Uppercut Princess (The Heights Crew #1)(83)

My body starts to shake. I blink, letting my surroundings come into focus little by little.

Roza Fonz’s crew looks shocked beyond anything. They’re gaping at an unmoving Evan.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” a voice says next to my ear. It takes me too long to figure out it’s Johnny who has me. He brings me back to our side of the circle as Big Daddy K stands, walking toward the center.

Roza looks pissed. She sneers at her guy and throws her cigar to the ground, stomping it out with her feet. When she walks past Evan, she spits on him.

Johnny leans over to say something to me, but I can’t even focus. I can’t believe she disrespected her own fighter like that.

She turns an angry glare to Big Daddy K. “What are you playing at, old man? Who is that girl?”

“We had a deal,” he says. But he doesn’t give her a chance to respond.

Everything melts into slow motion. His hand move first. It sneaks to his hip, and then he holds his hand out. His body blocks my view, but I don’t have to see the gun to know it’s there. The gunshot that sounds shortly after tells me everything I need to know. As does Roza falling to the ground, a bullet hole between her eyes.

I exhale, and all hell breaks loose as a trail of blood leaks from the single bullet wound in Roza’s head, running through the parts in her braids like water trickling through a stream.





29





Gunshots ring out. I’m shoved to the ground from behind. The gravel eats at my palms, digging in deep. Unlike before, time doesn’t slow like when the first shot rang out. It speeds up, like I’m looking at everything through fast forward. Guards rush to Roza while firing randomly in the air. Grunts of pain fill the all but deserted parking lot, but then dissipate.

“Come on,” a voice says in my ear while I’m getting tugged away.

I turn to find Magnum pulling me back. The small stones are embedding into the skin of my stomach as I’m being dragged, my tank top inching upward, leaving my skin exposed. I look past him, searching the area for Brawler and Oscar, who I knew were just here seconds before the fight started, but I don’t see them anymore. Bodies lie on the ground, and I cry out, hoping it’s not them.

He drags me right into a hedge that lines the parking lot and then pulls me upright. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

He shakes me, and all I can see is the chaos of the shootout still in full swing. My heart gets stuck in my throat. Brawler’s brother and sister died in a shootout. He must be so scared. I shrug Magnum off and start for the parking lot again, but he grabs me from behind and lifts.

“Let me fucking go! Magnum!”

He runs, holding me in his arms. The branches of the wild bushes scrape at my body. The sounds of cars starting and peeling out of the parking area reverberate through me. I’m running through the images in my head, wondering if I can remember seeing Oscar or Brawler. Hell, even Johnny. He was right there. Right fucking there.

Now, where are they?

Magnum pulls me out onto a side street, and we crouch next to a dilapidated garage. I push him. “You knew that was going to happen. What the fuck?”

He staggers back but catches himself. Ignoring me, he looks around the side of the building.

“What’s going on?” I hush out. “Shouldn’t you be helping Johnny? What about Big Daddy K?”

Why I’m asking that, I don’t know. I don’t give a flying fuck if that fucker got hit. He just shot someone in cold blood. Oh my God. My stomach revolts, and this time, I really do wretch. It’s been building and building ever since I first saw him in real life, in his skin. He shot Roza without a care in the world. Talking one second. Dead the next. Her eyes so wide as she went down. Surprise captured in a moment in time while she fell backward, dead before she even hit the ground.

“We need to get out of here,” Magnum says. “Johnny told me you were the number one priority.”

“Where is Johnny?” I ask, looking behind me.

Magnum shakes his head. My stomach plummets. I don’t know if he’s shaking his head because Johnny didn’t make it or if he’s shaking his head because he doesn’t know.

“Here. This car.”

Magnum jumps into the middle of the road, holding his hands out. He pulls the gun from his holster and points it in the windshield. “Get out of the car,” he orders.

The woman inside shrieks.

“Get the fuck out!” Magnum yells.

The woman scrambles out of the car, tears already running down her face. “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. I have kids. Please.”

Magnum waves the gun, telling her to get to the side of the road. With it still pointed toward her, he comes back over to me, yanking me up by the shoulder and shoving me into the front seat.

The woman falls to the ground, sobbing, shaking. I’m numb to her pain. I should be having a reaction to this, but I can’t think about anything other than what I’m leaving behind in the parking lot.

“Fuck!” Magnum yells. He jumps into the car and pins my head down. A moment later, the windshield in front of us explodes in fireworks of glass. Magnum presses on the gas, peeling out. “Keep your head down,” he grinds out, wrestling with the steering wheel.

We’re already at the end of the block when he finally reaches out and pulls his door closed before he takes a sharp right. I slide in the seat, tucking my head between my knees. I only know what’s happening by the way my body moves over the front seat. More shots ring out, but they must miss us because I don’t hear the explosion of them hitting their target.