“You’ll get caught.”
“Boy.” He shakes his head, amusement in his eyes. “You still don’t get it. The Organization is standing. You took out a few pawns. But you’re still in the dark.”
“Are we?” I give him a thoughtful look. “Are you sure?”
He frowns, clearly not liking this new game. “You’ve given up control, Hawk. You came here. You shouldn’t have. I have no interest in playing with you any longer. You can say my trust has expired. You and the girls die here to give an example to other wannabe heroes in this city.”
My blood freezes, moving sluggishly under my skin, and a shiver racks my body. I begin to tell him he can’t kill Layla, that we had a deal—but I need to stop kidding myself. He holds all the cards, and I’m desperate to get Layla out of this alive.
I’m at a disadvantage. I’ve always been at a disadvantage since I met Layla, since I fell in love with her, since I found out about the baby, and now it’s too late to change the rules.
Nor would I want to. Don’t wanna go back to a world where I don’t have Layla. Just the thought of her, her warm embrace, her laughing eyes, her belief that I’m a good person, her sweet laughter, melt the ice in my veins.
Another door opens, and a girl I’ve never seen before steps out. She’s pretty, I note absently, in an olive-skin, dark-hair and eyes sort of way, and she looks terrified.
Behind her follows Layla.
Everything in me stills as I watch her. She looks… beautiful. Even pale, her eyes wide with fear, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Her hair is falling in a messy cloud around her face and down her back, her clothes—plain jeans and a black sweater—cling to her generous curves.
Her pretty mouth trembles and then falls open on a gasp when she notices me.
She doesn’t look mad at me anymore. She looks… happy to see me and scared to death all at once.
“Let them go,” I tell Sandivar. “They were never part of this game.”
“Wrong.” He flicks his wrist and the goons approach me more. “You made them part of this game, Hawk. Their death, their pain, will be on you.”
“They don’t know anything the police don’t already know.” Keeping my temper in check is a struggle. “Let them go. That will earn you good points in court.”
He lets out a dry chuckle. “Always so sure of yourself. Since you were a kid.”
I refuse to acknowledge the crawling feeling on my skin at the knowledge he watched me since then, when I had no clue about this mess. “You don’t know shit.”
“Your grandfather knew me. Army connections. He told me you’d never turn like your father and mother had. That he’d made sure of that.”
Yeah. He only dropped the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.
And now what? With Layla and this other girl still here, and all these guns being waved around, how am I supposed to do a thing?
Fuck you, Rook, you and your clever plans. Fuck the details—because how am I gonna take a risk with the girls here?
The girls are standing close to the apartment door, though. They aren’t tied up. They can run. If I create a distraction, then maybe they can escape. Maybe—
“Hey, asshole.” Layla throws herself at the guy with the gun. What the fuck is she doing? She—
The other girl throws herself at one of the other guys who’s fumbling with a gun at his hip.
Time is slowing down. The fight is on.
Focus.
Now Sandivar is pulling his gun, a sleek handgun, and I’m running straight at him, sliding out the blade from my pocket and shouting, hoping the earpiece is still working, “Rook, come in now!”
Sandivar curses as I swipe the small blade over his hand, forcing him to let go of the gun. I try to take him hostage with the blade to his neck—I bet Rook could’ve done it, dammit—but he slips out of my hands like an eel and slams a punch to my kidney that makes me cry out. Then he hits my wrist, and the blade drops from my numb fingers.
Fucker.
Turning, I bowl into him, before he has a chance to pull out the damn gun—but obviously someone else has had the time because a shot booms, and a bullet slams into the wall by my head.