Page 2 of Our Tricks

I picked off one more asshole trying to throw his knife at me before we burst through the red door Betta had described to me. On the other side was a narrow flight of stairs leading up to the street. It would plop us right on a main road which is why this entrance wasn’t used, but we didn’t have time to worry about drawing attention from the public right now.

“You got another gun?” I asked.

“Is your ass short?” he shot back with a growl.

“The fuck, man,” I snapped as I shoved his ass up and onward. “No need to be a dick. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t steal your only piece.”

Magnus, being a much bigger than me, could take two or three steps at a time. My vertically challenged legs moved as fast as they could to keep up. The ting of a bullet ricocheting off the metal stairs had me slamming myself to the wall as I whipped my gun around, firing off a shot before I got a look. In situations like this, the person on the ground had a way better advantage over the person fleeing.

“Fuck,” a man swore, telling me I’d managed to hit him and keep him from shooting again. “You better run, bitch. Think you can just pull a stunt like that, and we’re gonna let you live?”

Crouching, I got a better angle and fired off another shot, hitting him right in the chest, dropping him. “Yeah, actually, I kind of did, but this is way more fun if I’m being honest. Everyone else will be pissed, but I’m getting used to that at this point.”

Checking to make sure no one was trying to crawl up our asses, I resumed my epic climb to the top of the stairs. Kicking through the door, I quickly stuffed my gun in the back of my shorts. It wasn’t hidden from sight by any means, but I didn’t have it in my hand either. Brandishing a gun was a much bigger deal to the cops than just having one on you.

“What are you waiting for… an invitation?” Jaxson yelled from a work van that had the side door open.

Cognac was inside reaching out for me, and I prayed the rest of my guys were in there too. Bolting across the sidewalk, I leaped into the van, slamming into Cognac and letting him cushion my fall as I planted a kiss on his lips.

“Fuck, that was fun,” I said, rolling off him to see everyone I cared about looking at me with varied expressions. “Okay, clearly, not everyone was enjoying this as much as I was. It’s alright, though. Everyone gets their rocks off in various ways. You can pick next time.”

“The fuck were you thinking putting Harper in danger like that?” Magnus bellowed, surging forward.

Void shoved the man back as he stepped between us. “You don’t talk to my little demon like that, family or not.”

“I’ll fucking talk to her how I want when she puts my woman in that much danger and doesn’t fucking warn us,” Magnus challenged.

I let out a shrill whistle stopping the argument in its tracks.

“He’s right, Void,” I announced, much to everyone’s shock. “The plan I made went up to declaring war on Marco, but I didn’t account for anything after that. If I’d told you what was going down, you’d have been prepared to make a break for it. He has every right to be pissed at me… fuck, I’m pissed at me. Ghost got hurt, Harper was in danger, and the guy I just put in charge of the De León Cartel almost had the shortest reign in history.”

Picasso leaned over to Eagle. “Did she hit her head or something?”

“Must have,” he agreed. “I don’t think she’d be saying that otherwise.”

I glared at them and looked around for my best friend, not seeing her back here. Then I spotted her in the passenger seat, arms crossed and looking pissed as all hell. Yeah, I totally deserved that.

“Harper,” I ventured.

All I got was her flipping me the bird, and I shut my mouth. Clearly, this was one of those times I needed to let her cool off first. I looked over at Ghost, who was getting patched up by Sprocket. Seemed he got shot in the meaty part of his bicep which hurt like a bitch, but it didn’t hinder him from using the arm like I’d feared. Scanning everyone else, it seemed like that was the worst of what had happened. A few fat lips and scrapes but nothing some ice, ibuprofen, and sleep wouldn’t fix.

“So, where to now?” I asked. “Is it safe to go back to the apartments?”

“We’ll be fine there tonight, but we’re gonna need to move to another location in the morning,” Ghost said. “We’ve got a few other spots, that being our most public residence anyway. It’s better to have one they can find if they try hard enough than to keep digging and find one we don’t want them to discover.”

Letting out a sigh, I rested against the van’s door as we drove around far longer than we needed to ensure we didn’t have a tail. When we did stop, it was a few blocks down, and we had to walk our happy asses the rest of the way to the building. Harper and her guys went in one elevator while my guys and I took another.

Slamming my head against the elevator wall, I groaned. “How bad did I fuck up, guys?”

“With us or Harper?” Cam asked.

Cracking an eye, I looked at him. “Both. It will tell me how much groveling I need to do. I promised to be more honest, and I still couldn’t do it.”

“That’s not totally true,” Wes said. “You asked us to trust you with this part of the night, telling us everything else. We agreed to let you handle things so, personally, I don’t feel like you’re to blame. None of us are. There was no way we could leave that place without a fight on our hands. It was either going to be you and Void locked in that cage facing off God knows who or what ended up happening.”

Sprocket pulled down his hair and started to massage his head like it hurt. When he looked up, he sighed and dropped his hands. “Wes is right… this night was always going to end up going sideways, no matter how we planned for it. Would a heads-up have been nice so we could deal with the fallout? Yeah. Still, how things turned out was the best of a shit situation.”

The doors opened, and we headed to the apartment. Once inside, everyone poured themselves a drink and found a spot on the couch, all looking rumpled and tired. This had to end soon. There was no way we could keep pushing like this, running from one fire to another, trying to put them all out once they were burning too hot. The eight of us were only human, even though I hated to own up to that fact.