Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(111)

“What happened tonight?”

I threw a look over my shoulder. They were a few steps behind me, still carefully out of arm’s reach. “You showed up here.”

“What does that have to do with anything? You told me to show up.”

“Exactly. An innocent man wouldn’t have listened. Especially not after he’s told his life’s in danger. He might call the police, he might hide or lock himself up in his home. The one thing he doesn’t do? Show up to a strange warehouse in the middle of the night, all on the word of someone he barely knows.” I worked the beam of light back and forth over the ground. “You showed up because you needed to see what I had.”

“Why not just have the FBI here waiting? Why take the risk of meeting us alone?”

Glancing back at them, I nodded toward Joseph. “You can thank him for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Joseph is cautious,” I said. “In his line of work, if you’re not, you generally don’t hit thirty. I couldn’t take the chance that he’d sense a trap or see the FBI guys and get spooked. I needed you to show up tonight, but I also needed him to be here. That part was important.”

“Why?” This time it was Joseph asking. He sounded genuinely puzzled. “You must know what I’m going to do to you.”

“You tried to kill my brother,” I answered frankly. “And you’re just as responsible for Karen Li’s death as Gunn or Oliver or Victor. You think you get to just walk away?”

“But I will walk away,” said Joseph. “Right after I’m done with you. And before I get on a plane I’m going to do two things. I’m going to grab your junkie brother a second time, and then I’m going to tie him up in that goddamn bookstore of yours, soak him in gasoline, and burn it into ashes.”

I ignored him. If he was thinking about the future that was his problem. I was focused on what was right in front of me. Specifically, a glint of metal on the ground.

“Found them.”

I picked up the keychain and held it up obediently. The flashlight in my hand had momentarily angled toward them. The direction of the light made it difficult for Joseph and Oliver to see me, while making it correspondingly easier for me to see them. I took a step toward them, hands held wide and unthreatening, and sprayed Joseph full in the face with the pepper spray clipped to my keychain. Then I flung myself down and to my left, to the outside of his right shoulder. His sling pinned his right arm to his body. He’d have to twist his whole body around to aim.

Joseph yelled in pain and flung a hand across his face even as two bullets cracked out toward where I’d been standing a moment before. Then I was exactly where he hadn’t wanted me: within arm’s range.

He was trying to rub his eyes, turn, and shoot all at the same time. I came up with my left hand in a twisting uppercut and hit him as hard as I could. Not in the face or body or groin or any of the places I usually would have aimed for. I hit Joseph just under the right shoulder in the thickness of his bandages. The gunshot wound was only a few days old. He cried out in agony and the fingers of his right hand loosened. His gun fell to the ground.

We both dove for it. I felt a big hand against my face and bit hard into the fleshy part of the palm. Joseph yelped and kneed me in the stomach while relocating his bitten hand to my hair. I got my own hand into his crotch and twisted, hard. He made an unappetizing sound and then drove his good elbow into my forehead. I felt skin split, got two fingers around his earlobe, and did my best to annex that piece of territory. He got another knee into my stomach and a finger hooked into my nostril. My teeth found their way back into his hand for the second time. It was that kind of brawl. Not pretty. No rules. Not any kind of event that Kentucky ladies would have donned flowered hats to see.

I got one hand on the gun and felt Joseph’s hand close over my own. He was much stronger than I was, even one-handed. He got the gun angled up and then toward me. I head-butted him, but in my prone position I couldn’t get my weight behind it. I felt the barrel of the gun nudge into my body and tried frantically to push it away, but he was too strong. He had me. We both knew it. The barrel of the gun poked into my stomach and I jerked my body around and under his in a desperate attempt to get the barrel off me.

There was a sharp report and the pungent smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils.

Something was wrong.

There was no pain.

It took me a moment to realize the gunshot had come from above. Joseph’s hand fell from the gun. His body went limp and eased away from mine. Oliver stood over us. That last movement of mine had put Joseph between me and the bullet Oliver had fired down at us. Oliver’s hands were shaking and his face was covered in drying blood, but he kept his gun pointed down at me.

“Roll away from the gun,” he said. “Slowly.”

I rolled. Once, then again, blinking my eyes to try to clear the blood running down my forehead from Joseph’s elbow. “You just shot Joseph. I’ll assume it was an accident.”

Oliver was breathing raggedly, his eyes fierce and determined. “He was expendable.”

“You say that about a lot of people.”

“A lot of people are.”

I was still curled into a protective ball. My hand brushed at my boot as his eyes wandered to Joseph’s body, then retreated as he looked back to me. “How are you going to explain this mess?” I wanted to know. “Are you forgetting the camera? I wasn’t kidding about that. A copy will go to the FBI. They’ll know you were here tonight.”