Give Me Hell

by Kate McCarthy

“What is she doing here?”

  The sharp question has my eyes snapping to Jake’s left. To the man in the stylish suit, perfectly styled hair, and shiny shoes. I shake my head, unable to catch my breath. “Eli?”

  Behind him is a large back room with wide windows. There are men inside. At least eight—and all of them muscled and armed. Some are watching us. Others are talking or arguing. There’s a table in the middle of the room and on it rests ten hard cases in a matte charcoal colour. One after the other, they line up like little soldier suitcases, closed and awaiting orders.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Eli curses, and those gorgeous blue eyes of his, the same ones that have always looked at me with such kindness and warmth, are colder than the arctic as he glares at Ross. “She’s not supposed to be here. We have Jake as a hostage. We don’t need Mac. Get her out of here. Now!” he barks.

  “Eli, what are you doing?” I ask. My voice sounds weak to my ears.

  “Now is not the time,” Ross says from behind me. He fists a hand in my hair and wrenches my head right back. I yelp at the sharp burst of pain as Ross leans down and puts his face right in mine. Jake bellows in rage as tears slide down the sides of my temples and into my hair. I hate them. I want to wipe them away so he can’t see how much I hurt. “Tell them what you did, you little bitch.”

  “I didn’t do anything, you dumb fuck.”

  He growls with anger and lets me go, but he does it with an almighty shove. The powerful force of it sends me forward toward the cement floor. My forehead smacks it hard and my body crumples.

  “What did she do?” I hear Eli ask. His voice sounds like it’s coming from some far away tunnel. I try moving but I can’t. My head throbs. The thump thump thump eclipses all conscious thought.

  “She led an entire legion of Sentinels right toward us!”

  “Fuck!” he hisses.

  “The bitch needs to die.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Eli’s voice sounds panicked. Why does he sound panicked?

  “Don’t call me stupid, big brother.”

  “You can’t shoot her. It’s Mac. I love her. I’ve always loved her. She belongs with me.”

  “You don’t love her. You just think you do.” His voice is disparaging. “Besides, no one leaves the King Street Boys. They need to know that if they try leaving, we don’t just shoot them, we shoot the ones they love too.”

  My eyes feel weighted with bricks. I loll to the side and force them open a fraction. Ross is standing over me, gun pointed.

  “I’m the leader of the King Street Boys,” Eli roars and my mind reels. All this time? There’s been so much more deception than I can comprehend and the depth of it breaks my heart. “You will do what I say and stand the fuck down!”

  “You might be the head of our gang,” Ross shouts back, taking no heed of Eli’s order, “but it’s me they all listen to because you’re never there! You’re not in it for the brotherhood. You don’t care about any of us. You care more about your precious fucking inheritance and about the precious fucking Valentines. Well, newsflash, Brother. You’re done with them. Today, they’re all gonna die!”

  Eli shouts in return as does Jake. Above them both is the roar of motorcycles. The Sentinals are here, I think faintly. More shouting erupts. In Spanish. Gabriella?

  My brain is in a fog. I manage to turn my head, inch by slow inch. My vision is blurred, but I see her. Gun up, body strapped in armour. She’s yelling at Ross to stand down. Everyone is yelling.

  Gunfire pops.

  “Nooooooooo!” Jake roars.

  My body jerks, and I turn my head back as searing pain burns through me like a brushfire. I look up at Ross. Did he shoot me?

  The thought barely forms when his body shudders under a bullet. The fire comes from Gabriella’s direction. He hisses and turns his gun on her at the same time Eli runs toward me. But Gabriella doesn’t stop firing. Her bullets hit Ross in the chest. They slam into him, one after the other. Blood explodes outward in a showering arc and rains down over me. He drops to the ground by my side.

  “Mac!”

  My eyes shift slowly to Jake. He’s twisting and yanking at tape, trying to rip free from the chair. There’s an empty metal table on his right and with a frustrated roar, he stands and turns hard, smashing the chair against it.

