"Yeah, well, you're a big old fuggo yourself," Raf retorts.
His voice echoes in the empty auditorium.
Every head turns.
"What," Stephen says flatly.
"You heard me." Raf adjusts his grip on the gun. "Fuggo. F-U-G-G-O. As inugly. You're standing up there looking like a smashed pumpkin callinganyonea freak?"
Stephen's remaining eye twitches.
I watch his composure fracture in real time. This was all carefully rehearsed, staged with the same meticulous control Stephen applies to everything. He had the lines ready. The drama mapped out.
He did not have a contingency plan for being called afuggo.
His mouth opens. "You son of a fucking?—"
"And another thing!" Raf is not done ruining his villain monologue. "That knife you're waving around? That's my girl's knife. Hergrandfather'sknife. So not only are you a fuggo, you're a fuggothief. The lowest form of fuggo."
Phoenix chokes on his laugh.
Rex doesn't make a sound at all. He's already moving. The three seconds of absolute stunned silence from the catwalks are all he needs.
He crosses the center aisle in four strides that shouldn't be possible for a man with a bullet in his back, even an alpha. He doesn't go for the stairs. He goes for the two guards flanking the left stairwell, and he hits the first one before the man's head has fully turned back from staring up at the catwalks.
Rex's fist connects with the guard's temple. The guard drops and Rex is already pivoting toward the second, catching the man's gun arm and twisting it behind his back with a crack that makes me wince.
Phoenix moves a half-second later, but he goes right.
The two guards on the right stairwell see him coming and raise their weapons, but Phoenix isn't subtle. He's never been subtle. He's charging like a fucking bull and the first guard makes the critical error of hesitating.
Phoenix doesn't hesitate. He grabs the first guard by the tactical vest and hurls him into the second. Both men go down in a tangle of limbs and dropped weapons. Phoenix kicks the nearest gun into the orchestra pit, grabs the other man by the ankle, and drags him clear of the stairwell entrance.
The auditorium fills with the sounds of impact.
Fists on flesh. Bodies on marble. Rex's feral snarling. Phoenix's boots thundering across the floor as he pins the second guard and breaks his arms. Raf exchanging fire with another guard.
But Stephen's positioned himself perfectly.
The catwalk access on both sides requires climbing an exposed metal ladder bolted to the wall with zero cover. It doesn't matter that the guards are down. Stephen is untouchable where he is, and judging from the yelling on the outskirts of the auditorium, backup's on the way.
Anyone who climbs that ladder is fucked.
Rex reaches the base of the left ladder and starts climbing anyway.
Stephen moves to the railing directly above him.
"REX, STOP!" I scream.
Rex freezes three rungs up. His head tilts back and I watch him process the open ladder, the catwalk directly overhead, Stephen leaning over to the ladder and reaching for the gun on his belt.
Rex's fist clenches around the rung so tight the metal groans.
He drops back down.
"Fuck!" he snarls, slamming his palm against the wall.
Phoenix arrives at the same conclusion. He steps back, chest heaving, his eyes tracking upward with the frustrated calculation of an alpha who could tear the catwalk down with his bare hands but can't reach it without getting a bullet in the head.