Aequitas by Hope Anika (best classic books of all time .txt) 📕

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The asshole whose knee she’d shattered was shooting at her.

Ash dropped to a crouch, turned and fired. Blood sprayed like a cloud burst as she shot the gun from his hand.

Boom!

Another bullet plowed past her and shattered the lamp; she dove behind the small bar that separated her kitchen and living room.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Bullets thunked into the plywood; one passed straight through and shattered her oven door. She shimmied to the edge of the bar, pulled open the cabinet door underneath and grabbed the lid to her biggest stew pot—nice, shiny stainless steel—and held it carefully out, using the reflective surface to try and get a lock on her next target.

There you are, you ungrateful dick.

The one she’d kicked, staggering toward the bar—

She sent the lid flying toward him like a giant silver Frisbee and then fired twice—one for each knee. The lid clanged as it smacked him in the forehead; the bullets tore into his knees and he did a brutal face-plant into the oak floor.

“Fucker,” she told him and moved out from behind the bar to kick both his SIG Sauer and the mangled Glock down the hallway.

Her heart beat like a jackhammer; her blood roared in her ears as she surveyed them. She’d never shot anyone before—well, except her father, and he hardly counted—but any regret she might have felt was drowned out by the rage licking through her like the hottest flame.

They’d come into her home. Threatened her. Hurt her.

And they were still breathing. Lucky them.

The man whose hand was now less a thumb and forefinger was bleeding profusely. They all wore black suits—much like Ruslan—but these were flat black, not like his tailored and elegant apparel; narrow ties and shiny shoes. Shaved heads and expensive weapons. Hard faces, familiar with violence and death.

Not your average assholes.

Men who’d threatened torture to get answers. Who’d grabbed Ruslan—something she was mildly astounded was even possible—and Butch, who a blindfolded bunny rabbit could have taken down.

Had they gotten to Wylie? What about Wanda and Eva? Were they still safe in the Vault?

What the hell was going on?

She marched over and climbed on top of the man whose knees she’d blown apart and sat down hard on his chest, wedging his shoulders beneath her thighs. Then she bared her teeth at him.

“Let’s talk,” she told him, and shoved the 9mm into the hollow just beneath his chin. Blood dripped from her nose and slapped his chest. “I want to know who you are, who you work for, and what the hell you want with Eva Pierce.”

Because none of this made any sense. The kid who the Firm had been hired less than four hours ago to protect—Eva Pierce—was only twelve, the daughter of a man on the run from a local loan shark, and said loan shark, while dangerous and persistent, was just a little fish, and these men…these men were sharks. This—whatever it was—went far beyond the collection of a marker.

“You should have given her up,” the man snarled. His gaze was wild. “You should have let us have her.”

Ash shifted her weight, pressing hard against his cracked sternum. “She’s just a kid!”

“She’s a goddamn abomination! You have no idea what she is. You protect her, you’ll kill us all.”

Ash stared at him, both furious and confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”

A harsh, ugly laugh rasped from him. “You’ll see. When it’s too late, then you’ll see.”

“See what?”

“The future.”

He lifted his head and snapped at her like an angry dog; his body arched violently beneath her, and she almost fell off. He began to shake uncontrollably; his eyes rolled back into his skull. White foam spilled from his mouth, bubbled past his lips, and slid down the barrel of the 9mm.

Then he went still. Fatally still.

“Goddamn it,” she whispered, her heart beating with painful force.

Because he couldn’t be dead. He hadn’t lost enough blood; she knew where to shoot to inflict maximum damage without causing a bleed out. And she hadn’t hit him hard enough in the chest to perforate an artery. He couldn’t be dead.

She made herself reach out and check his pulse.

Yep. Dead.

She scrambled off him, turned and found the rest of his team in varying degrees of the same state. Twitching uncontrollably, eyes rolled back, white foam trickling from the corners of their mouths. And then—

Dead. All of them.

What fresh hell—

A fist slammed against her front door like a battering ram. “Las Vegas PD! Put your weapons down, and come out with your hands up!”