Montana Falls (Red Diamonds #5)

Chapter Two

M y men were staring at me when I returned to the main room, each one waiting for the next part of my idea that I hadn’t even thought of yet. Luckily for me, I didn’t have time to pretend to have more of a plan than run outside and try to murder people. Unluckily for us, it was because John finally decided he was bored with waiting.

“I think-” I was barely a foot away from Lincoln, the others behind him, when bullets rained down on us through the window.

Glass shattered; vases exploded. The TV and pictures on the wall opposite were ruined and decorated the floor that we had all dived on to with only a single scream of pain. One I quickly realized belonged to Logan, who was grabbing his side even as he shuffled along the ground to a better hiding spot, trailing drops of blood behind him.

“Logan?!” I yelled his name as I crawled toward him. No care for the glass digging into my palms or if I was in more danger the closer I got to the window.

“I’m fine!” He fell back against the couch, hiding behind it as he touched his fingers to just below his ribs. “Just a scratch!”

Lincoln was right beside me, following as I kept moving forward, needing to see the wound myself to make sure Logan wasn’t about to die. But as I did, another round of gunfire rained through the window, and I yelped as I was shot in the face the same time I was damn near crushed.

The bullet was close. Too close. I felt it slide across my cheekbone, leaving a burning line in its wake. The only reason I wasn’t dead – wasn’t looking just like Shannon OMalley - was the infuriatingly perfect man beside me.

Or on top of me, that should have been, seeing as Lincoln had shoved me to the ground and covered my body with his.

“You just saved me again.” I whispered in his ear, as the bullets stopped, and the world went silent for the tensest of seconds. “You keep putting yourself in danger for me, bunny.”

“And you can suck my dick later as a thank you.” He grinned a wickedly devilish sort of grin that instantly made me forget all about him defying my earlier orders. “Right now, we have to fight. So get your fine ass up.” He yanked me to my feet but hid us both behind the nearest wall, only taking a second to look at my cheek and determine my wound wasn’t going to kill me.

Scar? Probably. But fuck it. Scars didn’t bother me, and they were better than being dead. Plus, if I whined about one tiny little mark on my face, then how the fuck could I ever expect Henley to listen to me and be confident again, when I insisted she was still just as beautiful now as she had been before James fucking Mercer got his filthy hands on her?

“Everyone okay?” I called out, but nobody needed to answer. Each of my men crawled or dragged their asses to me, and aside from Logan and various glass scratches, there were no injuries.

Thank fuck for English houses being made of bricks and not the cardboard nonsense American ones were built from. If we had been in a house back home, we would have all been dead. Easily .

Logan lifted his hand with only the slightest wince, yanking the bag of stuff he’d found upstairs with him as Misha looked at his side, confirming it was just a scratch. A few inches long and probably needing stitches, sort of scratch, but something minor, all things considered.

Lincoln grabbed my hands in his and though I was curious, I was too busy staring at Logan and triple checking he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out to care about my bunny’s thoughts for a moment.

He’s fine. Everyone is fine. We’re not going to die and I’m not going to lose anyone I love. We’re all going to be okay .

“I say we throw a few petrol bombs outside and let them do the work for us. The cops should be here soon enough, right?” Logan grabbed the gas as Price ripped up the towels someone had obviously stolen from the kitchen.

Price hurried to empty the handful of wine bottles that were sitting pretty on the sideboard, tipping some of the contents onto the ground so Logan could pour some petrol into them, before he stuffed a piece of a petrol soaked towel into the end.

There we had homemade Molotov cocktails in a handful of seconds. I loved it. I loved Logan. God, he was awesome and no; I didn’t care that I was fan girling because he was making explosives so easily. It was hot, and I didn’t care how unhinged that sounded. There was just something so reassuring and brilliant watching him work with that easy confidence he had.

