yeah, she was going to fight for her life—with everything she had, right here, in about three more seconds.
She’d been quiet at the table, but she sure as hell had been thinking, and she had a plan—a plan far better to execute in the alley than in Mama Guadaloupe’s packed-to-the-rafters dining room.
Her mind was clear, her choices limited, her decision made.
There were only a thousand things that could go wrong.
Con reached the door to the alley and gave it a hard push, sending it back on its hinges. There was only one thing that could go wrong with his plan. If he failed in any way, Jane died.
So he would not fail.
He knew precisely where everyone was behind him, to the millimeter. He had a damn good guess about the amount of time it would take a soldier with King Banner’s training and skills to draw his pistol and knew he was dealing with a second or less. There would be a few more tenths of a second available while Rock comprehended what was happening. Con planned on using every single hundredth of a second to his advantage.
He’d heard about these guys, King Banner and Rock Howe, and they were the worst of what happened when elite soldiers, men who had been trained to the point of ultimate superiority, crossed over into the underworld. Add Souk’s chemical fortification, and the die for destruction was cast in stone. These men were brutal, without conscience or humanity.
The door hit the outside wall of the restaurant and bounced back, a tremor running through it from the impact. He crossed the threshold, walking through to the alley, which left the door heading straight for King, moving fast enough that the man’s instincts overcame his diligence. The bastard lifted his arm to keep the metal slab from hitting him, his attention shifting for an instant, and in that instant, Con moved, pivoting on his right foot, bypassing King, and reaching past Jane. Both of them were swept aside as he locked onto his target: Rock Howe’s gun hand.
His fingers closed on the bigger man’s wrist, pushing it up and away from Jane even as he slammed the palm of his right hand straight up under Rock’s chin. He felt bone give way, and he was betting he’d broken old Rock’s jaw. The gun fired—too late to do the man any good. From the angle, Con knew the bullet had gone up into the air.
He kicked backward at King, connecting with the man’s torso, and nearly simultaneously he heard another shot go off and King hitting the ground with a grunt.
Fuck. A second shot. Where the hell had it come from? Not from Rock’s pistol. And even more important, where in the hell had it gone?
He smelled blood. Somebody had been hit.
Next to him, Rock dropped like a stone, his body hitting the pavement, half in and half out of the door, blocking it open, his gun falling from his hand and skittering behind him across the floor of the kitchen.
Con instantly turned to meet his other threat. King was back on his feet, knocking Jane out of the way, lunging into the fight, ready to grapple.
Con blocked his first strike and, at the apex of King’s next swing, saw what the man was holding: a syringe, its needle glinting sharp and wicked in the light, its contents black. He instinctively went for control, grabbing the man’s wrist and using his leverage to swing King around and slam him into the wall. In the kitchen, all hell had broken out, people screaming, plates crashing, the sound of running footsteps. Somebody was bound to be pulling out a cellphone and punching in 911. It was inevitable, but he sure as hell didn’t want to be here when the cops showed up, especially if King prevailed with that damn needle.
A black syringe.
Fuck.
Black was no good. He never used the black gelcaps. They were a guaranteed pain stopper but sported a couple of bad side effects, like turning a guy’s body into rubber, or throwing him into cardiac arrest. Use them or not, though, a badass dose of the toxic pharmaceutical was headed his way—unless he stopped it.
A gun would have been damned handy, but he’d caught sight of King’s pistol lying on the ground where the man had first fallen, Rock’s was in Mexican food territory, and his own Wilson Combat .45 was zipped inside a damn pocket on King’s hoodie. Any second, though, and he was going