Reno watched Ivy dash by and he lowered his plastic gun. Game or not, he couldn’t shoot at a woman. The lights on the vest had become a nuisance, but that’s how the game kept score. He had this one in the bag. Denver always stayed on the lower levels to ambush those who went back to the base to recharge, so Reno stayed up top to score more points.
The layout wasn’t much different from other laser-tag places they’d been to. Reno preferred outdoor games like paintball, but the girls weren’t up for that. They didn’t like standing in the rain, and laser tag had air-conditioning and nachos. Each level had barriers and obstacles to maneuver around. The fog machine was a pain in the ass, as were all the neon-colored patterns splashed on the walls and carpet.
Reno regretted like hell April wasn’t able to join them. After everything she’d been through, that woman was a trouper, and that was a fucking understatement. She helped around the house as much as she could and spent every morning looking for rentals in the newspaper. Not once had she complained about having lost everything, not to mention the pain of her recovery. He’d had a few sleepless nights thinking about how it could have been a hell of a lot worse. There had been several nights in the beginning when she’d moan in her sleep from the pain. Reno would bring her pain medicine, but she refused to take anything stronger than ibuprofen. Seeing that was all the fuel he needed to start tracking down Sanchez—the elusive sonofabitch.
Lexi quietly sprinted to the lower level and Reno fired a warning shot, smiling as she let out a squeal. Lexi wasn’t half-bad at this game and had taken off her shoes, which made it more difficult to hear her stealthily moving around.
“Goddammit, you can’t do that!” he heard Denver complaining downstairs.
Reno took another calming breath. Something didn’t feel right in his gut, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe a man who had seen war shouldn’t be playing a game like this, or maybe it was something else.
“Shhh,” a voice said from the right.
That snagged his attention. Someone had broken the rules and teamed up. Footsteps moved to his right. Reno backed up against a pillar and spied through an opening. A red laser light beamed in and he squatted down, recognizing a tactical distraction when he saw one. That meant the other party was engaging in a flanking maneuver.
He wasn’t a fan of playing a sitting duck. Reno waited until he heard the shuffle of someone growing closer, then he knifed around the corner and fired.
“Fuck!” his opponent shouted. Jericho opened fire on Reno, but nothing happened. Then he pulled his black mask away and his hair spilled over his shoulders. He glanced down at his blinking vest, muttered a curse, and stalked off.
Trevor suddenly appeared and Reno raised his gun. Trevor shoved it to the side and closed the distance between them. “Maybe I’m nuts or having post-traumatic stress,” he whispered, “but I swear I just saw Sanchez.”
Every muscle tensed. “What?”
Trevor held his finger up to his lips in a “hush” signal. Reno peered through a hole in a curved pillar, scoping out the room. He couldn’t make out any movement and the noise downstairs was creating a distraction.
Reno mouthed “Where?” at Trevor, who pointed toward the other ramp that led to the lower levels.
Reno unbuckled his vest and let it drop to the floor. He stripped out of his button-up shirt and released his gun from the holster strapped over his tank top. Sanchez had made one hell of a mistake picking this location for an attack—he didn’t know who the fuck he was dealing with.
Shadows moved about the room and Reno had to be careful not to target the wrong person. This could end badly if he had to fire off his gun in a human establishment. Reno had taken out one of Sanchez’s partners during a confrontation two weeks ago when the man pulled a gun and began shooting. After that, Sanchez had taken his focus off April and targeted Reno, which was exactly what Reno wanted. It’s why he’d been avoiding the pack—he wanted to hunt him down.
Reno crept up a ramp and charged forward to cover Ivy’s mouth.
“Get out,” he whispered in her ear. “Trouble. If you see the others, tell them level red. Don’t stop to look back. Just get the hell out of here as quick as you can and be on standby to call a Packmaster for backup if we need it.”