The sharp question has my eyes snapping to Jake’s left. To the man in the stylish suit, perfectly styled hair, and shiny shoes. I shake my head, unable to catch my breath. “Eli?”
Behind him is a large back room with wide windows. There are men inside. At least eight—and all of them muscled and armed. Some are watching us. Others are talking or arguing. There’s a table in the middle of the room and on it rests ten hard cases in a matte charcoal colour. One after the other, they line up like little soldier suitcases, closed and awaiting orders.
“For fuck’s sake,” Eli curses, and those gorgeous blue eyes of his, the same ones that have always looked at me with such kindness and warmth, are colder than the arctic as he glares at Ross. “She’s not supposed to be here. We have Jake as a hostage. We don’t need Mac. Get her out of here. Now!” he barks.
“Eli, what are you doing?” I ask. My voice sounds weak to my ears.
“Now is not the time,” Ross says from behind me. He fists a hand in my hair and wrenches my head right back. I yelp at the sharp burst of pain as Ross leans down and puts his face right in mine. Jake bellows in rage as tears slide down the sides of my temples and into my hair. I hate them. I want to wipe them away so he can’t see how much I hurt. “Tell them what you did, you little bitch.”
“I didn’t do anything, you dumb fuck.”
He growls with anger and lets me go, but he does it with an almighty shove. The powerful force of it sends me forward toward the cement floor. My forehead smacks it hard and my body crumples.
“What did she do?” I hear Eli ask. His voice sounds like it’s coming from some far away tunnel. I try moving but I can’t. My head throbs. The thump thump thump eclipses all conscious thought.
“She led an entire legion of Sentinels right toward us!”
“Fuck!” he hisses.
“The bitch needs to die.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Eli’s voice sounds panicked. Why does he sound panicked?
“Don’t call me stupid, big brother.”
“You can’t shoot her. It’s Mac. I love her. I’ve always loved her. She belongs with me.”
“You don’t love her. You just think you do.” His voice is disparaging. “Besides, no one leaves the King Street Boys. They need to know that if they try leaving, we don’t just shoot them, we shoot the ones they love too.”
My eyes feel weighted with bricks. I loll to the side and force them open a fraction. Ross is standing over me, gun pointed.
“I’m the leader of the King Street Boys,” Eli roars and my mind reels. All this time? There’s been so much more deception than I can comprehend and the depth of it breaks my heart. “You will do what I say and stand the fuck down!”
“You might be the head of our gang,” Ross shouts back, taking no heed of Eli’s order, “but it’s me they all listen to because you’re never there! You’re not in it for the brotherhood. You don’t care about any of us. You care more about your precious fucking inheritance and about the precious fucking Valentines. Well, newsflash, Brother. You’re done with them. Today, they’re all gonna die!”
Eli shouts in return as does Jake. Above them both is the roar of motorcycles. The Sentinals are here, I think faintly. More shouting erupts. In Spanish. Gabriella?
My brain is in a fog. I manage to turn my head, inch by slow inch. My vision is blurred, but I see her. Gun up, body strapped in armour. She’s yelling at Ross to stand down. Everyone is yelling.
Gunfire pops.
“Nooooooooo!” Jake roars.
My body jerks, and I turn my head back as searing pain burns through me like a brushfire. I look up at Ross. Did he shoot me?
The thought barely forms when his body shudders under a bullet. The fire comes from Gabriella’s direction. He hisses and turns his gun on her at the same time Eli runs toward me. But Gabriella doesn’t stop firing. Her bullets hit Ross in the chest. They slam into him, one after the other. Blood explodes outward in a showering arc and rains down over me. He drops to the ground by my side.
“Mac!”
My eyes shift slowly to Jake. He’s twisting and yanking at tape, trying to rip free from the chair. There’s an empty metal table on his right and with a frustrated roar, he stands and turns hard, smashing the chair against it.
JAKE
The pain is intense. I can’t breathe properly, and I can barely see. Mac is on the ground. The bastard shot her. He threw her to the ground like she was trash and opened fire, and I sat helpless, strapped to a chair like a trussed-up turkey awaiting my Thanksgiving fate.
Gabriella comes into view, gun up and firing. Ross is pummelled with bullets like they’re fists to his gut.
The roller door on my right is wrenched open at the same time. Sentinels and police flood the warehouse. It’s utter warfare. They take cover and fire at the multitude of King Street Boys members that flood out from the back room. Bodies move in bursts of speed, and pings of bullets hit steel beams and shipping containers.
Mac is bleeding on the ground in the middle of it all. Rage surges inside me, a veritable tsunami of wrath so powerful it churns red and hot. It burns my throat and my eyes and every fibre of my soul.
I yell her name. Her eyes slide to mine. The green of her irises are dull and her movements sluggish. Using all the strength that remains, I stand and turn to smash the chair at the table, over and over, until it begins to splinter.
“You killed my brother,” Eli says in horror, appearing caught between going for Ross or for Mac. His gaze shifts to Gabriella. He doesn’t see the flood of Sentinels and police to his right. There’s a gun in his hand and it’s lax by his side. He looks at it as though seeing it for the first time. Then he lifts it and points it right at her. I lunge toward him, crashing into him, but not before he fires off three distinct shots. Bam bam bam. One two three.
Eli and I both go down in the heavy tackle. The distinct snap of a bone in my chest renders me breathless as we smash into the cold, brutal floor.
KELLY DANIELS
My heart is in my throat the entire ride toward the docks. I barely know Mackenzie Valentine, but I’m already half in love with her. And here she is in love with another dude and having his baby. I’m such a fuckin’ douche. The first time my heart has ever felt a thump for another female and she belongs to some other lucky bastard.
That lucky bastard happens to be Jake Romero—a childhood friend of my Sentinel brother Fox—so unfortunately I can’t shoot him. Or maim him just a little bit, enough to render him useless to another woman.