Saint lowers his weapon and grabs my hand, and we stride with urgency around to the front of the house. “We’re good here?” he asks, and Galen and Caz nod.
“It’s all set.”
“Perfect.” Saint tows me back toward the Land Rover, pointing his gun at a few brave neighbors who risk popping their heads out to see what all the commotion is about. As soon as they take one look at his face and The Sainthood emblem on his leather jacket, they hightail it back into their houses.
“What if they call the cops?” I ask while Theo removes his tablet from the back seat and starts tapping away on it.
“They won’t,” Galen says, taking the rifles from the others, placing them carefully in the duffel bag, and putting it back in the trunk. “They’re too afraid of retaliation.”
“What’s in that house?” I ask though I’ve already guessed.
“It’s a meth lab. The main one supplying Lowell High,” Saint clarifies.
I nod. “The competition. Right.”
“They had a choice,” Saint adds, nodding at Theo when he looks to him for direction. “And like Finn, they chose poorly.”
Theo presses a button on his tablet, and the house detonates as each block of explosive blows a hole through the dilapidated property. Plumes of smoke billow into the dark night sky, contrasting with the bright red flames licking a line around what’s left of the place.
A shot pings over our heads from behind, and the sound of approaching footsteps has me reacting on autopilot. I whip the gun from my jeans, turn around, and fire off a couple rounds without stopping to think. It’s an instinctive reaction to a threat;—one I’ve been trained for.
A body slumps to the ground, and my stomach drops to my toes. “Shit.” I step forward to investigate, but an arm wraps around my waist before I can round the front of the car, stopping me.
“Careful, princess,” Saint whispers in my ear, dragging me back. “Let Caz and Galen check first. He might only be injured.”
Please just be injured, I repeat over and over in my head like a mantra, as Caz and Galen approach the prone body from either side of the car with guns elevated and pointed at the shooter. They disappear for a few seconds, and my heart rate accelerates.
“Clear,” Galen shouts, and Saint lets me go, clasping my hand in his again as we round the car and move to where the guy is bleeding out on the ground.
“Fuck,” I exclaim, watching the pool of blood under his head grow bigger. His eyes are open, staring vacantly up into the sky.
He’s dead. I just killed a man.
“Nice shooting, princess,” Caz says, admiration lacing his tone. He leans in closer to examine the shot in his skull and the second one embedded in his chest. Switching the flashlight on his phone on, he starts pointing it around, narrowing his eyes as he scans the area surrounding the body.
“Hand me some gloves,” Galen says over his shoulder to Theo, and Theo pulls out a pair of clear plastic gloves from his pocket.
Mental note to self—start doing that.
I watch as Galen digs his fingers into the bullet wound in the guy’s chest, rooting around in his damaged tissue, until he retrieves the bullet. He holds it upright in the air, his hand and the bullet soaked in the dead guy’s blood.
“I’ve located the second one,” Caz says, pointing at a spot just off to the left of the body. Galen stands, grabbing the second bullet and dropping both of them into a clear plastic bag Theo holds out.
Saint is talking on his phone, putting in a request for a cleanup crew, and awareness dawns on me. I grab Theo’s arm. “I’ll take those.”
“Afraid not, angel,” Galen says, smirking. “We’ll be holding on to the evidence.”
Saint ends his call, snatching the gun from my hand before I’ve had time to process the movement. He hands it to Theo. “Put that and the bullets into lockup. You know the drill.”
“You fucking assholes set me up.” I can’t believe they outmaneuvered me.
Saint holds up his palms. “I’ll admit I brought you along so you were an accessory, but I’d no way of knowing one of the guys would hang around.”
“And no one forced you to shoot him,” Galen adds.
“One of us might be nursing a bullet wound if she hadn’t,” Theo says, locking the evidence into a secure briefcase.
I’m not buying Saint’s explanation, because it’s too convenient. I wouldn’t put it past him to have paid the guy to shoot at us, not expecting me to be such a good marksman.
“Who was he?” I ask.
Saint prods his foot in the dead man’s side. “Luke McKenzie. A drug dealer and a pimp. Lately, he’d turned his hand to human trafficking.” Saint spits on him. “Fucking degenerate. He was snatching girls as young as five to order.”
I mash my boot into the dead guy’s crotch, kicking him a few times, hoping he feels it in hell. “I don’t feel so bad now,” I admit even though it’s still a fucked-up situation because the assholes are keeping the proof I committed murder, and no doubt, they intend to dangle it over my head to ensure I do their bidding.
“Asshole deserved it,” Caz says, unbuttoning his jeans.
Saint grins as he drops my hand and joins his buddies. I’m not sure what it says about me, but I watch with begrudging amusement as the four guys piss all over McKenzie’s dead body.
_______________
The house is empty when we return, but that’s not a huge surprise. Mom is rarely at home anymore. “Everyone, shower and meet in the basement,” Saint commands, and I salute him.
He pulls me into his body, squeezing my ass. “I’m going to enjoy this so much, baby.” I drill him with a “fuck you” look. “We’ve got leverage now, princess.” He squeezes my butt harder. “We completely fucking own your ass.”
“Like hell you do.” I plant my hands on my hips and tip my chin up. I’ve given this a lot of thought on the journey home. “So what if you have a gun with my fingerprints? It’s unregistered and can’t be traced back to me. And if the cops were to ever question me, I’d feed them some bull about how you tricked me into holding your gun. We do live together, remember?”
“That gun committed murder, baby.” Saint’s smug confidence grates on my very last nerve.
“If you turned it over, it’d implicate The Sainthood.” I return his smug look with one of my own. “You think anyone in this entire town would believe your word over mine?” Although some might question my morals and my judgment over the tape, I’ve never been in trouble with the law, and what happened to me as a kid garnered plenty of good will. “I’m a model student, a model citizen, and a bereaved daughter who was once kidnapped by the very same organization accusing me of murder. Get fucking real. That evidence is worth jack shit, and you know it.”
“What the hell did you just say?” Theo asks from behind, and I turn around.
“You heard me.”
Galen, Caz, and Theo share puzzled expressions before looking to their leader. “What’s she talking about, Saint?”
He steps forward, closing his eyes briefly and rubbing at his temples. “Shit.”
That’s all I need to know to confirm the others aren’t clued in. He never said anything, and it’s obvious that bastard Sinner didn’t either. I’m not sure what to make of that or how it changes things, if at all, but I park those thoughts for now.