“The operator said six minutes, and we’ve easily used two of them already.” Lincoln answered. As I glanced down and noticed he was picking the shards of glass out of my palms, without care for the ones in his own. “If we can survive until then, I think we’ll be fine. They’re sending the armed police, not just the regular ones, so John can hopefully get his bitch ass shot.”

“We can wish it to be that easy.” I snorted and then instantly flinched as Linc took the last piece of glass from my skin. “Fucking hell, bunny, are you trying to make me die? That hurts.”

Kody moved beside me and suddenly grabbed my hair, pulling my head back and tilting my mouth to his. The kiss only lasted a handful of seconds, but it was enough to make me forget all about the stinging pain in my hands.

“There, I kissed you better.” He smirked when he pulled back. “Now tell us what you wanna do next?”

“Fire and hide.” I panted. “Now I think we chuck the fire out the window hole quickly and hope for the best? I don’t want anyone to stand in it. It seems silly when we could get shot. So maybe we throw it without looking and just hope it hits John in his big head?”

“So throw it blind?” Kody nodded before he jut his chin at Price. “You’re up, big man. Go make use of that D1 throwing arm and prove those scouts right for thinking you weren’t a talentless beast.”

“I have more talent in my left hand than you do in your entire body, baker boy.” Price grinned as he grabbed two bottles in one hand, his lighter from his jean pocket with the other. “I can hit some people even with my dodgy shoulder. Easy peasy.”

As though to prove his words, he hurried to the side of the window, lighting both cocktails within seconds of each other.

“Don’t get shot, papi .” I figured John would be reloading his gun or maybe waiting for me to show myself. Either way, it was worth caution. “Be careful.”

Price turned his cocky grin my way. “Ten points per person I light up?”

“Five.” I snorted. “And you need to get at least thirty points before we leave.”

It was safe to say I didn’t underestimate his petty urges and knew full well he would score all the points I asked of him. Even more so, considering his first two explosives soared through the window with scary accuracy, the sounds of screams emanating through the air a second later. Ideally, it was John dying via flames, but I doubted I would be that lucky.

The screaming upped its ferocity, and the acrid stench of smoke quickly filled the air as we all hurried to stand near Price, handing him new cocktails until we’d run out, and there was nothing left but us and our weapons.

We had to fight to get to a car. Any would do. Lincoln and Logan could steal and it and race it. I could easily pay back the owners for ‘letting’ us borrow it to get us to safety, and John wouldn’t be able to follow if we shot his tires out.

It would be easy. Totally, completely, easy.

“And that makes thirty.” Price started laughing as he grabbed a spare knife from Misha. “I won; what’s my prize?”

Misha pulled him away from the window, smirking only a little. “How about the satisfaction of knowing you still have your football talent?”

“I’ve never once doubted my own talents.” Price flexed his arms, moving into various bodybuilding poses as he winked. “But I want a real prize. Something tangible that I will be requesting later on.”

Considering the way he looked at me and Misha, I could easily figure out what he would ask for. Not that he needed it for a prize; I would have done it for free. Misha was no doubts the same.

“Do we just make a run for it, or do we split up?” Kody was being a little more sensible than Price and I as we made eyes at each other, and he was glancing out of the window, seeing through the flames that encompassed the sidewalk and lawn. “It looks like they’re panicking. I think if we hit them from two different sides, we could actually be fine enough to make a mad dash out of here.”

“Then let’s do it. You go through the window with Price and Misha. Lincoln and Logan can follow me out the front door; I’ll distract John, the other two can go grab a neighbors car.”

They all did as I asked and I almost ran out of the front door, shooting before I could see where to aim. Lincoln and Logan followed suit before running off to the house over the road, leaving me to keep John entertained when he quickly spotted me.

By that I meant he instantly came my way for nothing but violence.

He didn’t care for the fire that was burning over Shannon’s grass. He didn’t care for the charred corpses of his men, or the ones still softly flaming. The prick didn’t even spare a glance for Price, Kody, or Misha as they made their way through what was left of his soldiers. He only cared about me.

