“I’m telling Trish,” I say.
“Oh, she knows. And she puts up with plenty of my shit, too. Another key to a happy marriage. You remember that,” he says.
We creep forward, drawing closer to the sounds of the voice. Room to room we move, until we’re looking out the back of the warehouse at the foreman’s trailer. The shades are pulled, then one of the two doors opens and shuts long enough for two armed thugs to emerge, followed by the angry shouts of Anna Ebri. Beneath it all, I hear my mother’s scream.
We take cover.
“I need in there. Now,” I growl.
“We’ll get you in,” Crash says. “Stone, you feel like getting noisy?”
“I think I can manage,” he says, chuckling. “What do you have in mind, brother? You want to crash another truck, don’t you?”
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was a fucking blast, but I have a different idea. Follow my lead,” Crash says. He makes a circling gesture towards the trailer. “And don’t be cheap with your ammo. We’re going to light this place up so that bitch inside can’t resist taking a peek. Blaze, you be ready, all right?”
I nod, and then they each split up, sneaking in different directions to circle around to the opposite side of the trailer.
I kneel, watching, waiting for my one chance.
A gunshot rings out from the opposite side of the trailer. A shot that makes the two armed guard trade looks. And then the storm erupts. A torrent of bullets that sends the guards scrambling in pursuit, leaving their post at the door.
I see motion inside the trailer. The curtains stir.
This is my opening; she’s distracted.
As soon as they’re out of view, I run toward the trailer, clearing yards in seconds, adrenaline flooding my broken body and numbing me to the pain that burns through every limb.
I kick open the door. Storm inside.
Anna’s just feet away, standing at the window closest to my mom, who’s tied to a chair.
Anna whirls, her attention shifting from the window shades to me. Fear makes her eyes go wide.
“You fucking asshole,” she screams. She lifts her gun.
But she’s too slow.
I might be a fucking mess, but there’s nothing on this earth that will stop me from caving in this bitch’s head.
Before she can raise her gun, I’m in reach, and I swing my ax with everything I have.
It flashes through the air. Heavy, sharp, deadly.
The steel blade cuts through bleached blond hair, through skin, through bone, into whatever passes for that bitch’s brain.
And, as she crumples to the ground, her gun goes off.
I flinch.
Expecting pain.
Expecting the bite of lead in my chest and the feel of my blood spilling down my body. An insignificant price to pay to send this bitch to hell.
But the bullet doesn’t hit me.
Instead, I hear a muffled moan of pain.
I look to my mom.
And scream as I see blood blooming from her stomach.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tiffany
With every gunshot, I say a little prayer. It’s simple, quick, and I whisper it to whoever is listening more times than I can count. Blaze, please come back to me.
But I break when my prayers are answered. I break when he emerges from that construction site, limping, with Stone and Crash at his side, with agony and fear all over his face, and his mother’s body in his arms.
He’s fought so hard, he’s given everything, and what has that gotten him except more pain?
Tears blur my vision when he reaches the car. The first thing he does is throw open the back door of the Volvo and lower his mom onto the seat.
Then, seeing my tears, he puts a hand on my shoulder. “Tiffany, are you OK?”
After all this, he thinks of me first.
“Is she…?” I say, looking back towards his mother’s still body.
He shakes his head. “No. Not yet. Can you get us to the hospital?”
I nod. Shake my head a few times and blink until enough tears leave my eyes that I can see straight again. Then I start the car and pull us away from the construction site. Blaze’s club isn’t far behind — I see Stone and Crash and Razor and Sarge all in my rear view mirror. And then, as the construction site fades in the rearview mirror, I see a thick, black column of smoke climb into the sky.
“Clean up,” he says. “There will still be a lot of questions, but fires get rid of a lot of the hard evidence.”
All I can do is nod; my heart’s in my throat and I don’t think I could speak if I wanted.
We get to the hospital in minutes, with his club on our heels, and he throws open the door and hefts his mother back onto his shoulders. He staggers, the weight of today and of his mother’s body causing him to nearly stumble. I shout and throw the door open, ready to help, but he shakes his head and gives me a look.
“You shouldn’t come inside,” he says.
“What? Why?”
I want to be with him. Want to stay by his side until I know that he and his mother will recover.
“There will be a lot of questions. Questions that I can take, but I don’t want you to have to deal with. The police will be here soon, and you shouldn’t be mixed up in any of this.”
“I don’t care about any of that. Blaze, I love you, I want to be with you. I can’t just go.”
He turns and heads toward the entrance to the ER, and I follow right behind him.
The sliding doors open and heads turn. Nurses, doctors, patients, a hundred quizzical and concerned looks flash our way as
