Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
They found me.
Cold spread through him.
“What the hell is up, G. You look terrified,” Roz said. “I’m getting you outta here. I don’t like this.”
“No, don’t start the car—”
The engine turned over.
The footsteps stopped dead.
Gage’s heart banged against his ribcage.
“Oh, shit. They’re looking right at us.”
“Drive!” Gage yelled. “Now!”
The car lurched forward, tires spinning on sleet and salt.
“What the fuck! They’re running after us.”
Roz grunted as he took a sharp turn and hit the curb with his back tire.
“Running?”
“Yeah, on foot. Who the fuck are these guys, G?” Roz sounded as if he was freaking out.
Oh my God.
“They split up.”
They’re going to box us in.
“Get us as far from here as you can, and fast,” Gage ground out, bracing a hand on the dashboard.
“I’m trying.”
“Floor it.”
Roz cursed. “I’ve got twenty years of prison time sitting in this car, Gage. Unregistered weapons and aiding a fugitive? I can’t go on a high-speed chase.”
“The police will be the least of our worries if those guys catch us.”
Roz hesitated for half a second, then slammed his foot down on the accelerator.
He whipped them around another corner so hard Gage’s shoulder slammed into the door.
“Do you see them?”
Roz was breathing hard as if he were pushing the car instead of driving it. “No, I— No. I think we lost ’em.”
No, we haven’t.
Gage’s skin buzzed, and the hairs on his arms lifted as though they were warning him a storm was brewing.
“Faster,” he urged.
“Dammit, Gage. Talk to me.”
Gage could hear the leather creaking where Roz gripped the steering wheel.
“Are these the guys who took you?”
“No,” he said, jaw tight. “But I think they’re the ones who’re supposed to take me back…or finish the job.”
Roz’s answer was to punch the gas harder, as Gage heard him cock the chamber of his Colt.
They took another wild left.
“I can’t get on the interstate. If a state trooper clocks me doing ninety, we’re done. You’ll be just as fucked if you get arrested again”
Gage opened his mouth, but before he could speak, his world jerked sideways.
Roz cursed and stomped the brake. The car skidded, tires screeching on snow and ice, before it came to a jarring stop.
“What’s happening?”
“There’s a black van at the end of the alley. It’s blockin’ us,” Roz snarled. “I can’t get around it.”
“Ram them outta’ the way.”
“It’s too damn big,” Roz muttered. “Hang on.”
Freezing air rushed into the car when Roz powered the window down.
Gage didn’t know what he was doing until the deafening sounds of him firing his Colt made him clap his hands over his sensitive ears.
Roz emptied the clip and cursed before Gage heard scraping and a click as he popped in another clip.
“They’re fuckin’ bouncing off,” Roz panted. “That fuckin’ van is bulletproof. Get the shotgun, G.”
Gage fumbled for it at his feet, until his fingers brushed over cold steel.
The van door slammed open.
Two sharp pops cut through the air, and both front tires on the Lincoln exploded with violent hisses, as it collapsed to the asphalt.
“Shit!” Roz yelled. “Get down!”
Muted gunfire tore through the dark, rounds hammering the ground in a tight, disciplined circle.
The marksmen were trapping them, not trying to kill them.
Gage flinched as his side window splintered and the headlights blew apart.
Warning shots.
“We gotta get out,” Roz shouted over the chaos. “Get to the back of the car. Go, go!”
Cold air flooded his lungs as he shoved his door open and dove to the ground. He trailed one hand along the body of the freezing door until he got to the blown-out rear tire.
A hand clamped around his wrist and yanked him the last few steps, pressing his back against the rear bumper.
“About fifty feet away, there’s a narrow walkway. I can shoot the lock on the building access door and—”
“Wait,” Gage said, ducking lower.
“There’s no time,” Roz said breathless. He shoved Gage’s hand into his coat pocket. “Hold on and stay glued to me.”
“No,” Gage hissed, digging his heels in. “It’s me they want.”
“I’m not leaving you!” Roz barked in his face. “If they want you, they gotta go through me.”
He punctuated that by firing his shotgun twice. The blasts were like bombs going off in his head.
“You hear that, motherfuckers?” Roz roared. “You gotta go through me if you want him!”
“So be it,” a calm voice said from behind them.
Gage hadn’t heard the footsteps of someone closing in over the gunfire and Roz’s yelling. That voice scared him more than the bullets.
It was the men in green.
Roz’s shotgun clattered away, skidding across pavement. Forced grunts followed, deep, brutal sounds of fists meeting flesh.
Roz cursed, a gasp whooshing out of him as if someone had driven a fist into his gut.
Gage lunged in his direction. His shoulder hit packed muscle as he wrapped his arms around a waist, and lifted with everything he had.
They both went down hard, the frozen concrete biting his knees through the denim.