Shooting at me and forcing me to duck behind the bumper of our shot up car when I had the chance. Like the aggravating bastard he was, he kept doing it and we exchanged gunfire and various insults, until Price got close enough to him to be a problem. But I wasn’t going to let Price be hit by a bullet, so I advanced on John instead.

He turned his back for a millisecond, but that was enough. I shot straight for him, only missing his head by the tiniest of gaps when he moved. It clipped the side of his ear and made him bleed, but fuck me; it was annoying.

I made up for it by killing two of his gangsters, though. But still. I was aiming for a headshot. Something that would make up for the fact I couldn’t torture him or spend months breaking him down until he was nothing but a husk of his former self.

He came toward me, chucking his gun at the same time I did when we both realized we had no bullets left. Only I had a knife on me, and he didn’t. So when he tackled me to the ground, I had a little easier of a time defending myself and didn’t have to rely on our size difference and the various advantages to us both.

“You should have surrendered.” He grabbed my hair, yanking me around a bit as I slashed my knife across his side, and used the seconds of his pained distraction to hit him in the chest, hard enough to make him splutter.

I was probably supposed to give a good villain monologue before I tried to kill him. Maybe told him all the ways I hated him and wished him dead. Maybe I should have been mature, and cutting with my words; something impactful that could be stamped on his brain as he died.

“Choke on a dick, you stupid fucking cunt.” I channelled my inner Price for a moment as I kneed John in the balls as hard as I could.

It worked, but not for long. A moment later he slammed my head against the sidewalk hard enough for me to see stars as he laughed.

“That’s no way to talk to your step daddy, is it now, you little bitch? You ought to learn some manners.”

“You ought to learn to wash.” I hissed right back as I lifted my leg, trying to wedge my knee underneath his stomach and give myself enough purchase to shove him off me. “You fucking reek of misogyny and idiocrasy. It’s making me be sick.”

We kept fighting as we traded insults, and though he was bigger than me, he was lazy. He was more of a brawler - not an ounce of training inside of him. Plus, he was taunting me and playing around and that meant when I sunk my knife into his gut; he was almost surprised.

Surprised enough that his immediate response was to wrap his hands around my neck, instantly stealing away all my air.

Or at least he managed it for a whole three seconds before he was gone.

The stranger came out of nowhere. One second, I was being pinned down, the next John was flung off me, a knife in his back and a scream tearing from his lips as he ran off. As much as I would have liked to follow him, he was racing away in his last surviving car before I could so much as contemplate how to breathe through the pain in my head. I had no choice but to lie on the sidewalk, panting and a little confused for a moment, and leave him for another day.

Oh, and I had to deal with the intruder into my fight.

“Up you get, Miss Montana.” A tall and slender man stood above me, offering a hand to me that had a skeleton tattoo covering it. “Can’t have you dying on us today and ruining my plans this weekend. I have lots of delicious things planned.”

Taking a second to catch my breath back and push through the pain in my head, I blinked at him. It was long enough he got bored with waiting, hoisted me to my feet and gently let me go as he lifted his arm, patting me on the head.

“Don’t touch me.” I hissed, pulling my knife up. Or at least I went to. Before I could blink, he’d disarmed me and snatched my weapon away, tucking it in the back of his black jeans.

He laughed darkly, his Russian accent coming through the American tinge to his words. “Tut, tut. That’s no way to speak to your family now, is it? You’re supposed to say nice things and thank me for saving your life.”

I stepped into his face, his smile never wavering even as I glared. “Family? What the fuck are you on, you creepy bastard?” I wasn’t judging, and he had helped me, but seriously? He looked like a walking Halloween advert with the skeleton tattoo covering all the pale skin I could see, bar his face, and his smirk was arrogant as fuck. It didn’t even make me hot under the collar like Lincoln’s smirk did. It just made me twitchy.

“You can call me Wraith.” He grinned, but it was not friendly. Evil was probably a better word for it. Honest to God, evil. “I’m your sister’s brother. And it’s only for her that I’m here, stopping you from dying. So I suggest when you finally meet her, you say thank you and be on your best behavior.”

