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The cop took a step forward and the lawyer-looking guy shook his head and shifted nervously Goddard blinked rapidly and opened hiswhen suddenly, the entire world turned upside down

Everyone let out a startled sound as thenoise The concrete below theheavy and hard hit the outside with enough force to send the entire container careening to the side The light sildly fro sideways as the Mayor and the skinny, older uy with the beard, h the air I was thrown around like a rag doll My banged-up body protesting when the container finally stopped ht had long since gone out and everything was pitch black My head was bleeding even h to drown out any other sound

There was shouting co from sounshots I wasn’t sure as going on, but I could see a faint light at the end of the tunnel and I was going to run for it Today was not the day I was going to die

Clutching the switchblade in my hand, I scrambled to my feet and took off for the far end of the container toward the door I had no idea if it opened from the inside or not, but I was about to find out

The Mayor was pointing athalf under the olderand sliding my way to the door, when I was tackled fro hated the it right into the back of one of those grabbing, clutching hands I heard the cop scream and swear and I took a sick kind of satisfaction in the pain I caused He let o like I was made of fire, and in thatrunt and the sound of fists hitting flesh, but I didn’t stop to see as fighting whoainst the door over and over again until I got through or died trying There was ason the inside of thecontainer as there was on the outside Voices were yelling and there was a distinct pop that rattled off the walls Soun and they had fired it at either me or the bearded man who had come to rescue me I didn’t want him to die I owed hi if neither one of us made it out of this oversized tin can

Head down and frantically feeling h ed to oing on behind ainst one, but uy with the beard He looked like he could handle hiainst hope he could handle the dirty cop and the Mayor, as well

I tried to find ed I pounded and screamed I couldn’t find any kind of lever or latch, and I wasn’t sure anyone could hearon the inside of a steel dru o in a rush when the cock-eyed door suddenly wrenched open I tu into the ar stopped spinning and the world finally ended up the right way, I recognized the beheht me before I landed face first on the concrete Another bruiser with dark hair, haunted eyes, and a wicked scar that indicated he’d angered some very bad people in his time Noah Booker worked for Nassir and was no doubt behind the chaos that was currently taking place on the docks I could see bodies on the ground I could see blood and spent bullets I lived a rough life, but this was all new toin the air all around rowl

I let him haul me to uy with the beard is still in there Soun" I didn’t know if they were friends or ht want to know

He gave his dark head a shake and the scar that bisected one entire side of his face twitched as he frowned

"He’s on his own If he ets his life back He’s got a lot on the line so don’t worry about hi hard to kill, believeto take it I pulled my arm free of his hold and shook my head "Who sent you? Why are you here? Why did you do all of this?" I swept an arh like it was a field of flowers "How did you knohere I was?"

He looked like he wanted to strangle me Admittedly, it wasn’t the best ti jerked around and manhandled I wanted control back I wanted o and I do whatever he needs done" It was said blandly, like laying waste to an entire armed security detail was all in a day’s work

"Why would Nassir care about me? How did he even know the Mayor snatched me up off the street?" I’d ly on my part He made it clear he had no use for me beyond the inforet away froh

The brute of a man who had just pulled me from certain death cocked his head to the side and considered me silently His lips twitched and that scar pulled in a way that was oddly endearing "How do you think Nassir knew you were n his life away in order to get you back?"

I blinked up at hiash in my head and the lack of food for the last couple weeks had finally gotten to ain, the world seely around me

I asked hienius sent us after you and told us not to come back if you weren’t with us I’ve never seen hi Minus the time you cleaned him out I wasn’t sure he kne to react like a norain and started to tilt forward Everything was going fuzzy on the edges and I could hardly hear hi in er stand, or why, after everything I’d just been through, it was the knowledge that Snowden Stark did indeed give a shit if I lived or died that took , darkwent black

Stark

She looked so sainst the black sheets that covered Noah Booker’s bed I kneas irrational and unwarranted to be pissed off at the fact she was unconscious in his bed and not ainst the need to pick her up and carry her off That’s why I hated eic in any of it None of it made any sense

Booker’s place was close to the docks, practically sitting on the water, so it was an obvious choice to bring Noe here when she blacked out on him It ritten on her face and across her skin that the last couple of weeks had not been kind to her The doctor Nassir blackmailed in order to have him on call had assured both Booker and myself that her wounds were superficial She had a mild concussion, was extremely dehydrated, and malnourished Her shoulder was sprained and the cuts at her wrists were infected She had a couple of bruised ribs and an assortment of injuries that covered her body from head to toe The physician had asked if anted him to do a sexual assault exa that call without asking her permission first She’d been stripped of so uy who took even more froer Noe waited, the worse the consequences could be if she had been assaulted, and it turned my stomach I wanted to touch her, to smooth her dirty hair back into soers over the purple and blue bruises that covered the entire left side of her face I wanted to trace the outline of her full but battered and chapped lips I wanted to crawl up next to her in Booker’s black bed and hold her while I proain

I didn’t do any of it because none of it et anywhere near her again The guilt that had been eatingits hold on ht up in the clutches of emotion There was no reason forother than relief, but I was I hated that I couldn’t bury those foreign feelings with all the other ones I’d fought to bury over the years

Instead, I paced back and forth at the end of the bed like a caged animal while Booker showed the doctor out and paid hied out of the long-sleeved black thermal he had worn to the docks into a faded band t-shirt that was torn at the collar and had a hole on the side Booker was usually dressed to the nines like all the guys on Nassir’s payroll I couldn’t re other than Armani or To at his normally stony face, he looked more human and a lot older than he typically did Bullets didn’t stop the man, so most of us believed he was invincible Apparently not