"No, I don't," the voice called back as I moved in behind Huck who was taking the other side of the doorway.
"Then put the gun down," Alaric called, surprisingly calm given that he hadn't really seen much biker action since joining the club, and hadn't been in the criminal world before that either.
"I can't do that!" the man from the living room called back, voice shaky.
"There's no way this ends well for you, man," Huck called a second before rushing inward, gun raised, leaving Alaric and I to follow as well.
And there was Arty, still holding his messenger bag full of his laptop and paperwork to his chest with both arms, eyes huge, breathing ragged.
"It does if I take one of you out," the guy insisted.
He was younger than I'd anticipated. Maybe all of nineteen or twenty with deep red hair and bright blue eyes. He had one arm across Arty's chest, holding him against his body, and the other had a gun to Arty's head.
"He was waiting at the gate," Arty told us, going to shrug, then thinking better of it.
That explained how the shooter had gotten in since we'd been more diligent about making sure the gates were closed and locked. Especially if no one was out front doing some sort of guard duty.
He must have been hiding in the shadows, and saw Arty pull up, then get out to plug in the code through the metal gate. Which gave him the perfect opportunity to grab the much smaller man and use him as a shield to get inside.
Arty, who lived on energy drinks and coffee, and rarely remembered to eat, was always almost rail thin, practically skeletal at times if a job was going on longer than usual, making him forget about anything to do with food and nourishment.
"It's alright," Huck said, voice as soothing as it got. "Not your fault. Get the gun off of him. You don't want him," he said, voice taking on a firmer tone. "You want to aim at us, aim at us."
"I have to do this," the guy declared, voice shaky.
"Funny thing, hearing a lot of that lately," Huck said. "Let me guess, some fucker showed up and said he has your sister or girl or mom, and needs you to put a plug in one of us to get them back?"
"It's my sister," the guy said. "She's ten," he added, making all of us stiffen.
We'd all known from the tidbits she'd been willing to share with those of us she'd been taking lessons with that while she hadn't been outright raped by any of the fuckers who kidnapped her, Belle had endured a lot of touching and groping and forced oral from her attackers.
The idea of that happening to anyone was atrocious.
But possibly to a child? It was unfathomable.
All we could hope for at that moment was the kidnappers might have been rapists, but not pedophiles.
It looked like we had another innocent to try to save.
As if things weren't as messy enough already.
"This is going to sound like I'm bullshitting you, but we've been here before. The last person they sent, we helped her save her sister. She's here. You can talk to her and ask her yourself," Huck told him.
"No. No. They were clear. There's only one way I get her back. One of you has to die."
"That's not going to happen, man. You need to put the gun down and talk to us."
I saw the movement a second before there was even a chance to act, to intervene.
One second, the stairs behind the guy and Arty were empty.
The next, Belle was sneaking down them.
And in a move that I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it myself, she reached out with one hand, grabbing Arty, and yanking him out of the way while striking out with the other hand, knocking the gun out of the guy's hand.
It was all a blur then.
Huck and Alaric rushed forward toward the attempted shooter while I made my way toward Belle and Arty, dropping down next to them.
Belle had knelt down beside Arty and was talking in calm tones to him.
"Hey, man," I said, trying to calm my voice down. "Look at you, seeing some action. Are you hurt anywhere?" I asked.
"N...n...no," Arty said, eyes still saucers, breathing a little too fast.
"Take a breath," Belle demanded, brushing Arty's somewhat greasy hair away from his face. "You're okay. Everything is fine."
It was the most words I'd personally heard Belle say since before the guys showed up at Shy's apartment. She spoke more to anyone who was training her, but she hadn't turned to me for any of that training.
"He was going to kill me," Arty declared.
"No. He wanted to kill them," Belle clarified. "You were a shield," she added, which wasn't exactly helping anything.