“Sister?” I repeated as my eyes throbbed with a migraine that made me feel sick to my stomach. “What?” The only sister I knew about was Silver. But she’d been sold off to The Company, and was surely dead?

But apparently she knew me? She was aware enough and cared enough to help me? Impossible.

I wouldn’t even think about it.

Before Wraith could say another word, a truck sped to a stop beside us, narrowly missing running us both over as it left wheel indents in the grass.

“Motherfucker!” I jumped back with a snarl, intending on yelling at whoever had almost turned me into roadkill.

He grabbed my arm again, face devoid of all of emotion as he squeezed me almost hard enough to bruise and said, “Don’t you dare think about cussing out my girl or I’ll cut your pretty face off and mail it to your uncle regardless of how much Silver wouldn’t like it.”

I hated to admit it, but I blanched as he confirmed my thoughts about Silver. Not because I was scared, or still with any intention of yelling at his girl. But because I knew he meant it. He meant his threat one hundred percent, and he knew who I was. So he was either scarier than me, or entirely dead inside. Neither option seemed like something I had the energy to fuck with right now.

The driver’s side door of the car opened, a bundle of skimpy rainbow clothes and neon blue hair almost falling out. Once more, everything hurt as the woman made far too much noise. My injuries, my mind, my fucking concentration. There was too much going on, too many people around, and I was one second away from having a fit and shooting everyone around me just so I could think for one fucking second in peace.

It was safe to say my temper control and rationality were not in the best shape. I wanted to fucking scream.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” The woman squealed as she patted the top of my arm, her brown eyes wide. “I swear I hit the brakes harder than that! It wasn’t my fault. Honest. In fact, it was Gio’s fault. Yeah. He was driving, and he’s shit at it and he just didn’t see you! Kill him instead of me.” The passenger door opened at the same time, a big beast of a man in a fancy-looking suit slinking out and grabbing her away from me.

She jumped up instantly, wrapped her legs around his waist, tucking her head against his neck as she ran her hand over his slicked back dark hair. He looked like the kind of man who enjoyed far too much hair gel for my liking. The sort of hair you couldn’t really mess up and yank on when you were fucking him, which was kind of sad. It was such an unattractive quality to me. I much preferred it when I could pull on my boy toys and make them squeal. Or like how with Misha, where his hair was long enough to grab a fistful of it and…

And I was getting distracted.

“I’ll drive for the rest of the day, amore mio .” The man sighed and glanced at me, recognition flaring in his eyes and mine. “Sorry about that; Heather forgot that they drive on the other side of the road here.” He glanced at Wraith. “Sorry for whatever he said to you, too. He meant no disrespect, Miss Montana. He’s in a mood and is normally much… well, not nice. But he’s better at pretending to be nice to other people.”

Giovanni De Luca was a gangster; a respectable one, if there was such a thing. One I had only met on occasion, and even then, it had been when he didn’t know exactly who I was but had been more than aware of who my daddy had been. He worked in a city near to Diamond Grove, that his family ruled with relative ease. They were large, but nothing on my Red Diamonds, and thus we owned them too. I was fairly sure Beau and Giovanni were even friends, in a way. Or at least as much friends as my uncle would ever have. That meant I semi trusted De Luca not to be a complete piece of shit, so I didn’t bother threatening him. Or his friends. Boyfriend. Girlfriend. Whatever the fuck they were.

Not yet anyway. If the skinny gothic asshole threatened me again, I was going to cut his face off and see how he liked it when I wore it like a creepy ass mask.

“Don’t worry about it.” I groaned a little as I glanced up at the pounding of feet, finding all of my men blessedly unharmed and heading my way.

They instantly surrounded me, suspicious as anything. But seeing as I wasn’t shooting or fighting, they didn’t act with violence. Which was good because we hardly had time to stand around gossiping seeing as there were sirens in the air, so I asked Wraith the only question I could think of as important. “You helped me because your sister asked you to?”

