“I don’t care! I just want us to live. I just want us to get away and live our lives.”

“There is no us, Sasha. How do I fucking make you understand? I’m not taking you as a promise. We’re not killing all these people tonight so I can take you as a promise. When we get out of this mess, you’re going home with James. Not me. So stay here and stay out of sight. Or come with me and be prepared to fight.”

And with that, he drops my wrists and starts jogging back towards the stairs.

What choice do I have?

I follow him into the war zone, hoping and praying we get to leave here together, but knowing damn well we’re probably all going to die.

Because isn’t that how James and I planned it? Isn’t that what we decided? Shoot everyone. That was the original plan Tet told me outside the Hummer that day in the Wal-Mart parking lot after Harper was drugged. We’ll shoot everyone. And this party, a party he knew was coming for months, was the perfect place to accomplish that objective.

No one left alive.

And when your army is a street gang who’ve been looking for revenge for a dozen years, well, all bets are off about who lives and who dies when the bullets start flying.

Chapter Thirty-Three

James

I laugh one of those maniacal laughs you only see in movies. I know Harper left with my mother and Sasha followed as planned. So I’ve got a few minutes before all hell breaks loose to have some fun.

“Vincent?” the Admiral asks.

I shake my head. “Wrong.” I watch him come to terms with the fact that I spent last night with his daughter. Hell, I married her—even though it’s not legal, it was still a ceremony of promise and commitment. And he not only watched, but gave me his blessing. “Sorry, Vincent couldn’t join us tonight. He’s not feeling well. Something about seafood poisoning.”

The Admiral’s face goes white.

“Seriously?” I ask, taking a step toward him. “You of all people should be able to recognize me by now.” I take him by the neck, just like I did One, and have his back up against my chest before security shows up. The little red laser dots flash across the Admiral’s white shirt.

“Don’t shoot,” he tells his men.

“We can take him out, sir,” one kiss-ass says. His laser sight flashes me in the eye.

I press my gun to the fleshy part of the Admiral’s lower back.

“For fuck’s sake, lower that laser before you piss him off and he shoots me for fun.”

“Oh,” I say, backing up so I can have a wall behind me. “It’s already been tons of fun, Admiral. Twelve years of good fucking times, right? You thought you’d what? Just keep giving me orders and I’d just keep following them until you decided I wasn’t worth your time anymore?”

He doesn’t answer, so I press the gun into his kidneys to help him along.

“No,” he groans. “I treated you like a son.”

“Yeah,” I say with an ironic laugh. “You sure did treat me just like my father did. But don’t worry, Admiral, you won’t get the same fate. Because you won’t be brought back from the dead like him. I’ll finish the job and end it right.”

I spot Sasha running outside in a crowd who figure it’s best to get as far away from me as they possibly can, and breathe a sigh of relief. Harper must be safe and my mother must be dead.

I check my watch. Three minutes. Harper appears in the room and people give her a wide berth as she approaches.

The Admiral laughs. “There she is.” He says it with some relief as Harper raises her arm, a gun in her hand.

My eyebrows go up as she walks up to us. At first I think she’s aiming for me, but I realize it’s not me, it’s him. Her father.

“Harper,” he says. “Do your job, honey.”

“What’s my job, Daddy?” she asks sweetly.

“Protect me at all costs. Kill Tet. Kill anyone who threatens us.”

“Is this part of that brainwashing you did on me?”

Fuck.

“Because I have to tell you.” She lowers the aim of her gun and I can actually feel the Admiral let out a breath. But that’s before she shoots him in the leg. “It didn’t take.”

I have to shake my head, because that bullet was so close to me, I feel the impact in my own body.

“Oops,” she says, as the Admiral wails in pain. I let him fall forward onto the ground and take out two security guards. The whole room erupts in screaming and then the bullets start spraying. A woman standing next to me is shot in the torso and blood splatters me in the face.

They’re early.

Lesson learned. Never fucking trust a gang member to do their job on your time.

I grab Harper’s wrist and pull her down to the floor in front of her father so I can keep her safe and relieve her of the gun. “Get the file from One, Harp.”

She crawls over her father’s wounded leg and begins searching One when the Admiral pulls a gun out from his pocket and aims it at me.

“Really?” Tet takes over. He grabs him by the neck just as a shot comes from the gun. Plaster from the ceiling showers down on us, but I don’t even notice when a large chunk crashes on top of my arm.

Because when I have a man’s neck in my grasp, there’s only one way that shit’s gonna end.

Even over the rapid firing of AK’s, I hear the crack.

His head goes limp. His body relaxes. And when I look at Harper, she smiles. “We’re free.”

“Not yet, lionfish. Now we gotta get the fuck out of here.”

The entire ballroom is chaos. People are running, they don’t’ last long, because the bullets are flying. So the runners fall, littering the floor with blood and bodies.

“Crawl with me, harp.” I get down low and make our way to a banquet table. I lift up the tablecloth, but there are several people under there already. “Out,” I hiss at them, pointing Harper’s gun.

They do run, but I grab two of them by the arms and yank them backwards. I pull Harper up as they bolt, and we run with them. Between them.

A living shield.

A woman goes down in front of me, then a man behind. But we book it. The people outside are coming in and the people inside are going out as mass confusion ensues. There’s bodies and blood. People trip, fall, and then get trampled. I pull Harper through the French doors and head for the beach. There’s some Company people running the same direction in front of us, but I shoot them and they go down. Another small group is in front of them, but as soon as they hear the shots, they dart off the path to the beach and head for the trees. Sasha’s army will have to take them out.