He didn’t get time to finish. The sound of the gunshot going off rang through the air like a thunderbolt heading in our direction. The two of us dropped down, knees buckling, arms behind the backs of our heads as we tried to avoid whatever and whoever was trying to use our skulls for target practice.
The bullet whizzed past us, and I saw my dad make the exact same move as I did, the two of us working on autopilot as we reached around for the Glocks in the waistbands of our jeans.
Another shot rang out in our direction, missing completely but bouncing off the framework of Eric’s bike with an almighty metal-hitting-metal clang. I’d never appreciated someone missing a shot more in my whole life. The second the two of us figured out which direction the shooter or shooters were coming from, we raised our guns, and we fired.
“This way… to the right, Drew!” Eric called out.
We moved automatically, crouched low and running to the side, eyes and ears on high alert, allowing us to hear the scuffling of feet and, finally, voices.
Whoever was shooting our way they definitely weren’tfrom Texas—the jumbled, panicked voices of at least three men drifting our way in a foreign tongue.
Within seconds, Eric and I had moved toward the side of the building, running around the back of it to find the clearing that led to nowhere. No shelter. No cluster of trees for anyone to hide in. Nowhere for the fuckers to run. Eric took one glance over his shoulder to look at me, and when our eyes connected, I felt that blood bond running through my veins, giving me permission to do whatever the hell we needed to do.
“Sick of hitting on the bags, Drew?”
“You know it,” I growled, fighting to stay in control.
“Let’s go hunting.”
We watched as three men tried to flee the scene, one with a gun raised pointing backward and no target in sight, his aim completely off. I raised my weapon, closed one eye and counted to three.
One.Wait.
Two.For.
Three.Me.
The ring of the bullet I fired swallowed the sound of the wordAydain my mind, while the cries of the man I’d shot in the leg had my father and me running as fast as we could to the men who’d tried to kill us.
I had no idea who the fuck they were. I didn’t need to. All I wanted was to take a life tonight. Avenge Harry.
In the end, we took three. Three men we didn’t need to know or want to know. Three men, who looked like they’d been living in the Navs’ old property without permission. Homeless drifters, maybe illegal immigrants, hiding out to make a better life for themselves in the future.
If only they hadn’t fired first.
If only it didn’t feel so good to kill.
If I didn’t get a grip on myself, it wasn’t just going to be me who felt the flames of my rage deep inside.
If I carried on like this, the whole of Babylon was going to burn.
Chapter Nine
AYDA
“Gotcha.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Now, now, sore loser.” Tate was grinning broadly, and Kenny’s smug smile was tight as he threw theXboxcontroller onto the cushion he was sitting on. I’d been watching the two of them running up and down the virtual football field for over an hour, and I was still unsure how they managed to press seventeen buttons at once. I didn’t do too badly at role-playing games, but this was just over my head.
They were in the midst of a shoving match when something pulled my gaze from them to the open door, and it was purely by chance that I saw a streak of black rush past, a streak that could only have been Drew.
I rose to my knees and rolled from the bed, waving off Tate’s inquiry to where I was going. My heart was pounding for reasons I couldn’t really explain as I wandered into the room I shared with Drew, my hand trailing against the wall as I moved.
The bedroom door was still open when I stopped in front of it. Drew was perched at the end of the bed, hunched over, his hands moving quickly over whatever he was holding inhis lap. He wasn’t his usual cool and composed self, and if anything was going to scare me, it was that. The man I was looking at now was frantic, irritable energy rolling off him waves as it warned anyone close enough to stay the fuck away.
I wasn’t just anybody, and as I’d said to him earlier that night, I wasn’t afraid of him... no matter how broken he thought he was.