“Yes. She knew we were nearby doing something and when I informed her John was here, she asked me to keep you safe from his wrath.” He ushered his companions back into the car, and they both scrambled for the driver’s seat after a little wave goodbye. I watched Heather pout and dig her elbow into Giovanni’s side as he easily had her shoved into the passenger side and belted up. But instead of being put off by her violence, he kissed her. With far too much tongue for me to want to see. So clearly, he was a little tapped in the head, just like me, and enjoyed people being rough.

It was kind of cute considering their roles were flipped and it was the bundle of rainbows and giggles that was the one who seemed like she had a temper, not the tall, dark and mildly scary looking mafia man. I bet Giovanni had no issues listening to his girl’s every command, unlike my bunny.

Oddly enough though, I realized as I thought it that I wouldn’t enjoy it. I liked being told no and having Lincoln defy me even if it pissed me the fuck off that he did it, which made no sense but was still true.

“Do you know why he was here?” Huffing, I glanced around, trying to figure out the next step of my plan. Once more thankful someone could help me and I wasn’t doing it all alone.

Lincoln and Logan had found a car for us to borrow, and they both slid into it with only slightly wary looks.

“To collect what he thought was his son, and murder everyone else in the process.” He grinned at me. “Just the usual fun activities.”

“And you’re here because?” I asked next.

Wraith sighed. “Silver said protect you. I protected you. That’s it and I will expect payment from you, even if it was technically a favor for her. I don’t work for free.”

A scoff escaped my lips.

“I’m not paying for shit, pendejo . You did something without me asking, and if I’m being honest, you’re kinda pissing me off. I don’t like the way you’re talking to me.” My temper flared, even though he had saved me.

“Atlas, leave the poor girl alone!” Heather’s voice yelled through the window. “She’s basically Ruby’s family any day now. Which makes her our extra family. And you know we can’t be mean to family. Not when they’re nearly all dead or will be soon if we get lucky.”

“You know Ruby?” It helped me trust them a little. Not that I needed to, seeing as I wasn’t sure I would need to ever see them again or require their help.

Despite his glaring, I really wasn’t going to owe Atlas or Wraith, whatever his damn name was. If he’d asked nicely, I would have been kind, but fuck him for bossing me around and fucking grabbing at me.

Giovanni’s face appeared in the open window, as he smiled at me, like the entire situation was an entirely normal occurrence for him.

“My girl and Ruby are friends. They used to work together; ask your da… I mean, ask your uncle. He knows and will vouch for us.” He cast a dark look at Wraith. “You owe us nothing, either. This truly was a favor. He’s just being a brat because a man in the grocery store was rude to his dog, and I wouldn’t let him commit murder.”

“I’ll show you the meaning of the word brat.” Wraith hissed quiet enough that only I heard it.

“Someone was rude to your dog?” My brows rose. “You should have killed them.”

He turned his head, eyeing me up and down again before he nodded, a wicked smile taking over his face that made me shiver once more.

There was something wrong with him. Something that screamed predator to all of my instincts.

Something that made me think he had done his fair share of cutting off faces before.

“Saph.” Price called for me as the sounds of sirens got loud enough to make me panic and forget all about random meetings and the telenovela that was my life.

“Let’s go.” I turned my back on Wraith, but he grabbed my arm and I spun on my feet as I yanked myself free. “Get your hands off me, you creepy bastard. I won’t warn you again.”

“I changed my mind about the charge. You clearly have some sense in your pretty brain if you agreed with me about murder.” Came his reply, as the lights of the police cars hit the end of the road, a little too close for comfort. “But I do suggest you run far away. Before you wind up in jail and I get to see if you are all bark and no bite.”

With that lovely message, he hopped into the back of his truck and the trio sped away without a care in the world. Unlike the rest of us, who were standing there just as the police screeched to a stop.

Fuck.

Again.