tape across her mouth, draw my attention to where she struggles against her binds on the bed.
I climb over her, covering her body with mine, feeling her jerk and twitch with another gunshot. Patrick screams again, as if he’s been hit a second time.
Finally, the melee settles to quiet.
At the sound of heavy footfalls across the floor, I point my gun toward the bedroom door, muscles sagging when Makaio steps into the room carrying two guns.
“Boss? You okay?”
“Peachy.” Pushing off Isa, I tear the tape away from her mouth and give her body a onceover, looking for any sign of injury, or stray bullets. The only blood I see is the small bit that dripped from my shoulder onto her cheek, and the oozing wound at her ankle. The streak of red at my shoulder, without an actual hole, tells me the bullet only grazed me.
“Lucian,” she says out of breath, before breaking into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh.” I stroke a hand over her hair and kiss her. “You’re going to be okay. Relax, Isa.”
After checking my own body for sign of injury, I loosen her binds, and the sound of groaning from the other room makes me pause.
“You didn’t kill him?” I ask Makaio.
“You said you didn’t want any more investigations on your hands, so I shot him once in each leg. If you want, I can finish him off, though.” He lurches toward the man who sounds like he just got his ass handed to him.
“No.” Sliding my hands beneath Isa’s body, I lift her into my arms. “He’s her father. He deserves better than that.”
Makaio opens the front door of the cabin, and I halt at the approach of distant headlights. Ducking behind the adjacent wall, I dodge the bright beam crawling up the driveway and nod to Makaio, who slams the door shut.
“You’re fucked.” Boyd’s weak voice is broken by the hard pants of breath while he sits bleeding out of his bullet wounds. “I called … them. To collect her here.”
Teeth grinding in my skull, I lower Isa to the floor, my mind spinning with what to do.
“Want me to take care of them?” Makaio slides his gun from its holster and I shake my head.
“No. You’ll set off an investigation that I don’t need.”
Obnoxious laughter bounces off the walls, steeling my muscles, and I snap my gaze to Boyd, who’s undoubtedly trying to drum up as much noise as he can. Swinging my attention back to Makaio, I give a quick jerk of my head toward the noisy prick, and the hard thunk of a punch silences the man.
Crouching low to peer out through the window, I see the men haven’t yet exited the car. “There’s a window in the back room. Get the two of them out of here.”
I don’t yet have a plan in mind, all I know is, I’ll be the one leaving with Isa.
No matter what.
The tight clutch of my arm draws my focus to where Isa grips me. “I’m staying with you.”
“If they find you, you might as well be dead for what they’ll do to you. Go with Makaio.” Finger hooked beneath her chin, I press my lips to hers. “Now.”
With Boyd’s limp body hoisted over his shoulder, Makaio takes Isa’s hand, guiding her toward the back room.
After giving them a moment to break away, I swing back the front door to find three Blacksuits standing alongside the sleek black vehicle parked beside Boyd’s. Two of the men, I recognize as Dominic and Louis. Haven’t seen the elders since they visited my office two months ago. The other man I’ve seen a couple times, but never formally met. A tall, beefy guy who could probably rival Makaio in size.
“Gentlemen,” I say, stepping out onto the porch. “Good to see you again.”
“What are you doing here, Lucian?” Dominic asks, around a thick cigar that sticks out from between his lips, as he grips the porch’s handrail at the foot of the stairs.
I close the door behind me to shut out any scuffling sounds as Isa and Makaio make their escape through the back window. Not that the old man would hear much with his hearing aid, anyway. “Friedrich contacted me. Asked me to look into a call he received from Boyd.”
“Funny … he asked us to look into that very thing. Seems a bit redundant.”
Poker face in place, I nod. “Perhaps he thought I’d catch him first.”
“Catch him?” The dubious tone in Dominic’s voice plays on my