that all out at light speed, and he wondered for just a second what the odds were that a guy would see a drop-dead-gorgeous woman on the street at sunset and, a couple of hours or so later, wind up having her turn out to be one helluva shot and save his ass.
Slim, he decided, damn slim, and yet there she was, a keeper, if he’d been in the business of keeping anything.
He wasn’t. For six years, his life, everything he had of it, had been operating on a hit-and-run system. There were no keepers.
Leaning down, he made short work of frisking the men, emptying their pockets and retrieving his own knife. He’d have slit their throats without batting an eye, if they’d needed killing. But King wasn’t going anywhere for a very long time, and Rock wasn’t, either, not with what was left of his knee. So he let them live, and planned on them telling Lancaster everything they knew: that Conroy Farrel was alive and well, and on the hunt. That he was close and getting closer, and, above all, that he was still winning the fight, even with Lancaster sending his best boys.
A beast—he knew what his reputation was, across the board and around the world. He’d killed too many of Lancaster’s assassins to be underestimated, and now he and the Wild Thing had taken down Banner and Howe.
He thumbed his knife open and sliced King’s hoodie pocket with the razor-sharp tip to get at his gun. The guy was damn near comatose, lying inert in a pile, his pupils dilated, his breathing shallow, his brain somewhere off in never-never land. As a bonus, Con found where the second bullet had gone—into King. There was blood seeping out of a wound just under his rib cage on the right side. Not a lethal shot, but it had bought them some time.
He was going to let Rock buy a little time, too, for what it was worth. Unless Souk had worked the kinks out of his drugs that last year he’d been alive, all these boys were on their way out.
Just like him.
Fuck.
He knelt down in front of the guy, bringing them face-to-face, and pressed the tip of his blade into the side of Rock’s neck. The guy knew the drill. He knew what happened next.
“You can bleed out here in this alley, Rock,” Con said. “Or you can tell me what I want to know.” He was very matter-of-fact, very calm, and he knew Rock had been around the block enough times to believe him. It was in the guy’s fierce black gaze and in the strength he was using to keep from screaming his guts out.
Yeah, Con figured Rock was taking the option of a deal under very serious consideration.
Smart move.
“Nothing that’s happened here can’t be undone,” he continued, giving Rock an honest assessment of his injuries. “I bet you know somebody who can fix your knee up like new.” Literally. “But if I cut you it’s over. So tell me where my old friend is, and I’ll walk away.”
Rock was thinking, staring at him and thinking and struggling with the pain that had to be exploding through him like incendiary fireworks. He was drenched in sweat. A long streak of it dampened the front of his shirt. His breath was blowing in and out of him like he was hooked to a pair of bellows.
“I’m running out of time, sweetheart.” Con pressed the blade in a little deeper.
“K-kash …” Rock muttered, the effort to speak making his eyes roll back.
“Cash?” What the fuck? The knife went in another eighth of an inch. “Come again, Rock old buddy?”
“K-kashmir … you … you asshole.” And that was all she wrote. Rock collapsed, his eyes rolling up into his head until only the whites were showing, his body jerking like he was having a seizure, which was totally possible, but he wasn’t dead yet.
The Bangkok dope worked great for making a guy bigger and badder, but when the shit hit the fan, nine times out of ten, Souk’s soup went fucking haywire—like what had happened to him with the ketamine.
Con looked over the mess of bad boys in the doorway and rose to his feet, shaking his head. Despite his restraint, King and Rock might not make it.
Well, hell. He guessed Lancaster would get the message either way.
“Come on,” he said, stepping back and taking Jane by the arm to move her along. “We need to get out