Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (the false prince .TXT) 📕

door. As I do, a guard rounds the corner to my left. He’s running and his gun is drawn.

He sees me take aim at him and spits, “What the fuck?”

We fire at the same time, and I duck back into the office. I hear him grunt in pain, and his bullet tears through the flesh of my left deltoid.

“Fuck!”

That was close. I look down at the new wound. It’s a graze, but a deep one. Too fucking close. When I raise my gun again, it hurts.

I put my back to the wall beside the open door and wait. When he peeks inside, I pistol whip him. The force knocks him down, and I put a bullet in his head, too. One down.

The radio clipped to his belt explodes with chatter.

“Shots fired! Shots fired! All hands to the office!”

Time to go.

Blood is pouring down my arm, and the separated flesh is screaming. I bite down on the pain and peer around the door frame again. All clear.

I run left, racing down the hallway with my heart hammering. As I round the corner, shots ring out from behind me. The corner explodes beside my head, sending plaster spraying in my face. Another close one.

I put my bleeding shoulder to the wall, level my gun, and wait. I’m betting a pretty hefty pot that he won’t expect me to stop. He doesn’t take long to prove me right.

He comes around the corner still running. In the time it takes him to register me, and for his eyes to go wide, I’ve squeezed the trigger. He takes it in the throat. The force of the shot takes him off his feet, and I’m running again.

I hear one of them say “Oh god” somewhere behind me. Likely he has discovered what’s left of Abuela. That means there’s at least one following me up.

“He’s on the move! Going east!” he shouts into his radio.

I hear it come through ahead of me, which means there’s a guard moving my way. Blocking my exit. Fuck.

He pops around the corner just as I’m about to make the turn. I don’t have time to shoot. His gun is right in my face, so I baseball slide into his legs. He falls forward on top of me.

I shove my left forearm against his throat to push him away from me. He makes a gagging sound. As soon as I have enough room to maneuver my other arm, I punch him as hard as I can, a right hook directly in his nose. I hear it crunch, and he cries out.

Blood pours down his face like an open faucet. I hear a curse behind me. Shit. My back is open. I throw myself backward to prone just as a shot sounds. I see a bullet hole open in the guard I just punched, directly where my head had just been. That guy grunts, and the other one curses again.

I take a shot upward that catches Bloody Nose under the chin and knocks him off of me. Then I stretch both arms above my head and start pulling the trigger. I shoot blind as I roll over onto my stomach. By chance, one of the shots hits guard number four in the knee. He howls. His pain is apparently too much of a distraction, because he doesn’t return fire.

I put another bullet in his face from the floor. The radio comes to life.

“Tim, where the fuck are you? This guy is a fucking demon!”

You have no idea how right you are, I think as I push to my feet. Tim, that’s the gate guard.

“I called Mateo. He’s on the way,” comes the answer.

Fuck. I’ve got to get the hell out of here before backup arrives. I take off in the direction I was running. My destination is the back door on the east corner. There’s a gate in the wall that surrounds the property close to that door.

I stop at the corner and listen, glancing back toward the office. No one behind me, but there’s someone coming my way ahead. I release the magazine out of the Desert Eagle as I crouch. I slip the loaded one out of my pocket and shove it into place. Just in time.

Guard number five cautiously looks around the corner in front of me. Crouching gives me the advantage, and I see him first. Because I’m ready for him, he doesn’t have time to pull all the way back around the corner before I shoot him in the eye.

One more left, and he’ll be coming from the front door. I take off at a hard run toward my intended exit.

As the door comes into view, it also opens. A high-pitched alarm sounds, like needles in my ears. I guess Tim isn’t as stupid as the rest of these guys. He trains his gun down the hall toward me.

There’s a chunky piece of decorative furniture against the left wall. I jump behind it, and the vase on top of it explodes. Ok, Tim might be smarter, but he’s definitely not the best shot. He’s also standing between me and freedom. As far as I’m concerned, he’s fucked.

I glance around the furniture. He hasn’t come through the door yet. Fuck it. I’ll put my faith in the element of surprise. I run toward the door, gun up.

When he looks in again, his eyes go wide, and I start shooting. He ducks back. I should have five shots left. I pull up right beside the door. Let’s see how smart Tim really is.

My entire left arm is searing as I hold position, and waves of dizziness are wreaking havoc on me. Waiting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It feels like an eternity standing there, trying to catch my breath. Eventually, though, it pays off.

My gun is trained at head level, so when he pokes his back in it’s a point blank shot. He never had a chance to react. Guess he wasn’t that smart after all.

I creep out