  JAKE

  The pain is intense. I can’t breathe properly, and I can barely see. Mac is on the ground. The bastard shot her. He threw her to the ground like she was trash and opened fire, and I sat helpless, strapped to a chair like a trussed-up turkey awaiting my Thanksgiving fate.

  Gabriella comes into view, gun up and firing. Ross is pummelled with bullets like they’re fists to his gut.

  The roller door on my right is wrenched open at the same time. Sentinels and police flood the warehouse. It’s utter warfare. They take cover and fire at the multitude of King Street Boys members that flood out from the back room. Bodies move in bursts of speed, and pings of bullets hit steel beams and shipping containers.

  Mac is bleeding on the ground in the middle of it all. Rage surges inside me, a veritable tsunami of wrath so powerful it churns red and hot. It burns my throat and my eyes and every fibre of my soul.

  I yell her name. Her eyes slide to mine. The green of her irises are dull and her movements sluggish. Using all the strength that remains, I stand and turn to smash the chair at the table, over and over, until it begins to splinter.

  “You killed my brother,” Eli says in horror, appearing caught between going for Ross or for Mac. His gaze shifts to Gabriella. He doesn’t see the flood of Sentinels and police to his right. There’s a gun in his hand and it’s lax by his side. He looks at it as though seeing it for the first time. Then he lifts it and points it right at her. I lunge toward him, crashing into him, but not before he fires off three distinct shots. Bam bam bam. One two three.

  Eli and I both go down in the heavy tackle. The distinct snap of a bone in my chest renders me breathless as we smash into the cold, brutal floor.

  KELLY DANIELS

  My heart is in my throat the entire ride toward the docks. I barely know Mackenzie Valentine, but I’m already half in love with her. And here she is in love with another dude and having his baby. I’m such a fuckin’ douche. The first time my heart has ever felt a thump for another female and she belongs to some other lucky bastard.

  That lucky bastard happens to be Jake Romero—a childhood friend of my Sentinel brother Fox—so unfortunately I can’t shoot him. Or maim him just a little bit, enough to render him useless to another woman.

  I want to know what it’s like to be with her. Or someone like her. It’s not because she’s beautiful. It’s because she’s full of fire. Mac is the kind of girl that when she’s in, she’s all in. An everything or nothing girl. One who can handle death and pain and still remain standing strong by your side.

  I killed my old man. In cold blood. Casey knows, as does Grace and my Sentinel brothers. But only a woman like Mac could see through the façade of indifference and into the heart of the scared little boy inside who pulled the trigger. The same one who couldn’t bear to hear his mother scream from one more brutal hit or see her buckle under the pummel of her husband’s fists. That little boy saw her die, and then he did what he had to do.

  That dumb young kid didn’t belong in the Sentinels, but he does now. My new reality is hard and cold. There’s no place for love.

  Our bikes crest over the hill toward the warehouse. My helmet is off and strapped to the back of my Harley because it annoys the fuck out of me. My blond hair is pulled into a ponytail at the nape of my neck. Strands whip across my face and sunglasses as we rumble down the road. Cars pull to the side, getting out of our way. It’s clear we mean business. And we do.

  Luke and I arrive first. I’m off my bike and running before my brothers even stop behind us. I don’t care about the police and their Operation Strike. It’s all been blown to shit anyway because I hear shots being fired inside the warehouse.

&nb
sp; Mitch is running around the side of the building. I follow. The gun from my saddlebag is already resting in the back of my jeans. I tug it out and engage the slide. He doesn’t hesitate and runs straight through the roller doors that two police officers wrench up.

  “Mac!” he yells. “Gabriella!”

  I run in behind him with Fox close behind me. The scene is a slaughter. Bullets are flying from all directions. Mac is down and bleeding profusely from her leg. She’s covered in blood, and I can’t see where else she’s been hit. Gabriella is down too, and Ross is unmoving on the ground, splayed on his side. Jake is beaten and barely recognisable. He’s wrestling with another man, struggling to disarm him.

  “Cover me!” I shout to Fox and duck low, running toward them as he lets loose a hail of gunfire.

