Page 93 of Chad's Chase
Tucking my gun into the tight waistband of my jeans, I jogged up to him and snatched up his rifle, pulled the clip and stuffed it in my back pocket, then frisked him for additional weapons. I found a .25 Browning strapped to his ankle and stole that, too. I drove the butt of the empty rifle down to his head, knocking him unconscious, then dropped it onto his stomach. Removing the Desert Eagle from my waist, I put the stolen Browning in its place, then ran around to the passenger side to check if Chad needed assistance.
Nope, he didn’t.
His gun was tucked away and he was bent over the shooter, punching the stupid out of him while barking a whole bunch of shit in his face, the man was so pissed off. “…is not motherfucking Brooklyn! This is San Franfuckingcisco! “Punch! Crack!“You don’t just go around firing wild shots in broad daylight!”Punch! Crack!“You wanna kill someone here”—Punch! Crack!—”you do it fucking quietly and discreetly!”
By the time Chad was through with the sorry excuse of an assassin, the bastard was unconscious, his face an unidentifiable mess of blood, purple swells, and open gashes.
As Chad rose to his feet, a red sports car sped towards us, tire-burning to a halt next to us in a flurry of unnecessary excitement.
Retrieving his gun, Chad’s eyes met mine. I nodded. Then we both raised our weapons and aimed at the sports car.
Two steroid-gobblers rushed out of the sports car with their hands up to let us know they came in peace.
“Org’s men,” Chad muttered, lowering his weapon.
One of the men, built like a tank with a military haircut, giant-stomped up to us with his hands on his hips. “Fuckin’ A. This ain’t good for tourism.”
Chad got up in Military Haircut’s face. “Youwere supposed to be protecting her.” His face was a mask of unrestrained rage—which was the opposite of his true character.
Chadrick Niiveux wasn’t the man who got out-of-control angry. He was the man famous for being cool and deadly. Ever calm, ever unreadable, ever unpredictable. This raging, red-faced side of him was new, and I had a strong feeling it had something to do with me…threatening to leave him.
“We were,” Military Haircut defended, “but we got blocked off by another vehicle like this one a couple blocks down. Fools chose to engage a shootout in the middle of traffic on a goddamn one-way street.”
“Rafail’s thinking ahead and doubling his efforts,” said Chad. “You need to triple yours.”
Military Haircut tipped his head from side to side, non-committal to that suggestion. “Maybe not. These are definitely not assassins from The Organization. More like fucking trigger-happy, money-hungry freelancers that Rafail’s tryna save a dime on.”
“Lucky it’s daylight,” Chad ground out. “Or they’d be maggot food.”
“They’ll be,” Military Haircut promised. His beady eyes then shifted over to me, his gaze roving over my body, so slow and deliberate, I couldn’t tell if he was checking me for injuries or checking me out.
He started toward me, a thick, over-muscled arm outstretched. “You okay, Byrd? You hurt?”
Before his hand could touch a hair on my skin, Chad intercepted, his glare like poisonous laser beams. “Put your fucking hands on her and I’ll break your fingers one by one. She’s not yours to touch. What youshoulddo is call your boss and get him to clean this shit up.”
Military Haircut scowled at Chad and puffed up his chest, so obviously to impress me. “Man, fuck you! My boss don’t take orders from you.”
In a flash, Chad whipped his gun up and pressed it against the man’s forehead. The second man hanging behind started to reach for his gun from its holster, but in an agile flow I cocked my gun at him and I drew closer to Chad, choosing sides. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” I warned. “I’mhis, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes faster than you can piss yourself.”
The decision was easy. If I really wanted to get away from Chad, this was the perfect opportunity. Leave with Sambo. But it didn’t matter how I felt back in the car. Now, in this moment, I knew for a fact that I didn’t want to be riding anywhere, with anyone, but right next to my man Chad.
He was it. Girlfriend murderer, betrayer, family slayer, or not. For me, he was it.
Smirking at my proclamation, Chad dipped inside his back pocket and withdrew his cellphone, punched a single digit, then put the phone on speaker. After two rings, a man with a smooth Russian accent answered, butchering Chad’s name, “Shadreek? I do not do well with bad news. Tell me it is not.”
“We’re good. A set of clowns opened fire on us. And now there are two prone bodies on 4th and I’d really fucking appreciate it if you could work your god-like powers and get some bad cops to clean this shit up before news stations and good cops hit the scene.”
The man on the line, orOrgas it turned out to be, sighed over the phone. “Okay. I shall get someone on it immediately.” A grave pause. “Where were my men when this happened?”
Eyes still on a scowling Military Haircut, Chad said, “Sucking each other off in the bushes, apparently.”
Military Haircut was fuming now. But what could he do with a gun pressed to his forehead and his partner unable to save him?
Org grunted disapprovingly.
“Listen,” Chad began, “Jhay owns me. She’s the bullet to my gun, the finger to my trigger. And I don’t like it one bit that she’s getting shot at. It pisses me off.Reallypisses me off. Because if she dies, how’s that gonna work out for me, hmm?” He flexed his finger ever so slightly on the trigger of his gun, and Military Haircut’s eyes bugged out. “What I also don’t like, is when all-muscle and no-dick cocksuckers try to touch what’s mine. Your boy Sambo here says you don’t take orders from me. ButItake orders from you. So, Org, go ahead and order me to kill him. Order me to blow his useless brains out.”
Silence on the other end.
