Tony jumped out first, hand at the gun at her hip. Everyone but Colson followed.
In his hurry, Jay stumbled onto the pavement and slammed into a wall of fleeing people. They parted around him, spun him the wrong way, and holy shit, they were running away from him. He turned back and jerked to a stop a few feet short of Charlee.
She stood over a man, who lay face up on the ground. Roy Oxford? He looked paler in person than on TV and a lot less put together. Maybe because she pointed a gun at him as he pawed at a dime-sized hole in the chest of his leather jacket. His breath was ragged yet he longingly stared at her as if oblivious to the gun she aimed at him or the bullet she’d already delivered.
Red clouded Jay’s vision. This was the piece of shit who had raped her more times than she could count. His thirst for blood swelled at the epicenter of his rioting emotions. “Pull the trigger, Charlee. Finish him.”
Three men emerged from a break in the crowd. They wore common clothing—jeans, tshirts—but the guns they pulled from their open jackets were big, scary, and probably illegal. The hostility in the air that followed them emulated their bloodthirsty eyes and hard features.
The parking lot exploded in a frenzy of screams. Not the squeals of fan girls. These were the oh-shit-save-yourself kind of screams.
The mayhem of the bolting crowd crested as two officers sprinted across the lot with guns aimed at Charlee. “Drop your weapon. Hands in the air.”
Shit. Jay locked his legs in an attempt to stop himself from lunging for her. “Don’t do it, Charlee.”
The gun didn’t twitch in the cup of her hands as she glared at Roy. “Don’t drop it? Or don’t shoot?”
She was wielding a gun in public, and the cops weren’t shooting her. Nor did they spare a glance at the three gunmen, which meant Roy was lining their pockets. They were still NYPD and, Christ almighty, she’d already killed one person. The last thing she needed was a prison sentence for killing another in front of the police. “Don’t shoot, but don’t drop it either.”
The cops jogged closer and one shouted, “Sir, do not engage the shooter.”
Roy’s goons closed their triangular formation around him, Charlee, and Roy until they were about six-feet away. Jay vibrated with the need to move behind her and wrap her in the shield of his body. If he reached out and stretched his arm, he might’ve been able to touch her, but there were too many fingers on too many triggers. The slightest movement would endanger her.
Something caught his eye on the far side of the lot. Oh Shit. Nathan. Jay kept his gaze on Charlee but could make out the movement in his periphery. Nathan head-butted some guy and chopped his hand at the throat. Jay refocused on Charlee. “Talk to me.”
She didn’t shift her eyes or the gun from Roy. “I shot him in the chest. Why aren’t you bleeding, you…you bloodless monster?”
Roy rolled his head back and released a laugh that tumbled into a hacking cough.
Maybe the blood was pooling unseen beneath his bulky jacket. Bulky jacket. He would bet his Martin Acoustic there was a bulletproof vest. “Take off your coat.”
A gunman with a missing earlobe angled his barrel at Jay. “How should we precede, Mr. Oxford?”
Roy’s exhale whistled past his clenched teeth. He unzipped his jacket and pushed back the sides to reveal a black tactical vest rising and falling with his wheezes. Sharp edges protruded from the dimple left by the bullet. “What are you waiting for, Charlee? You can still shoot me in the head.”
Fuck. Jay wanted to grab the gun and do it for her.
She shifted her aim from his chest to his face. “If I shoot you, your Craigs will shoot me. If I don’t shoot, I get to ride down to the police station. Except we both know that ride will take me to San Francisco and I’ll end up chained to your bed by morning.”
Roy scraped his curling fingers along the pavement. “Oh, it’ll be the stockroom for you, darling. I’m hard just thinking about it.”
Jay’s adrenalin rushed to murderous boil.
“I choose death.” She squared shoulders.
Not going to happen. Jay forced a calmness he didn’t feel into his voice. “Give me the gun, Charlee.” He would start with Roy’s nutsac. A bullet in each testicle. Then he’d shove the barrel in his rectum and pump it with enough lead to shred his innards from sphincter to esophagus. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“I earned that privilege.” She adjusted her finger on the trigger.
The sudden rigidness of the gunmen strained the tense atmosphere to the edge of snapping.
Jay needed warp speed to shield her in time. Even if he had the speed, the firepower that would unleash from the surrounding gunnery would tear through him and hit her anyway. “Wait.”