Hunter grabbed the scrawny man that we were protecting by the shirt collar and started pulling him along as he ran for the exit. Derek and I laid down cover fire until he was clear.
“Your turn,” I shouted, firing off a few more rounds as I waited for Derek to reach the doorway. He spun and started firing, covering my ass so I could make it out of there.
We were protecting a man that had made a few enemies as a numbers guy. He was basically a bookie, but he’d pissed off an underground fighting ring when he started skimming off the top. I really didn’t want to be protecting him, but sometimes the money outweighed the moral injustice. Besides, he didn’t know it yet, but we were turning him over to the feds once we were paid. Our job was to get him away from the people that were trying to kill him, and make sure he got to safety.
I ran through the door and booked it to the SUV, full-out sprinting to get my ass inside before Hunter took off. It would be just like him to start driving just to make me run farther. The two of them fucked with me a lot since I joined their team. Derek jumped in the driver’s side just as I jumped in the back. Hunter was already peeling out of the parking lot before I even had my door closed. The bookie was curled up on the floor and the smell of piss filled the SUV.
“Aw, shit,” Derek grumbled. “You know, just once I would like to not have the inside of the vehicle fully detailed after a job.”
My phone rang and I answered immediately, not bothering to see who was on the other end. “Yeah?”
We took a corner hard and the phone slipped from my fingers, falling to the floor and sliding over by the pisser. I had to hold on for dear life so I didn’t get tossed around the back seat as Hunter swerved in and out of traffic to lose the assholes giving chase. I turned around in my seat, counting the vehicles behind us.
“We’ve got three on our tail.”
“That’s not bad,” Derek said, slipping a new magazine into his gun.
“Not the worst odds we’ve ever had,” Hunter agreed.
“You have a plan?” I asked as I watched them swerve in and out of traffic along with us.
“There’s a state park just outside the city,” Derek suggested.
“Why is it that people always end up dead with you two?”
Derek snorted. “Yeah, like you’re one to talk. One wrong look from you and you’re snapping a guy’s neck.”
“Hey, that only happened once, and I was justified.”
“How do you figure?” Hunter asked.
“He looked at Florrie.”
The guys started laughing, like it wasn’t an actual reason.
“Hey, they were bikers and you should have seen the outfit she was wearing. If I hadn’t intervened, someone would have thought she was a whore.”
“I think that was what she was going for,” Hunter grinned.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t agree to that.”
“Alright,” Derek said, “Up ahead, there’s an exit. Take it at the last second and then we’ll wind our way through the outskirts of the city.”
“Wait, you just want to lose them?” I asked, a little let down that I wasn’t going to get to shoot anyone else.
“I thought you just said that we shouldn’t be killing everyone?”
“Well, that was before. Then I got kind of excited about getting to unleash some tension. Now what am I going to do?”
“Go home and fuck Florrie?” Hunter suggested. “Always works well for me. I mean, with Lucy.”
“Yeah, I kinda figured that,” I said, shaking my head.
Hunter drove on for another mile before the sign for the exit appeared. At the last second, he cut across three lanes of traffic, cutting off some drivers, and causing a traffic jam. The other cars couldn’t get over in time and missed the exit.
“Nice,” Derek said in approval. “It should be smooth sailing from here.”
“Don’t say that shit,” I groaned. “That’s just asking for us to get hit by a fucking semi or something.”
I bent down and grabbed my phone, kicking lightly at the guy curled up on the floor. I’d kinda forgotten he was there in all the excitement. “Hey, pisser, you can get off the floor now.”
“No!” Derek shouted. “Leave him on the floor. Then we won’t have to detail the seats.”
“Good thinking. Stay,” I said, flipping over my phone to see who had called me. It was Florrie, so I dialed her back.
“Alec,” she said, her voice sounding strange.
“Sorry about that. We had a little bit of a kerfuffle. Is everything okay?” That’s when I heard her crying and my heart seized in my chest. “Florrie, what’s going on? Talk to me.”
“It can’t happen again,” she cried. “I can’t…not again.”
“Florrie, I don’t know what’s going on. Talk to me!”
But her sobs were too loud and I couldn’t understand anything she was saying. Derek glanced over his shoulder, jerking his head in question.
“Step on it! Get me the fuck home!” Hunter gunned it, getting us out of the city and onto the road home. “Derek, get on the phone with Rocco and tell him to haul ass over to my house. I need to know what the fuck is going on with Florrie.”
“Alec, please hurry,” Florrie whimpered in my ear. I stayed on the phone with her, saying anything I could to keep her calm. I kept leaning over Hunter’s seat, watching the speedometer to see how fast we were going. She was fucking tearing my heart out. She was crying too much and I couldn’t get her to tell me what the fuck was wrong. My heart was in my throat the whole time, scared as fuck that something serious was happening and I was losing my woman. I couldn’t take the mounting pressure.
