true?”
Nicky shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m redefining my objectives.”
Merv chuckled, receiving a pointed glare from his brother. He coughed, the laughter dying on his lips.
Orvall jerked his chin. “Not falling in with these Agency assholes, are you?”
“The Agency?” I blurted before I could stop myself. “What do you know about them?”
Luckily, Orvall didn’t seem to mind me interrupting. “They came around a month or so ago, snooping, asking a shitload of questions. Wanted us to do a job for them, but they didn’t say what. I told them they could shove their job up their asses with my compliments. I even offered to help with that. They declined my offer.”
“Didn’t stop ’em comin’ around again, though,” Irwin added.
“Brought the Ordinary police with ’em that time,” Merv explained. “Slapped a zillion fines on us, some trumped up bullshit about building permits and zoning violations. Somehow they got it in their heads that we were putting in a titty bar just up the road from a school.”
“Are you?” I asked, earning a disapproving look from Nicky.
“Forgive her question,” he said. “She’s not used to working with men of honor.”
The brothers gave a terse nod in unison. “No offense taken,” Orvall assured him. He then turned to me. “We might be sons of bitches, Ms. Muffet, but we have principles. And some things simply are not done.”
I felt my face flushing. “Of course.”
“So, why would the Agency be out to cause you problems?” Nicky asked, steering the conversation back to our purpose for coming. “If you said no to the job, why not just hire some Ordinaries to do it? I’m sure they could’ve found someone willing. If there’s one thing I know about Ordinaries, it’s money talks.”
The triplets grunted and nodded in unison.
“Maybe they did,” Orvall suggested, scratching at his chin again.
Nicky was still frowning when we heard the sound of a car pulling up in front of the Piggs’ trailer. “Expecting anyone?” he asked, instantly on edge.
Orvall shook his head and heaved himself to his feet. He went to the window and pulled back the edge of the curtains. “Speak of the friggin’ devil.”
My brows came together and I rushed to the window, peeking out just in time to see Ian Spalding getting out of his car as three other Agency vehicles pulled into the parking lot. “What the hell are they doing here?” I muttered.
“You got a back door?” Nicky asked, grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the window.
Apparently Merv was already thinking the same thing. “This way,” he called in a stage whisper from the back of the trailer.
Nicky shoved me ahead of him toward where Merv was motioning for us to get the lead out. Merv lifted a trap in the floor of the trailer, revealing what looked like a tunnel running under the parking lot. Now I understood the need for the latticework under the trailer. It wasn’t to make the place look homey; it was to disguise their emergency exit.
“Where does this go?” I asked. But before I got an answer, Merv was handing me down into the darkness. I glanced over my shoulder at Orvall and Irwin in time to see Orvall flipping up the cushions on the sofa and pulling out a pair of UZIs and handing one off to his brother. Apparently they were no longer relying upon a pot of boiling water to take care of the wolves at their door. . . .
I quickly climbed down the metal ladder affixed to the tunnel wall and dropped the last couple of feet to the floor, praying there weren’t any rats waiting for me at the bottom. A moment later, Nicky joined me, a flashlight in hand. He flicked it on, then shined it up at Merv. They gave each other a terse nod just as the first pat pat pat of rapid gunfire rang out. The trapdoor dropped and I heard hurried footsteps above our heads.
“We shouldn’t leave them,” I whispered to Nicky.
He looked just as conflicted about leaving as I was, but then he took my hand and began leading me through the tunnel. “They can take care of themselves,” he assured me. “Right now, I’m getting you the hell out of here.”
We’d only walked for maybe two minutes before the sound of gunfire died down. Nicky came to an abrupt halt and cast a glance over his shoulder. “Shit.”
I only had time to get a glimpse of him before he flicked off the flashlight and pulled me into his arms, holding me close as he listened intently. In the distance, we heard the quiet creak of the trapdoor opening.
“Go,” he hissed in my ear.
We took off down the tunnel, feeling along the walls in the darkness, keeping our footsteps as quiet as possible. The people following us weren’t so concerned. Hearing each of them drop down into the tunnel, I picked up the pace, holding tightly to Nicky’s hand and hoping like hell he had some idea where we were going.
A loud crack sounded behind us as one of our pursuers opened fire. I crouched down instinctively and felt Nicky’s arm going around my shoulders, pulling me in front of him to protect me. We picked up the pace, no longer caring about the Agency assholes hearing our footsteps.
Nicky gave me a nudge to keep going. “Stay low,” he whispered. Then I heard him fire off a few rounds behind us. There was a grunt of pain as one of the rounds struck home.
Crouching low along the wall, I ran faster. Relief washed over me as I felt Nicky close behind me. But just when I thought the agents had backed off, they shot at as again, this time in a spray of bullets. Nicky cursed under his breath. I glanced behind me as if I could tell in the darkness whether he’d been hit, and suddenly slammed into a dirt wall, crying out in surprise before I could stop myself.
I felt around frantically, searching for a turn in the tunnel or a ladder, something!
“Up!” Nicky hissed, placing my hands on metal rungs and urging me upward.
More shots rang out, making me climb quicker. I was nearly to the top when pain exploded in my leg. I lost my footing and slid back down the ladder, knocking into Nicky and sending us sprawling on the ground.
“Got her!” I heard one of the agents yell.
Nicky snatched me up from the ground and flung me over his shoulder, then scrambled up the ladder, a deep groan rumbling in his chest. When he threw open the hatch, the late afternoon sunlight assaulted me, and I winced, sucking in the air through my teeth.
“Hang on, doll,” Nicky muttered, shrugging me off his shoulders and onto the ground inside one of the buildings that was still under construction. He slammed the trapdoor and glanced around frantically, then grabbed a heavy cinder block and set it on top of the door to slow down the agents.
It was only as Nicky hastily lifted me into his arms that I realized my jeans were soaked with blood and my thigh was raging with pain, threatening to send me careening toward unconsciousness. “Hold on, doll,” he murmured as he hurried toward a plastic sheet hanging over a doorway. He ducked under the sheet and rushed toward the doorway across the room, but stumbled, coming down on one knee, clenching his teeth over a sharp cry.
I glanced up at his face, alarmed to see it deathly pale. Then I noticed the blood that was dripping down his arm. “Oh, my God!” I wiggled out of his hold—which wasn’t difficult with him weakened from blood loss. Pain punched the breath from my lungs when I hit the ground, but I managed to push up to my knees as Nicky slumped into me. “Oh, no you don’t,” I grunted, somehow managing to get us both up and moving.
I pulled Nicky’s uninjured arm around my shoulders and gritted my teeth as I limped toward the door, dragging him with me. I pulled the door open just a crack and saw the parking lot; the building where we’d parked the Escalade was only a couple hundred feet from where we’d emerged.
“Come on, love,” I ground out, glancing around for any agents who might be coming for us. By the time we reached the Escalade, my breath was shredding my lungs, but the pain in my thigh had already started to subside. Not bothering to ponder the faster than usual healing time, I fished the keys out of Nicky’s pocket and managed to shove him into the passenger’s seat.
I was tearing out of the parking lot, tires squealing, when the Agency bastards emerged from the Piggs’ office, firing at us. I flinched with a startled cry when one of their bullets shattered the back window. “Son of a bitch!”
The tires clung desperately to the pavement as I whipped the car out of the parking lot and into the street, fishtailing the rear end when I gunned it. Nicky slammed into the door with a groan. “Hang on, Nicky,” I told him, my teeth beginning to chatter from the icy February air blowing in through the shattered window. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
