Kicking in the door to Tripoli’s suite, Stone couldn’t help but notice the French beauty standing there, dressed to the nines. She wore red, his favorite color. The dress was low cut, and her tight cleavage begged his attention. She looked to be one of Tripoli’s groupies. But her name was Capri—she was one of them.
Stone caught her with a flirtatious wink of his eye just before sending a bullet inches from her head and into the skull of the man who stood close behind her.
“Shit, Stone! Why do you always do that?” she exclaimed, ducking quickly. Retrieving the fallen man’s weapon, she joined them as a partner in ridding Tripoli of his protectors one by one. The beauty was an expert marksman.
Tripoli backed his way to the door. Stone realized then he had not been taken care of as planned.
“He’s getting away!” she screamed, pointing toward the door at the escaping Antonio Tripoli. She aimed her bullets around him, trying hard not to shoot him in the back. The object of the assignment was not to kill Anthony Tripoli this way. They were to take him back to their leader, the Phoenix.
Over his dead body was not supposed to be an option. The bullets didn’t faze or stop him. He continued to run out the door.
Stone and Malik went after him.
Just as they stepped outside the door, an even larger man appeared. He was one neither of them had planned on. They had a head count of Tripoli’s men, but apparently someone had been off in his math, as this man made six. They were only counting on there being five. The extra man’s gun was aimed and ready.
“Damn,” Stone growled as his column clicked empty.
“Where’d you come from?” Malik asked him before the explosion of weapons exchanged. He shot the man three times, forming a perfect triangle in his chest.
Malik had his back. As usual.
Within seconds, Malik tore off for the stairs, clearly still in hopes of catching Tripoli, who had disappeared through the emergency exit door leading down.
The third partner was Stix. “Come on,” he yelled, stepping over the large body that lay at Stone’s feet, the unexpected man Malik had shot.
Stix had been in the penthouse buying time with their female partner. Stone would question him later as to why he hadn’t at least drugged Tripoli or otherwise gotten a better handle on this situation. Had he again changed the plan? Stix was becoming a problem.
Look at this mess, Stone thought.
Stone, instead of following, grabbed the dead man’s weapon and stepped backward into the penthouse to assist Capri.
“She can take care of herself! Come on!” Stix screamed.
“Fuck that, Stix,” Stone barked, before rushing back into the room.
“You’re a fool. You shoulda listened to your partner,” said the man holding the beauty from behind, while also coughing up blood. He had a gun pressed hard against the side of her head.
“Don’t be so quick to call the kettle black,” Stone sneered with sarcasm in his words, his gun aimed at the man.
All were dead in the room now, except this man. He was desperate and had little to lose. He knew that. Stone knew that.
“Go get Tripoli, Stone,” the beauty whispered before the man hit her against the side of the head with the butt of the gun. “Please, go,” she begged.
“Shut up! You little bitch,” the gunman said.
Stone felt his eye twitch, as her eyes rolled in pain. She grabbed at the man’s bloody arm that was clasped tightly around her shoulders, holding her close to him as a shield.
“Let go of her and I won’t kill you,” Stone lied.
The man laughed between gagging on the blood that was continually forming in his mouth. “Oh, so she is special to you, yes?” the man sneered before flicking the side of the beauty’s face with his tongue.
“Tripoli’s gone,” Stix called as he slid back into the room, right into the tense action. He put on the breaks upon seeing the situation. His gun instantly fired, hitting the man right between the eyes, but not before the man fired on Stone, whose attention was taken away for just a second when Stix reentered the room.
The rules had been broken.
He had flinched.
The beauty screamed out as she broke from the grip of the dying man to run to Stone’s side.
“Shit, Stone!” Malik panicked as he entered the penthouse.
Stone groaned in pain. “Damn it.”
“Oh, God.” The beauty panicked, squatting down at Stone’s side.
A devilish smile covered Stone’s lips as the two of them noticed the blood soaking his shirt from the inside out in his belly area.
“Is he hurt bad?” Malik asked, also squatting down beside him, giving the beauty a quick glance.
“Stupid question, Malik,” she fussed, looking around for something to apply pressure to Stone’s wound. Ripping the shirt of one of the dead men, she held it against his rib cage over the bloody opening. “He’s a man. He bleeds. He dies…”
“Stop now! You gotta get the fuck outta here,” Stone growled, pushing her away, showing no self-pity or dereliction of his duty as her senior.
“Vous allez être bien mon amour,” she whispered, but not so low that Malik and Stix didn’t catch the affection in her voice.
“My love?” Stix asked, looking down over the scene playing out. He understood her French perfectly, although it was not his primary language.
With green eyes dazzling like diamonds, she pleaded, “Stix, help me. Please help me get him up. We have to get him back to the Phoenix.”
Shaking his head emphatically, Stix barked. “No! Leave him!”
“You hate him. You’ve always hated him. You’re jealous because he is chosen.”
“Chosen? For what? You’re a fool!” Stix snapped. “If he is truly as chosen as you believe, he’ll cure himself.”
“Help me, Malik,” she begged now, ignoring Stix’s comments, turning her attention to a more loyal friend.
“No, Stix is right. I am but a man and now a burden. Leave me with the dead.” Stone’s voice was low, pained, and guttural. He resisted her efforts to pull him into a sitting position.
“He’s right. We must. We must leave him,” Malik told her now, accepting Stone’s injuries. He pulled her hand from the grip she had on Stone’s clothing. She reached for his ankles, struggling to lift his legs, then finally dropping them and falling back against the wall, all but out of hope.
“Do you love me?” Stone asked her, his voice just above a whisper upon seeing tears coming from her eyes. “Do you love me?” he asked again.
“Yes,” she answered. Her voice was beaten and full of surrender.
“What will you do for me?”
“I will die for you.” She spoke to him, and then looked at Malik and Stix, telling them both without a word that she had chosen to wait behind. She then reached to pick up an abandoned weapon, as if that alone would be enough to protect the two of them when the authorities came.
“And your death would have not been in vain,” Stone promised. “But you will not die today.”
“Keep her safe, my friend,” Stone whispered in Malik’s ear. Malik nodded in reply, as he gently allowed Stone to lie back onto the blood-soaked carpet and quickly turn away, hiding all emotion. “Take her!” he ordered Malik.
“No!” she screamed as Malik rose now, pulling her to her feet and