Among the Echoes(83)

"One more step and I swear I will kill her."

"I’m thinking that’s not a good idea," Leo snarls, appearing a few feet behind Wilkes along with Johnson and two other men I definitely recognize.

"So nice of you to join us, Leo," Rodriguez purrs.

Wilkes immediately spins to face Leo, firing a shot before he even stills. Erica jumps, and for the briefest of seconds, Wilkes loses his grip on her neck. In a move so fluid I have no doubt it was choreographed, Erica drops to the ground. No sooner than her hands slam over her ears, Rodriguez’s men fire their own bullets at Wilkes.

I watch helplessly as Erica lies on the floor while bullets buzz over her head. I try to call her name, but I can’t even hear my own words among the chaos. After a few seconds, Wilkes collapses lifelessly to the ground.

"Son of a bitch!" Leo yells, covering his shoulder as it bleeds through his shirt.

I rush toward Erica, dropping to my knees beside her. "Fuck, are you okay?"

"I, uh… I think so," she says, fighting back the tears as she sits up and crawls as quickly as possible away from Wilkes’s dead body. My hands are still zip-tied behind my back, but she throws her arms around my neck and buries her face in my chest.

"Someone cut him free," Leo barks. "Babe, can you come look at my shoulder?"

"Oh, God." She shakes off whatever emotions were just about to overtake her and runs to Leo’s side.

My hands are freed by Johnson as the room moves in slow motion around me. Erica is frantically tending to Leo with a box of medical supplies someone magically produced. Rodriguez is ordering his men to take Wilkes’s thugs back out the window in the security room, Wilkes is lying dead in the middle of my living room, and sirens from the street are screaming toward us.

"A word, Mr. Andrews," Rodriguez says, walking up behind me.

I can’t focus on anything but Erica, but I somehow manage to drag my eyes to face him.

"We are gone, we were never here, and Wilkes broke in with the intentions of harming Erica. Your security officers were forced to kill Lucas Wilkes when he fired upon Leo." He drops three guns onto the couch beside me. "Ballistics will match one of those three guns to the bullet in Wilkes’s head. By the way, they are all registered to you. You may be ticketed for not securing them properly." He winks. "Do you understand? Leo and Erica have gone to great lengths to prove to me you are trustworthy in this matter. Do not disappoint me now." He taps my shoulder and turns to walk away.

I have no idea what the f*ck he just said, but all I know is that it ended with a bullet in Wilkes’s head. Absolutely nothing else matters.

"Clear the room!" Leo shouts, standing back up.

"Erica! Leo! Should you ever find yourself in need again, you know where to find me!" Rodriguez shouts over his shoulder as he heads back toward the security room.

Erica runs forward, slamming into my chest. "Don’t be mad," she says quietly.

"Oh, I’m f*cking furious, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why," I growl, looking at her with more anger than I ever thought possible.

"Well, the cops will be here any second, so aim your anger at the dead man on the floor. When they question you, remember everything happened except for the part where Rodriguez showed up."

"Jesus Christ, Erica, did you plan this?" I snap at her.

"Not now, Slate. We’ll talk tonight." She blows me off.

I don’t recognize this woman. There were just bullets flying around her, and now she is dismissing me as if I’d asked why we are out of milk.

Leo limps over even though it was his shoulder that was hit. He points down at the guns and says, "Pick those up and hand them to the guys. I need your prints on every single one of them."

I narrow my eyes at him but follow his orders. I’m not in any position to question him tonight.

Leo gives me the world’s quickest brief, reminding me of what ‘fictionally’ went down tonight. Not even two minutes later, the room fills with at least a dozen police officers. They question us numerous times until Leo’s contact at the US Marshal’s office shows up, clearing us all. I’m not sure if they believe our story as much as they just don’t give a damn that someone killed Lucas Wilkes.

They confiscated all of the weapons, but Leo assured me that they were in fact all legitimately (forged) registered to me. It seems Leo has been a busy guy over the last few weeks—even before he left.