Santiago and the remaining three Los Angeles Demons continued to fire at one another. There was no doubt that Santiago was the better shooter. Taviano began to make his way toward Santiago. He was very close to where he had left Nicoletta, although he had his back to her and was about ten feet to one side of her, but it was too close for Taviano’s comfort. He was grateful that Clariss had kept it together and hadn’t screamed, but she was definitely thinking about trying to head for an exit. She just had to keep her head down until the shooting stopped.
The three remaining LA Demons split up to come at Santiago from different directions. None of them paid attention to Clariss. She crawled toward the nearest exit. It was the door to the office, which would be the front entrance. Taviano had told Demetrio and Drago to wait outside the warehouse. He knew they had to have heard the shots and would be anxious. The moment that door cracked open they would be there, guns drawn.
Santiago fired and the three local Demons returned shots in a deadly barrage. Clariss pushed the door open and Taviano saw his bodyguards catch at her and drag her out, slamming the door closed behind her. Their orders were to put her in the car and get her out of there. Now he had no choice: he would have to take Nicoletta through the shadows in order to get her back to the plane unless he found a way to call them back. Silently, he swore in several languages.
He wanted to allow Santiago to kill all but one of the locals before they shot and hopefully killed the New York Demon. The gun battle was fierce, the three locals trying to maneuver Santiago into crossfire. He shot one of them in the leg, taking him down to the concrete floor, rolling to get a better aim as he fired continuously in an attempt to kill the gang member. The local tried to make a run for it but with his injury, couldn’t get up. Santiago’s barrage of bullets ended his life.
As Santiago rolled back to get under cover, the local to his left shot him in the leg and head. Taviano saw both bullets score. Santiago flopped over and then lay still, the gun still in his hand.
Taviano slid out of the shadows just behind Santiago. He had to use Santiago’s gun to kill the last two remaining locals. He didn’t want any evidence leading to any of the Ferraros being at the warehouse. Clariss would tell the police that Demetrio and Drago had come to get her, that she’d crawled away by herself and they’d gotten there just as she exited. It was the truth as she knew it.
He took the gun from Santiago’s open palm, his eyes on his target, the local who had killed the New Yorker. The man was close and moving closer, sure that Santiago was dead but cautious all the same. Taviano had lost sight of Jorge. The last he’d seen of him, the man had been slinking toward an exit, still firing toward Santiago but, as earlier in the suite, looking toward self-preservation first. The Los Angeles Demon was approaching, in direct line now. Taviano rose up and shot him, almost point-blank. He made each bullet count, firing two in the throat and one between the eyes.
At the first sound of gunfire, Nicoletta forced herself out of the huddled ball she’d been in. Everything hurt. Every single inch of her body. Even her toes. But she’d asked for this. Even demanded it. On some level she’d even known, because she’d been experiencing it on minor levels on her own. She hadn’t known one could move from one place to another, but she had moved in her bedroom when she lived with the step-uncles. She had just thought she was going crazy.
She’d tried multiple times after that to re-create that experience, but she hadn’t been effective in completely hiding or moving from one place to another. Now she realized she’d been naked then, in the shower when she’d heard them coming for her. She hadn’t wanted to face her step-uncles naked, so she rarely took her clothes off, and her showers were super-brief. Now she realized her clothes had been the problem all along.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth. They were trembling. Her lips were trembling. She forced them to stop. She had learned to take control of herself. She had Emmanuelle and Mariko Ferraro to thank for that. They worked with her when they trained her on self-defense. They talked to her constantly about not just training her body but training her mind as well. What defense actually was. What power was. What it embodied. What control was. What that embodied. She saw those traits in both women, and more, she felt both power and control when they walked into a room. They embodied both traits, and she wanted that kind of confidence and to command and earn that same respect.