Page 38 of Dangerous Silence
The bullets came out in a stream of fire. Ignoring the pain, we took them out, one by one, some of our men falling too. I realized then that they knew we were coming. That’s why it had been too easy. We had a rat in our ranks.
But I kept firing and dodging the bullets.
Then Muro’s men dispersed, shouting at each other. Muro’s men were down, but not nearly enough of them. We gathered quickly, heading back to Sage City. Ron sat in the passenger seat next to me.
“Vic and Alan?” I asked, referencing the two that had gone into the building.
“Gone, sir,” Ron said.
I clenched the steering wheel. Like anyone, Vic and Alan had their deaths written in the stars, coming one day or another. I didn’t have any attachments to them, but I trusted them to get the job done.
And now they were dead.
“The servers?” I asked.
“Gone too,” Ron said.
At least there was that. But still, I hated losing good men for stupid reasons. We had underestimated Muro. And while we had more men back in Sage City, I knew we needed backup. The next time we fought Muro, we couldn’t make the same mistake.
In Vegas, there was a security team we sometimes used at our resort and casino. Veil Security Services had been sold to a new owner and later disbanded, but I knew the original owner. He did mostly charity cases now, but if he knew anything about Muro, he’d join forces.
“What’s the plan now, sir?” Ron asked.
“We head back,” I said. “Regroup. Figure outwhythey knew we were coming.”
“You think there’s a rat, sir?”
It seemed like it. I crossed my fingers that the rat wasn’t stupid enough to be one of my men. Or I would strangle him myself.
It was then that my burning ear registered. I touched it; the blood had caked over. It wasn’t bad, but had taken enough flesh with it that blood painted my neck. A few inches in one direction and I would have been dead too.
Opening the door to the workroom, my eyes fell on Demi and I let out a deep sigh. A pleasant warmth filled me. She was lying on her back, her legs crossed at the knee, reading the book she had taken from Harris’s office. Her hair fell over that gray floor in a wash of color, bringing it to life. She perked up, her eyes flicking to mine, lighting up.
Why did I feel so hot?
“What the hell, Axe?” Her eyes dropped, her lip pouting. “You’re hurt. What happened?”
I blinked slowly, taking in those words. Demi, as much as she hated everything I stood for, wanted to know what had happened to me. Rather than bring it up right then, I held onto that thought, not wanting to ruin the moment.
I changed the subject. “Good material?” I asked, gesturing at the book.
“Fascinating, actually. It has this whole section about crime rings,” her voice was light. “I guess I should have seen the signs sooner. The whole ‘mafia’ thing.”
I smiled, then, a real genuine smile, something I hadn’t done in a long time. Despite everything she knew, she was still intrigued by crime and law, and still saw the order in the world. But beyond that, she had feelings for me. Cared about whether or not I was hurt.
No one had ever truly cared before.
“You know you stole that from a victim,” I said, letting the side-smile stay on my face, teasing her. “How does that settle into your world of the just?”
“I didn’tstealit,” she claimed, exaggerating her words. “Hegaveit to me.”
That was like saying I ‘gave’ duct tape to Harris. “Under duress,” I said. She shrugged. “Do you plan on giving it back?”
“Maybe,” she said. Then she shook her head. “No.”
And there was her answer. She smiled too, but her eyes fell to her lap. She fidgeted, folding and unfolding one of the pages, crossing the crease with her thumb. I don’t know why I said it, but the words came out of my mouth before I could stop them—
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “You’re my captive. You were only doing what I said to do.”