  Mitch is two steps ahead of me when Jake’s opponent cracks his elbow into what already looks like a broken eye socket on his face. Jake’s head smacks back onto the concrete. In that split second of inattention, the man rolls to his side and spies us running toward them. He takes in the Sentinels’ cut I’m wearing over my leather jacket and lifts his gun, pointing it at me. He fires but his aim is off and the bullet hits Mitch.

  Blood sprays in an arc from his neck, the force of the bullet slamming him backward and into me. I stumble and with my balance lost we both go down. Mac’s brother lands on top of me, a river of red gushing from his wound.

  “Fuck,” I hiss and start dragging my body out from beneath his heavy weight. He’s still alive. His breathing is rapid, his chest rising and falling as he sucks in air. I jam a finger in the wound and he shouts a gritty curse of pain. I freeze when a pair of boots reach my line of sight. My eyes draw upward.

  “Eli,” Mitch gasps, his eyes on the man standing over us.

  Eli crouches, dropping his gun. It skitters away, out of his reach. He shakes his head, visibly shaken. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “It … was … always going to lead to … this,” Mitch chokes out.

  “You knew about me,” he says, his voice accusatory.

  “For years,” Mitch gasps.

  “You never said a word.”

  “You know what they say …” Mac’s brother chuckles but it’s not a happy sound and blood spills from his lips. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  Eli can only shake his head. “My brother is dead.”

  “Good.” Jake’s voice is hard and comes from behind him. Eli rises and turns. Jake has no gun, but he holds a piece of splintered wood in his hands. “He deserved to die. And so do you.”

  Jake swings hard. The makeshift weapon cracks into the side of Eli’s head. Skin splits open, and he hits the ground hard. It knocks him out and with the threat contained, it leaves me free to snag the radio from Mitch’s gun belt.

  With one hand putting pressure on Mitch’s wound, I use the other to hit the button and put the call out for more than one ambulance. I’m just about to speak when the sound of sirens render the air. They’re already on their way.

  JAKE

  I toss the piece of splintered wood away, relieved the Rossiter brothers are both down. I was so tired of the threat Ross held over my life for years, and now it’s gone. But the ache at what I’ve done under his orders still remains. I have to live with that, but I’ll live with it happily if I know he can never touch anyone I love ever again.

  I turn, my eyes finding Mac. She’s hurting. When I start for her my ankle is grabbed. I look down. It’s Ross. He’s not dead like we thought. He manages to yank hard and the unexpected motion drops me to my knees. I twist around, forming a hard fist.

  Ross is trying to rise when I smash it in his face. He stumbles backward, hot blood spurting from his nose as he rights himself. The image fills me with grim satisfaction. “I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

  Mac’s voice is steel. “No you won’t.”

  We both turn toward her. She’s standing upright, putting all her weight on her left leg. There’s a bullet hole in her right thigh. She’s wearing black but it doesn’t hide the gaping wound and the ooze of blood running down her leg. It’s bright and thick. Her face is pale and clammy, but her eyes are raging. There’s a gun in her hand. It’s Eli’s. She must have found it on the ground.

  “You already have one death on your hands,” she says and before I can blink, she lifts the weapon and shoots. Ross drops, a dead weight, with a single, perfect bullet hole lodged in his forehead. “Now I do too.”

  “Mac,” I whisper.

  A choking sob escapes her throat, and the gun drops from her hand. She starts to crumple, as if shooting him was all she had to give and now there’s nothing left.

  I rush forward, catching her before she hits concrete. Mac sags against me and we both sink to the floor because I have nothing left either.

  “Mitch?” she asks, her voice reedy and thin.

  I glance his way. Kelly has him, his fingers jammed into his neck to halt the flow, but blood is still seeping. It doesn’t look good and my heart sinks. “He’s going to be fine,” I lie.

  “Promise me,” she begs, her fingers clutching at the tatters of my shirt.

