Chapter 6 - Fire and Concrete
Before Mason could reach ‘one’, Clara moved.
She didn't drop to the floor. She didn't scream. With terrifying speed, she whipped the snub-nosed revolver from her coat pocket, raised it with both hands, and fired directly at the overhead transformer box bolted to the concrete pillar ten feet to their left.
Bang!
A blinding shower of blue-white sparks exploded across the warehouse as the transformer blew, plunging half the facility into pitch blackness.
Chaos erupted instantly.
“Fire!” Marcone shrieked from the catwalk, his voice cracking with panic.
Muzzle flashes blossomed along the metal scaffolding like angry stars as Marcone’s men fired blindly into the dark. Bullets pinged off the metal shipping containers, sending deadly showers of steel fragments ricocheting through the air.
Mason dragged Clara behind the heavy steel plating of a reinforced container, returning fire with three rapid, precise shots that silenced a sniper on the upper gantry.
“Are you insane?” Mason yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire, his hands gripping her shoulders to check for blood.
“You were going to wait for three!” Clara shouted back, her eyes wide and adrenalized, a wild, breathless grin touching her lips. “Marcone would have shot us before you reached zero!”
Liam and Declan were laying down suppressive fire from behind a concrete barrier ten yards away, their submachine guns hammering a steady rhythm into the dark.
“We need to move!” Liam roared over the din. “They’re flanking the east exit!”
Mason grabbed Clara’s hand, his grip iron-clad, and pulled her into a dead sprint through the labyrinth of shipping containers. The air smelled of cordite, burnt copper, and ozone. Every shadow seemed to stretch and twist, hiding enemies or worse, bullets with their names on them.
As they rounded a corner near the loading dock, a large, heavy-set enforcer lunged out from behind a stack of crates, a massive hunting knife gleaming in his hand.
Clara didn't hesitate. She dropped her empty revolver, reached down with a speed that defied her upbringing, and swept her foot hard behind the enforcer’s knee while simultaneously driving her elbow into his solar plexus. The man gasped, lost his balance, and crashed heavily onto the concrete, his head hitting the edge of a steel pallet with a sickening thud. He went limp instantly.
Mason stared at her, blinking through the darkness. “Where the hell did you learn that?”
“St. Louis self-defense classes,” she panted, her chest heaving as she picked up her revolver and reloaded it with shaking fingers from her coat pocket. “My father had paranoid bodyguards. Some of them actually taught me useful things.”
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“Remind me never to play poker with you,” Mason muttered, a grim, admiring smirk crossing his face.
They reached the side exit door, kicking it open just as a fresh wave of Marcone’s men rounded the opposite end of the aisle. Bullets chewed up the wooden frame around them as they burst out into the pouring rain, tumbling down the loading ramp into the safety of the alleyway.
