“Oh, God,” I said, bracing my feet against the back of Wes’s seat.
Henry stomped on the brakes but not soon enough. We crashed into the Raptors and the airbags in the front seat went off with a bang, cushioning Wes and Henry’s forward motion. I jerked against my seatbelt, the rough fabric tearing into the skin at my collarbone, then slammed into my seat.
My ears roared with white noise as everything settled. Both cars were totaled, and it looked like the Raptors’ high G-force maneuver had cost them. The side door had caved in during the impact, and a motionless hand was visible through the broken window. I unbuckled my seatbelt to check on Henry and Wes. To my relief, they were both conscious, if a little dazed. Wes shouldered open his door and stumbled out, falling to his hands and knees on the flightline. Henry, unfortunately, had been pinned by the steering wheel.
“Go,” he rasped, shoving my hands away as I attempted to unbuckle his seatbelt for him. “I’ll be fine. Don’t let Flynn get away.”
I slid out of the back seat and sprinted flat out toward the private plane. Flynn and the other Raptors had gotten a heavy lead, but the blue BMW roared past me. Olivia traded bullets with Wickes and Brooks until the windshield splintered, obscuring her line of vision. The BMW slowed, and Lauren jumped out, now wielding a gun of her own. Olivia followed suit.
Wickes and Brooks continued to fire at Olivia and Lauren as they took cover behind the BMW. I put on a burst of speed, trying to ignore the thunder of gunfire. In my peripheral, I saw that Wes had managed to catch up with me. He had a small cut on his forehead. Otherwise, he seemed relatively unharmed. We shared a long look.
“Love you, Nic,” he huffed.
My breath came in short gasps, but I said, “Tell me after Flynn is in handcuffs.”
Up ahead, Flynn had nearly reached the steps of her private jet, but we were closing in on them. In a flash, Wickes reloaded his gun, but when he raised it again, he pointed it straight at me. I zigzagged off to one side, hoping Wickes wasn’t great with moving targets, even at a twenty-foot radius. His first shot zipped by my ear. The second grazed my shoulder.
It was as though I had been punched with a white-hot fire iron. I stumbled, the wind knocked out of me as my skin burned. Blood soaked through my long-sleeved shirt and jacket within seconds, dripping into the palm of my hand. I had no time to think about it. Wickes was mere feet from me, his gun angled directly at my head. There was a flash of triumph in his eyes as his finger neared the trigger once more.
I flinched as a gun fired, but it wasn’t the one in Wickes’s hand. It was Wes’s. With a bullet in his chest, Wickes went down, and only Brooks remained in my path to Flynn. Brooks was less practiced with his firearm. It clicked uselessly. He’d run out of ammo. I faked left and dodged around to his right. As I passed, Wes tackled Brooks with a grunt.
Flynn bolted up the airstairs, but I reached under the handrail, wrapped a hand around her ankle, and jerked it out from under her. She sprawled forward, her chin slamming into the top stair. The private jet’s pilot and a horrified flight attendant backed into the belly of the plane. Apparently, they weren’t aware of their employer’s love of violence.
I rounded the airstairs, tugging at Flynn’s heeled boots. As she landed on the flightline, she flipped over and kicked me in the stomach. I doubled over, trying not to retch. Flynn got to her feet and scrambled away from me. As she looked over her shoulder, I saw that for once, she was not the height of perfection. Her face was red and inflamed, her sleek black hair had escaped from its tight bun, and her designer coat was torn and dirty. For some reason, those details gave me strength. I lurched forward, seizing the belt of her coat and spinning her toward me. There were no other Raptors to protect her. Catherine Flynn was mine.
And then her manicured fingers dug into the exposed flesh of my shoulder.
My vision flared white as pain radiated all the way down to my toes. A fierce yell made its way out of my throat, and before I had a chance to recover, Flynn trapped me against her with an arm around my neck. I struggled through my distress, bucking against Flynn’s hold.
“Nicole, stop!” called Wes.
I looked up, fighting against my hazy eyesight. Wes had dispatched Brooks. He, Olivia, and Lauren remained the only other upright people on the flightline. That alone should have given me hope, but all three of my allies stared at me with various expressions of dread.
“Why?” I croaked out, digging my nails into Flynn’s arm in hopes of dislodging her.
“Because I have a gun to your head, my dear,” replied Flynn.
A gun cocked in my ear, and the cylinder of the revolver that Flynn held rotated into place. Very slowly, I released my hold on Flynn, extending my hand up in a gesture of surrender. My other arm dangled limply, and I thought desperately that if Flynn was going to kill me, I hoped she couldn’t do it without getting bloodstains on her expensive leather boots.
“That’s a good girl,” whispered Flynn, her breath tickling my ear. She raised her voice to address Wes, Lauren, and Olivia. “If anyone so much as blinks, I will send Miss Costello off to meet her father. Are we clear?”
No one moved a muscle. Flynn took this as acquiescence.
“Good,” she said. She took a step toward the aircraft, dragging me with her. “Now, I am getting on this plane, and I’ve decided, for all the trouble you’ve
