A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(62)

Levi leapt for the guy, but Gibbs was much closer. “No!” Gibbs yelled, shoving himself between the cop and Martine and wrestling for the gun.

The gun went off, right up against Gibbs’s chest. Gibbs’s eyes flew wide, he gurgled wetly, and then his body went limp and he collapsed to the pavement.

Without hesitation, Martine put three bullets in the other cop’s chest. The guy dropped like a stone.

Levi fell to his knees beside Gibbs; Kelly did the same with the traitor. She grabbed his gun away even as she set her fingers against his neck. Seconds later, she looked up at Martine and shook her head.

Martine blinked rapidly, her throat working. Dominic knew that was her first confirmed kill, and for it to be a fellow cop . . . He trusted her to compartmentalize it for now, though.

Levi had his hand on Gibbs’s throat, his lips pressed into a thin line. He gently brushed his fingers over Gibbs’s eyes to close them, then rested his hand on Gibbs’s face for a moment. “We have to get out of here.”

Agreed. The enemy was closing in, emboldened by the temporary lack of return fire, and now they were down two people. “Get in the car,” said Dominic. “It’s our only chance.”

Although Kelly’s face was bloodless, she said, “Go. We’ll cover you.” The only other remaining cop-the one who’d been shot in the leg-nodded grimly.

Dominic, Levi, and Martine piled into the car from one side, keeping their heads low. Dominic buckled his seatbelt one-handed while he jammed the key into the ignition. As soon as he stomped on the accelerator, he could tell a couple of the tires were blown-but the car was running, and that was all that mattered.

He gunned the engine, blasting across the helipad and smashing right through the chain-link fence on the other side. As they bounced and jostled through the parking lot beyond, the car’s wheels grinding against the asphalt, his mind worked feverishly to plot an escape route.

This car wasn’t going to last much longer, and their enemies would be in hot pursuit. They had to get somewhere safe. Not a police station-there was no telling who else might sell them out.

His usual strategy, getting lost in the crowd at a busy public place, wouldn’t work. There weren’t any busy public places in Vegas right now, and Levi couldn’t blend in anywhere.

He growled low in his throat as he emerged onto the road past the parking lot, intending to hook a right and cut through the medical center to the street on the other side.

“Look out!” Martine screamed-too late.

A speeding SUV hurtled into the driver’s side of their car with a tremendous, earth-shattering crash. Agony exploded through Dominic’s skull in the seconds before he blacked out.



Levi coughed, wavering in and out of consciousness before his brain sputtered fully back online. He wrinkled his nose, which was full of the smell of blood and burnt rubber, and opened his eyes.

Still woozy from the collision, it took him a second to understand what he was seeing: the car was upside down, and he was hanging from his seatbelt. His body was all over pain, but he pushed that into the corner of his mind and ignored it.

Dominic and Martine were dangling from their seat belts too. Though Martine was stirring with twitches and groans, Dominic wasn’t moving at all.

“Dominic!” Levi said. Animal panic clawed at him when Dominic didn’t respond. “Dominic!”

“He’s alive,” Martine rasped. “He’s breathing.”

Levi exhaled a shuddering breath. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live. You?”

“Same.” For how much longer, though?

He heard approaching footsteps and men shouting back and forth to each other outside the car. Bracing one hand against the roof, heedless of the chunks of safety glass, he unbuckled his seat belt and slowly lowered himself flat. The gun Dominic had given him lay on the roof as well; he picked it up before squirming toward the broken window. On the other side of the car, Martine was doing the same.

A pair of legs appeared in Levi’s field of vision. He fired, kneecapping the guy, and smiled viciously as the asshole crumpled to the ground with a shriek.

There were only a few rounds left in the mag, so he kept firing as he crawled out of the window, more to keep the men at bay than anything else. He knew there was no escape from this.

Once freed from the car, he dragged himself to his feet, glaring at the men who were gathering in a wary semicircle around him. He was sure he didn’t look at all intimidating, banged-up and leaning against a flipped car for support, but if these fuckers wanted him alive, they were going to have a hell of a fight on their hands.

A loud cry sounded behind him, and he whirled around so fast that he stumbled and had to catch himself on the car. His heart seized.

Martine had been disarmed, and two men stood on either side of her-one restraining her arms, the other pressing a gun to her temple.

“Don’t!” Levi dropped his gun and kicked it away without looking at it. “Please don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Martine shook her head, her eyes shining with tears. “Levi-”

The man ground the gun harder against her temple. She flinched and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Please,” Levi said, more desperately. “She has children. I’ll come with you; you don’t have to hurt anyone.”

“You’ll cooperate?” asked the man with the gun.