panicked motion at something behind me. Before I could check my mirrors, a bright glare reflecting in them nearly blinded me. I looked over my shoulder to see the outlines of three Jeeps in my dust, with gigantic search lights mounted on top of their vehicles.
Twenty
MARIPOSA
“They’ll be okay, sugar.” Reaper reached for my hand to stop me from pacing a hole into the floor, but I just moved further away from him to keep doing it.
“It’s been five days,” I said, not for the first time. “It wasn’t supposed to take more than four. Something must have happened.”
“Maybe, but it could be literally anything.” Gunner moved into my direct path. “There’s been thunderstorms out in that area, so they might’ve had to hunker down. They could’ve run out of gas and had to hitchhike. Don’t worry until we’ve got something to worry about.”
“No word for over twenty-four hours past their ETAissomething to worry about!”
“Bonita.” Jandro tried next. “This is Shadow we’re talking about, doing the best at what he does.”
“Last time he did that, he nearly died, and guess who had to put him back together?” I shot back.
Without anything left to convince me, I resumed pacing the living room in my beautiful new house, too anxious to enjoy it. Moving and decorating had been my only distractions for the last few days. Reaper, in his persistent paranoia about Daren’s dream, did not want me away from my men for even a moment. There was only so much I could do at the hospital without one of them hovering over me, so I took a few days off to get moved in.
Finn and Lis insisted on buying us furniture, introducing us to a lovely family of woodworkers who made everything by hand. In just three days, we had a brand new dining table, chairs, and bookshelves.
