I pushed the gun harder into his head. “What was the plan? Where is Gus?”
“You were supposed to be a diversion. You’d kill Travis and we’d swoop in, secure the compound. I don’t know where Gus is, I don’t. Javier said he was being kept somewhere for future use. I don’t know what that means. He’s alive, though.”
“Take me to Javier,” I told him, pulling him off the door and jamming the gun into his lower back.
He looked over his shoulder. “He’s in a firefight.”
“No,” I said, “Derek and Este are in a firefight. Javier is somewhere else, biding his time. Waiting for me. Take me to him. Now.”
“Please, I have a wife and child,” he pleaded.
“I won’t kill you if you do as I say,” I told him, meaning it, too. I didn’t want to kill Dom but I was realizing I was prepared to if absolutely necessary.
“You won’t but Javier will,” he said.
“That’s your problem.”
Another explosion rocked the house, this time from the opposite wing. We stumbled a bit and Dom went for his gun but I had my gun back on him in no time.
“I don’t think so,” I said. I nodded at the door I had broken into last night, the one leading to the backyard. “Let’s go.”
I kicked open the door and hoped that Camden and my mother were somewhere safe. “Who is setting off the explosions?”
“Derek,” he said. “Improvised Explosive Devices.”
“If he accidently kills Camden or my mother, everyone here dies, including you. Tell him to rein it in.”
“I can’t–”
“I know you’re communicating to each other, do it now!”
Dom sighed and pressed the Bluetooth device in his ear while I did a quick scan of the area. I could see the pool glistening in the distance, a single body floating in it. Several statues on the grounds were cracked or knocked over.
“Derek,” Dom said. “Stop the explosions and hold. Take out only Travis’s men. If you see McQueen or any of the Watts, do not shoot, do not engage. We need them alive. Copy?”
Dom nodded at whatever Derek said in his ear. “Okay,” he said to me. “He’s been called off.”
“Lucky you,” I said. “Where’s Javier?”
His eyes darted to the pool house, a small cottage with a single darkened window that was open a crack. Just enough space for a gun to fit through. Of course.
“He’s not going to kill me, right?” I asked Dom as I readied myself to run across the lawn.
“Javier? No. We were ordered not to kill you or Camden.”
“How nice. The bombs don’t really help.”
“We didn’t know where you were.”
“Well, here I am.” I looked around me then nodded at the cottage. “I’ll try and cover us.”
We started running for it, both Dom and I running as fast as we could, knowing there was a lot of ground between the main house and the pool house. We were only a few yards away when bullets started whizzing past us.
I turned and looked up at the roof of the house to see a sniper up there, taking shots at us as we ran. I aimed both guns at the roof and fired.
My aim was terrible.
I didn’t hit the sniper.
Instead, the sniper hit me.
My leg exploded in pain and I stumbled to the ground as the bullet seared through my calf. The cherry blossoms offered no defense.
I cried out, my gun falling away from my hands, and tried to crawl toward it. I barely managed to get it and quickly rolled on to my back aiming the gun at the roof when the sniper was hit before I could even pull the trigger. He stumbled backward and then slid off the room to his death on the hot patio below.
I turned around to look at Dom who had been brought down to the ground with me.
He wasn’t moving.
A shadow appeared overhead. I looked up.
Javier was standing over me, blocking out the sun, a rifle in his hand.
“Is Camden still alive?” he asked me in a strangely hopeful voice, as if Camden mattered to him more at the moment than me.
I pointed my gun straight up at him, my hand shaking from the bursts of pain that rocked my body in pure agony.
“Yes. But you won’t be.”
“You going to pull the trigger, angel?” he asked. “After I just saved your life?”
I grinded my teeth together in nauseating anger. “You lied to me. You lied to me.” I tried in vain to keep my hand steady. “You lied about Gus.”
He smiled, eyes glowing with madness. “I did lie. You wouldn’t have come here otherwise. You would have never fulfilled your destiny. To kill the man who ruined so many of our lives.”
I was done. So fucking done.
“Tell me where Gus is or I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”
“You don’t have it in you, angel. You’re too good for that now.”
This was no longer a matter of good or bad.
This was all grey.
Hazy, fuzzy grey.
I squeezed the trigger.
The chamber clicked.
Loudly.
Empty.