Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)(88)

that way, with all the men at the cash cages staring in that direction. A

perfect distraction, just like I’d wanted.

“Go,” I whispered to Bria.

Keeping low, she left the hallway and darted out into the lobby, ducking

behind a desk that was sitting between the front doors and the tellers’

counter. The second she was in position, I hurried over to and crouched down

behind another desk, this one right at the end of the tellers’ counter.

I peered around the corner of the desk, but the five guys in front of the cash

cages were still focused on Silvio and the commotion he was making, and none

of them had noticed Bria and me move. I flashed my sister a thumbs-up, which

she returned.

Silvio stormed into the lobby, walking fast and putting some distance between

himself and the two giants coming up behind him. The vampire looked around,

his gaze locking onto the guys holding the power saw and the welder’s torch.

Both tools were still churning and burning at a low, steady level.

“What is this?” Silvio asked, throwing one hand up into the air. “No one

told me that you were doing construction today. Ugh. I’ll come back later.”

He turned to leave, but the two giants blocked his path.

“Sorry, pal,” one of the giants said with a sneer, his hand dropping to the

gun holstered to his belt. “You wanted inside, so you’re going to stay

inside—permanently.”

Silvio shook his head. “You really don’t want to threaten me. You see, my

boss takes threats to her employees very seriously. Some might even say deadly

seriously.”

I rolled my eyes. Now he was just hamming it up.

“Oh, I think we’ll risk your boss’s wrath,” the other guard chimed in,

also reaching for his gun.

Silvio looked back and forth between the two men, then shrugged. “Okay, if

that’s the way you want it.”

He raised his briefcase and slammed it into the face of the closest giant.

That man staggered back, howling at all the blood gushing out of his broken

nose. Silvio dropped the briefcase, surged forward, and tackled the second

man, driving him to the ground, then snapped his head down and buried his

fangs in the giant’s throat.

The guard with the busted nose cursed and pulled out his gun, but Owen stepped

in through the now-unlocked front doors and shot him three times in the back.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Owen’s silenced gun barely made a sound as he fired, and the giant dropped to

the floor like a stone. That left Bria and me to deal with the five men in

front of the cash cages.

Bria rose from behind the desk and started shooting, focusing on the three men

who’d been transferring the cash from the first cage into the duffel bags.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Her gun had a silencer too, and Bria put two of the men down with head shots.

The third man grabbed a couple of duffel bags full of money, ducked down

behind the tellers’ counter with them, and yanked a gun from the holster on

his belt. He was so focused on Bria that he never even saw me creep up behind

him. I punched my knife into his back, driving the blade through his ribs and

into his lungs. I yanked the blade right back out, and he died with a wheezing

whimper.

That left two giants—the one with the power saw and the other with the welder

’s torch.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Bria shot the guy with the saw in the chest. Even though the tool was on a low

setting, it clattered to the floor and started whirring against the marble,

making a horrible grinding noise and sending silver sparks shooting up into

the air. But I didn’t have time to turn it off, so I sidestepped the saw,

hoping that Deirdre and Santos would think the commotion was just part of the

thieves working on the cash cages.

The guy with the welder’s torch realized that I was coming for him, and he

slammed his protective mask back down into place and fired up the torch,

brandishing the hot, blue-white flame at me. I cursed and ducked back out of

the way, but my foot snagged on something, and I tripped and fell back on my

ass. Something hard and flat dug into my hands, and I realized that I’d

landed on one of the duffel bags and was now literally sitting on a pile of

money.

The welder pressed his advantage, stepping forward and aiming his torch at my

head, even as he cranked up the flame’s intensity. My knife had slipped out

of my hand when I tripped, so I grabbed the only other thing within arm’s

reach—a shrink-wrapped brick of cash—and threw it at him.

The brick wasn’t even close to being a real weapon, and my aim wasn’t all

that great, but I managed to bean the guy in the chest, making him jerk back

in surprise.

Whoosh!

The open flame hit the wad of cash, instantly igniting it and making it

explode like a bomb in the welder’s face. He yelped in surprise and dropped

his torch, which clattered to the floor and kept right on burning, slowly