Page 103 of Shades of Grey & Gold

A black car. Passenger window. Moving, not stopped—drive-by pattern, not a siege.

Two shooters minimum based on the angle of the shots still spraying the front of the building, not targeting.

Not targeting me—or Max—specifically.

That thought files itself away for later.

“Gio.” I don’t raise my voice; I don’t need to. “Back door. Now. Take her.”

I feel him move before I see it. His hand closes on Max’s arm and I don’t let myself watch them go because I can’t—I have to trust him to do what I trained him to do years ago when he was brand new to all of this; I have to trust that she is moving away from this and not toward it.

And if I watch her go, I will follow, and that is not what we need right now. I need to fix this.

I hear her though.

A whine or a scream, my name, overshadowed by the sound of continuing gunfire, shelves and glass and debris flying.

She doesn’t need a response.

What she needs is for me to end this.

I move back and around the counter, crouching, gun out, my back to the cold metal of the espresso machine counter. My finger sits along the barrel. Ready, but not itching.

I breathe.

The shots have stopped. I bring my eyes up over the counter line, just enough to see through the blown-out frame of what used to be the window. The car is still, almost lazy, like it has all the time in the world.

My father would be shooting already.

The thought arrives without fanfare.

Just a fact. My father would have put his first round through the windshield before the second shot landed, would have been on his feet and moving before the glass finished falling, because that was how he was built—reaction before reason, violence before calculation, always.

And it worked for him, mostly. It worked for him until it didn’t.

Nico would be shooting, too. Would’ve been up like our father, finger on the trigger without thinking about anything or anyone else. Just himself and the people on the other end of the barrel.

I stay where I am.

Because two feet in front of where I am behind the counter, pressed against the base of a table with her whole body curved forward, is a woman. And underneath her, face pressed into her shoulder, is a little boy. Maybe four. Maybe younger. He has blonde curly hair, and he is so small that his mother’s arms cover him completely, and his fist is wrapped around her sleeve like if he holds tight enough the world will stop being loud.

He opens his eyes and they find me.

I don’t know why I’m what he looks at. Maybe because I’m the only thing in his line of sight that isn’t glass or floor. Maybe because children look for certainty and I am trying very hard to be certain.

I lower myself and crawl back around the counter, staying low to the ground. I don’t hear the car outside drive off.

I lower my gun slightly. Not all the way, just keeping it out of view.

“Hey,” I say to the boy in front of me now, quiet and even. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

His eyes are enormous. He doesn’t move but something in both him and his mother shifts, some animal terror dialing back one degree, and I hold his gaze for another second before I shift my body up a degree to peek out at the car.

The window is down.

Passenger side.

One man visible, arm resting on the door like he’s waiting for a light to change, holding his gun like it’s a cigarette.