“Only a fool leaves a sword pointed at his heart. Brownstone must die for that reason alone.”
Two other gangsters stepped around the corner behind their leader. One carried a sword and looked Japanese. Shay assumed he was another ex-Harriken. The other was a huge white man with chains. She couldn’t begin to guess what pissant gang or group he came from.
Both held guns but kept them pointed down. Unlike their leader, barely-contained panic infected their faces as they surveyed the scene before them: mangled corpses and dying men, walls, floors, and ceiling painted with blood.
Shay kept her attention on the men in front of her, near-complete calm settling over her and her heart beating steadily. She was doing what she needed to do to protect her man.
She lifted her gun. “It didn’t have to be this way. All you had to do was leave well enough alone.”
“Leave this bitch to me,” Tsuchigumo ordered. He drew his sword.
Shay sighed and lowered her SMG to her side.
“You recognize the futility of fighting me?”
“I’m guessing your little glowing tattoo is some sort of protective magic.” Shay reached into her jacket and pulled out an adamantine knife. She pulled back her arm. The knives weren’t the best for throwing, but they were balanced well enough.
“You think a knife will work when a gun does—”
Tsuchigumo tumbled to the ground, the knife sticking through his eye.
Shay snapped up her SMG and put a round into the gun arms of the remaining two men. They collapsed to their knees, grimacing in pain. She stepped slowly toward them, stopping to lean over and yank her knife out of the dead leader’s eye. She wiped the blood off on his jacket before sheathing it.
“Oh, fuck,” one of the survivors cried. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”
One deliberate step followed another. The crunch of the glass marking her every step as she approached the men, her gun at the ready.
“Do you know why you’re not dead yet?” Shay asked, her voice a near-monotone.
The men both shook their heads.
“Because I need you to answer a few questions. First question, assholes, I’m guessing there are more men in your little gang?”
They both nodded.
“About twenty more guys,” the second survivor offered. He gritted his teeth, obviously in pain from his gunshot wound.
“Then I guess I need the two of you alive to spread the word, because someone needs to know what happened here. Congrats. I know James Brownstone likes to send messages, so go tell the world what happened here. Learn the fucking lesson the Harriken and so many other gangs didn’t learn. If you fuck with Brownstone, you die.” Shay leaned forward and offered the men a cold grin. “If you even look at him the wrong way, you die. The only reason anyone is dead today is that you assholes thought you could put a new hit out on Brownstone. You understand?”
The men both nodded. She lifted her gun, and the second one covered his face before wetting himself.
Pathetic. These assholes thought they had what it takes to take down James?
“Get up,” Shay barked. “And get the fuck out of here. If you know what’s good for you, you and the rest of the gang will pack up and run as far from LA as your little legs will carry you, because next time I have to show up—or he has to—every last one of you fuckers dies.”
The men both managed to stand. Their wounds dripped blood on the floor as they turned and ran out of the building.
Shay let out a long sigh. Sirens sounded in the distance. Time to go.
She shrugged, her heart still as calm as if she were watching the Weather Channel. It had to be done. She would always protect her man’s peace.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day, Shay tapped on the keyboard in the Warehouse Two office, her thoughts returning to the slaughter the night before. Guilt was far from her mind. If anything, despite the calmness during the slaughter, the old excitement from a well-executed killing job threatened to bubble up.
I’m not surprised. I was a killer because I was good at it. Even if I can distance myself from what I did and not enjoy it for the sake of the killing, that part of me is still there, even if I told James the old Shay was dead after we killed the cartel.
Was this really so different, just because I killed people who weren’t a direct threat to me? I’m so full of shit.
Peyton knocked lightly on the door. “Everything okay?”
Shay looked up, blinking. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You’re just…really quiet this morning. Way more than usual. It reminds me of the old days right after you first killed me.”
“The old days?” She snorted. “Whatever. Shut the fuck up.”
Peyton swallowed once and took a deep breath. “I was poking around, and there’s chatter on the dark web about how someone slaughtered a new gang in town last night, the Phoenix Gang. About three-quarters of the gang got killed at a massage parlor they were running.”
“And why the fuck do I care about that? Gangs can all go cut each other’s dicks off for all I care. Less scum to worry about.”
“Just…you know. It’s not exactly like you helping and/or killing a large number of criminals is unprecedented in recent history, between you helping with the Harriken, assassins, and the Nuevo Gulf Cartel. And the last one wasn’t all that long ago.” Peyton shrugged. “From what you told me before, the whole cartel thing was supposed to be kind of turning point. Shay 2.0 and all that. You weren’t out taking care of business, were you? Taking out a few more people for old time’s
