“You guys do this often?”
“Third time this month,” Grayson tells me and while his tone sounds like he’s joking, it’s hard to be sure.
“Show time,” King says, cutting off our conversation and making my anxiety rear its ugly head. I clutch on tighter to the gun, hating that I can’t see out the window and instead, look through to the front seat, watching Carver drive.
His concentration and determination to save my ass calms me, and I know that no matter what, they won’t let me get hurt. We might come out with a few bumps and bruises though, but what really scares me is just how far the guys will go to keep me safe. Cruz especially, he’s still healing after the last time he saved me.
Carver’s hands grip the steering wheel and I watch as he pulls it sharply to the left, his eyes continuously flicking up to the rearview mirror, watching as the men gain on us.
Horns blast with every turn we take and I don’t doubt that in the space of a few seconds, we’re going to have cops on our tail too. Though, they sure as hell wouldn’t be able to keep up with the speeds Carver’s set for this little outing.
“Right on our six,” Grayson grunts, giving Carver the warning that he needs and making me fear for our lives. We got a good head start, but this SUV wasn’t built for driving like this … their trucks were though. They’re well equipped with what they need to take us down, while we’re just flailing around, trying to not get bullets through our asses.
“Oh, dear God,” I pray, my anxiety skyrocketing. I’ve never been religious but this sure seems like a good place to start. “I swear, if you let us get out of this alive, I’ll … pretend to not love pre-marital fucking so much.”
King scoffs before going serious. “We’ve got guns.”
The guys adjust themselves in the trunk just as the first bullet shatters the back window of the SUV. They instantly return fire as Carver roars back to me. “KEEP DOWN.”
Cruz leans back, putting his weight down on me to keep me still while feeding the guys more ammunition. Bullets rain down over the SUV, and within seconds, King is kicking out the glass to get clearer shots on the trucks behind us.
“On your left,” Cruz calls out just moments before a bullet slices through the side of the car, just millimeters from my head.
“OH FUCK,” I yell, my eyes wide with fear, my heart racing a million miles an hour as I scramble away from the side, somehow pushing Cruz’s weight off me and curling into a ball right in the center of the floor space.
“SHIT.” Carver swerves hard to the left, ramming the back of the SUV against the front end of the truck. I peek up just in time to watch the truck lose its traction and go slamming straight into a concrete barricade, taking them out of the game. Anger swarms through Carver’s gaze. “This is the exact fucking reason why I had the Escalade bulletproofed.”
No one responds. There’s no point, especially because the boys are so focused on the fire power coming at them through the back of the car. Bullets whiz past my face and the boys do well to stay down but how soon until their luck runs out?
“Driver of the third truck is out,” Grayson says, just as Carver takes a sharp right-hand turn onto an empty, deserted road, flinging me across the floor space of the ruined SUV.
“We’ll lose the rest down here,” Carver grunts.
I adjust myself on the backseat, holding my gun tightly as we lose another truck, leaving just three behind us. The flood of bullets coming our way begins to ease.
The panic settles in my chest and I find myself raising up on my knees, my curiosity getting the best of me. My head peeks out over the back of the seat and I get a look at the three angry trucks bearing down on us. Masked men hang out the windows, their guns aimed right for us, wildly shooting as Grayson and King lay across the trunk, shooting right back with skilled precision.
Cruz glances my way. “The fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demands, shoving his hand right in my face and throwing me back down into the floor space. “Are you feeling a bullet through the head today?”
I push his hand away and climb back to my knees.