“You’ll be dead before you hit the floor if you try that again. Come on.” She starts moving, and I glance down at the black barrel of a small handgun driving into the gold fabric of my dress.
This isn’t happening. Not right here. Not with all these people.
That’s when I realize what’s really at stake. I can’t let her shoot me in this club. It’ll never recover.
I have a split second to make the decision. Fight right here and risk her shooting me—or someone else—sending the club into a stampeding frenzy . . . or follow her out of the club and subdue her where she can’t hurt anyone else.
I’ve taken self-defense. I know how to do this.
Maybe it’s not the smartest decision I’ve ever made, but I know what I have to do. Protect Gabriel and the club.
I walk with Lucy, a smile on my face belying the fact that I have a gun jabbing into my kidney. The crowd blocks anyone from seeing what she’s holding as Lucy shoves me toward a door that nearly blends into the wall at the back of the club.
As soon as the door closes behind us, I make my move, jabbing my elbow into her stomach as I spin around to grab hold of her wrist and twist hard.
“You bitch!” she screams as she loses her grip on the gun and it clatters to the floor, sliding toward the wall.
We both dive for it, but Lucy must realize that I’m going to beat her, because she latches onto something else instead—the necklace I’m wearing. It jerks me back like a dog on a choke chain, cutting into my skin for an instant before the delicate links snap.
Doesn’t matter, get the gun.
I crawl toward it, but a man’s battered leather boot lands on top of the pistol before my fingers can wrap around it.
“Well, well, well. How about this shit?”
I look up and my gaze zeroes in on a new gun, this one with a really long, thick tube attached to the barrel . . . pointed at Lucy.
Oh my God. I’ve seen those in movies. That’s a silencer.
I stare at the hand before my gaze tracks up his arm to his shoulder, and then finally to the face of the man holding it.
Recognition hits me first. He was the one who talked to Gabriel that first night I met him and Roux at the gym. He knew Bodhi. He wanted Gabriel to fight him. What is his name? It’s like the candy . . .
“Who the fuck are you?” Lucy snaps out the question.
“Rolo?” I whisper, hesitantly trying it out.
“You got that right,” he replies to me, looking down at the gun beneath his boot. “Now, what the fuck is going on here?”
“Give me my gun,” Lucy demands.
Rolo squats down to pick it up, keeping the silencer trained on her. “I don’t take orders from cunts like you.” At least he’s right about her being a cunt. When he rises, he’s got a gun pointed at each of us. “Get up.”
I slowly rise to my feet, and Lucy does the same, my necklace dangling from her fingers.
I sneer at her. “I hope whatever you had planned was worth this.”
“He’s not going to shoot me, but I don’t give a damn if he shoots you,” Lucy says, venom dripping from her words. “He’ll be doing me a favor.”
I glance at Rolo, wondering what the hell his plan is. Because you don’t just show up in a club with a gun that has a silencer on it unless you plan to use it.
“You want Legend’s bitch dead?” Rolo asks her, sounding genuinely curious. “That’s what you were doing here?”
“The world would be a better place without that fake princess sitting in her ivory tower. So, why don’t you do me a favor and pull that trigger?”
Rolo chuckles. “Damn, you’re an ice-cold bitch. What the fuck did she do to you?”
“Good question,” I whisper.
Lucy turns and glares at me. “Twenty years. For twenty fucking years I’ve had to watch you live your perfect fucking life and get everything I want. I’m done, which means you’re done.”
I blink twice, trying to understand what she’s saying, because she sounds like a deranged lunatic. “You’ve hated me for twenty years? And now you want me dead? What the hell, Lucy? Are you off your meds or something?”
When Rolo huffs out a laugh, Lucy turns her malice on him. “You don’t get it. She had everything. Since the day her perfect fucking mom walked her into class, and everyone wanted to be her. I was the one everyone wanted to be before you. You took that from me.”
She’s fucking nuts.
Clearly, I’m not the only one thinking that, because Rolo glances at me. “Bitch be crazy.”
“Fuck you, asshole. Give me my gun, and I’ll get her out of your way.”
“Fucking crazy,” he says with a shake of his head. “How were you getting away with this?”
Lucy flips her hair like she doesn’t have a gun trained on her, making me even more certain she’s gone off the deep end. “Oh, that part’s easy. Everyone’s going to be so sad when Scarlett’s stalker finally kills her.”
My mouth drops open. “You were going to frame the troll for this? Jesus Christ, Lucy.”
Maniacal laughter breaks free from her lips. “Fucking Scarlett. Always the last to know. Bitch, I am the troll.” She turns back to Rolo and holds out her hand. “Now, give me the gun. I’ve got shit to do.”
I’m frozen. Shell-shocked. It was her all this time?
I don’t know if it’s the entitlement in her tone or what, but Rolo just shakes his head.
“Bitch, shut the fuck up.”
Lucy charges him, and I see it before she does—Rolo’s finger squeezing the trigger.
“Lucy! No!”
But the pop of the muffled gunshot comes next, and I throw myself toward the wall and away from her and Rolo. My body hits the floor at the same time Lucy’s does.
Oh my God. He shot her. I want to look, but I’m terrified. Jesus Christ. He shot her.
His boots stop in front of me, and Rolo holds out a hand—except there’s no gun in it now. Where did he put Lucy’s?
“Get up. She ain’t bothering you again.”
I know I can’t trust him. He fucking shot her.
“Come on, get up. You’re lucky I shot that bitch. Couldn’t have her killing you before I get the shit that belongs to me. Legend shoulda thought twice before cutting me out. Making me go through all this shit—shooting up the club, trying to fuck up Black. It’s not fucking right. But she just made it hell of a lot easier to get to you, at least. Now, let’s go.”
Rolo shot up the club and went after Bodhi? Oh my God. I’m struggling to process Rolo’s words when he grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, shoving me down the hallway toward another door.
I jerk my head around to look behind us, and there Lucy is . . . with a dark pool growing around her prone body.
“Oh my God.” I stumble, tripping over the hem of my dress, but he yanks me upright.
The gunshot. People had to hear the gunshot. Right? But my ears are barely ringing . . . which means . . . there’s no way anyone could hear it over the crowd because of the silencer.
“Go, bitch. Unless you want me to shoot you right here too?”
I stumble forward, even more terrified of Rolo than Lucy, because I just watched him end her life without a shred of remorse.