He knew what it meant, bringing his pistol up from his tool bag and squeezing off a quick zip of silenced rounds into the cab, at Tony. The Cadillac still lurched and sped off, but at an angle that took it up the street, then into the overgrowth on the side of the road.
I took off running toward him, already aiming at the car for any sign of his escape. As Tony jumped out, I saw he was wounded, bleeding from the neck area. He was armed, though, and raised an unsteady pistol in my direction. I screeched to a halt and took aim with two hands, pretending I was back at the gun range with LC as an impressionable teenager.
Keeping my anger at bay, I unloaded the clip. From habit, I counted down the number of rounds with each trigger squeeze.
Tony was hit dead in the chest by at least three of my shots. He didn’t even shoot back. As he fell over, his face wore the same smile I saw when he first came to my rescue. I wished I’d known then that it was all a setup. He would’ve gotten the box cutter across his throat, saved us all some misery. As I walked over to his body, I saw that he wouldn’t be with us much longer.
“I... I spared you,” Tony said with his dying breath.
I didn’t have time to make peace with what I’d just done. Behind me, the men by the van were trying to retreat back inside the house. They were caught between our advancing group, led by Junior, and the one man we’d left on the side of the house. As I ran to join the gun battle, a man for whom we hadn’t accounted emerged onto the porch with a small, hooded child in his arms.
My Mariah.
“There she is!” I screamed at Junior just as Sihad shot one of the men poking out from the van.
The man holding Mariah on the porch grabbed a shotgun from inside the doorway. He harshly shoved my blinded daughter back inside, then fired with a loud boom that was sure to carry through the neighborhood and draw attention. Our man went down immediately from the same shotgun that had probably killed my bodyguards.
My daughter wasn’t going to be anyone’s hostage any longer. As the man on the porch retreated inside, I broke into a full sprint, even though some of the men by the van were still alive and shooting.
“London! Wait!” Junior yelled as I ran by him, dumping the burdensome tool bag. Giving up on reason, my brother was quickly on my heels, firing over my head to give me some cover.
Dash’s men by the van saw us quickly gaining ground. One broke and fled toward the backyard, while the other one dropped his gun and threw his hands up.
“Okay! Okay! I give up,” he said just as Junior planted a bullet in his forehead, not losing stride as we charged up the stairs to the porch.
My brother caught up to me and passed me. He reached the front door first, planted his large foot firmly, and sent it flying open. He broke almost into a baseball slide just as a blast of shotgun pellets peppered the door frame. Most of them missed Junior, but some caught the forearm he’d raised to cover his face. While still on his back, Junior returned fire blindly into the home, in the direction of the shotgun fire.
“Junior!” I yelled for fear of Mariah being used as a shield.
“Shot high on purpose,” he said, grimacing in pain from the rivulets of crimson quickly flowing from his arm. “Go. Quick.”
I darted over my brother, hearing the others coming up the stairs behind us. On a table where the dining room place settings should have been, several bricks of coke were stacked beside a scale. Two large black duffel bags lay on the floor, waiting to be filled.
“Mariah! Mommy’s here! Mommy’s here, baby,” I yelled. I could hear muffled cries, followed by a husky voice shushing someone. At least he hadn’t gone back into the basement.