FOURTEEN
Decima
“We’re taking you somewhere,”Julius announced, and took a swig of his morning coffee.
I considered him from my perch at the kitchen island, where I’d just finished a bowl of cereal I’d again insisted on pouring myself. His expression gave nothing away, but then, it never did.
The fact that I might be getting another opportunity to see something beyond the confines of this apartment had to be a good thing. “Where?” I asked, picking the imaginary lint from my shirt as if his answer didn’t matter to me all that much.
Garrison arched his eyebrows at me from where he was sitting on the other side of the island, savoring a typical mug of hot chocolate. It was just close enough for a trace of its creamy scent to reach my nose, and I started salivating even though my stomach was perfectly full.
“Do you really think you have a choice, sweetheart?” the younger guy asked. “This isn’t a city tour, even if you tried to treat it like one yesterday.”
I ignored him, fixing my attention back on the man in charge.
Julius gazed back at me evenly. “Do you want to help with the case or not?”
I made a face at him. “I’d kind of like to know where we’re going first, that’s all. Is that so much to ask after you’ve basically taken me prisoner?”
Julius frowned. “You’re not a prisoner.”
“Really? Then what would you call it?”
“You know you’re here for your own protection. We’re keeping you safe.”
I shrugged and carried my bowl over to the sink. “And protecting your covers. I haven’t seen any reason yet that proves I need this level of protection.” Tell me more about what you’re up against, what kind of people you think I should be scared of. Give me some details.
Julius looked at the ceiling as if he needed a moment to regain his composure. It wasn’t my fault. I tried to ask the necessary questions to get right to the point, but he and the others repeatedly deflected. I didn’t want to play a game of back and forth with the guys, but I didn’t have another choice if I wanted to get anything out of them.
“You could just tell me where you want to take me,” I suggested. “How hard is that?”
I could tell that he’d decided to appease me before he opened his mouth. He took a deep breath, but before the first word came out, the window above the kitchen counter burst inward with a crash of shattering glass.
As I spun around with a lurch of my heart, two smoke grenades careened inside and thumped on the floor. A dense fog billowed through the room, prickling into my eyes and obscuring everything around me from view. All I could rely on were my ears—which picked up the screech of the front door’s hinges being slammed apart by some massive force and another crash of glass from the living room.
Footfalls thudded from all three directions. Gunshots boomed. I dropped to the ground, my pulse still racing but falling into a familiar rhythm that steadied me.
This was the kind of moment I was made for. Every instinct quivered on the alert. All my attention narrowed down to the simple goal of staying alive—and taking down anyone who wanted me to be otherwise.
More shots were ringing out. Was it enemy fire or the cops shooting back? There was no possible way to distinguish friend from foe with the suffocating smoke.
I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth, gaining little relief, although my lungs were now prickling along with my eyes. At least the smoke didn’t taste like it’d contained anything outright toxic. I’d experienced pretty much every awful hand weapon known to humankind over my years of training, and there were plenty worse than this.
Of course, most of those were only used in the middle of a warzone. What the fuck was going on here? Who would have wanted to attack a bunch of men most people shouldn’t even know were cops?
Did it have anything to do with the massacre at the household?
The shots had fallen away into grunts and the fleshy smack of fists landing blows. They must have realized only a fool would fire into a room where they couldn’t tell whether they’d hit an enemy or an ally. The sounds didn’t tell me how many attackers we were facing, but from my initial impressions, two or three had come in through each access point, maybe a couple more than that through the front door. We were outnumbered as much as twice over.
We?What was I even thinking? I didn’t owe the cops anything, and I wasn’t in any position to take on as many as a dozen attackers whether they were related to the household’s murders or not. It was the cops’ job to handle these assholes. I’d seen how capable they were at that job. They didn’t need me anyway.
This was the perfect opportunity to escape and never look back.
I army-crawled in the direction of the door, careful to make no noise as I went. Here and there I had to adjust my course to squeeze around a piece of furniture or dodge stomping feet. More punches and kicks thudded around me; a bone cracked. Someone groaned.
It sounded vaguely like Julius.
I hesitated next to the sofa. I had to keep going, didn’t I? It was a tough world, and I wouldn’t risk entering a fight that had nothing to do with me.