  But I can’t promise. Mac watches my mouth open and close and tears leak from her eyes. Instead of giving an answer, I pull back a little and rip the shredded remains of my shirt from around my waist, gathering a long strip to form a bandage. I tie it in a tight knot around her wound, just above the thigh, and she curses in a low, savage growl. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I soothe, pulling her against me when I’m done, rocking her gently.

  “Your face,” she sobs against my chest, not even looking at it.

  “It’s fine,” I soothe but it must be a mess. The throb of pain is constant now, and every inhale feels like I’m being stabbed. “I’m fine.”

  “Gabriella?”

  My gaze shifts to the beautiful detective. She lies prone on the floor. Eli managed three shots before I tackled him to the ground. Each one hit her. One in the shoulder and one in her leg, and a final, fatal shot to the head. Luke, a trained paramedic, is taking care of her. My eyes meet his. He shakes his head. She’s gone.

  My jaw begins to quiver and I lock it down. “Luke is taking care of her.”

  “Is she okay?”

  I draw back and take Mac’s face in my palms. There’s a deep cut high on her forehead from Ross smashing her head into the cement floor. It’s stopped bleeding but her hair is matted with blood, and her face is covered with dried tears and dirt. I swallow the lump in my throat and give her the painful truth. “Gabriella is gone.”

  Horror fills her eyes and she shakes her head. “No,” she replies, her voice adamant. “No she’s not.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her head won’t stop shaking and her teeth begin to chatter. “No, no, no, no, no, no!” Mac yanks away from me and I grab her wrists, holding her tight. She doesn’t need to see Gabriella like this. A friend she knows and loves. The horror and sickening finality of it is too much. I don’t want her living with the image.

  “Let me go,” she cries and my heart aches.

  Mac shoves at my chest, not realising the injuries that lie beneath, and my vision blackens as she breaks free. She crawls her way toward Gabriella, sobbing.

  I press my lips together. There’s nothing I can do. Luke shuffles backward to give Mac space. She grasps Gabriella’s shoulders, lifting her upwards, wrapping her arms around her upper body and holding her close. Gabriella’s arms dangle uselessly behind her and her head lolls.

  Mac rocks back and forth, holding her, painful sobs tearing from her chest. My eyes burn and my jaw clenches so tight I fear my teeth will crack. I turn to look at Mitch. The paramedics have him now. He’s unconscious and being placed on a stretcher.

  Kelly has risen to his feet. Blood smears his hands. It’s through his hair too, where he’s pushed strands from his face. He’s taking in the aftermath that surrounds us. Bodies litter the ground. Some of them Sentinels. Some of them King Str
eet Boys. The bitter tang of blood scents the morning air, along with the thick stench of gunfire and devastation.

  The paramedics are wheeling Mitch out of the huge roller door when Henry runs in. He gets pulled up short by the police. They’re setting up a barrier. The warehouse is a crime scene now.

  “Let me through!” he shouts, shoving at them.

  While the police are distracted with my best friend, Casey, Travis, and Jared appear and simply walk their way through. The three of them take one look at Mac and Gabriella and they each falter, faces paling.

  “One of you go with Mitch,” I shout at them, pointing to the stretcher getting wheeled out the other side. Travis runs to his brother and disappears with him out the door. “Mac needs an ambulance too,” I say, my voice hoarse as I rise on unsteady legs.

  “I’ll go direct them,” Luke says and jogs off.

  I shuffle toward Mac and reach down for her, sucking in a sharp breath.

  “I’ve got her,” Jared says, reaching for her at the same time.

  “No!” I bark, stubborn. “I need to do this. You take care of … of …” My eyes fall to Gabriella. She still rests in Mac’s arms.

  “Jesus,” Jared’s voice cracks. He swipes a hand down his face, struggling to come to terms with the unexpected loss.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Casey interjects and crouches. He tries to gently pry the beautiful detective away, but Mac won’t let go. She looks up at Casey, her face etched in despair. He’s locking his emotions down, but I see grief in his tight jaw and clenched hands.

  “I killed her,” she whispers, and her face turns to mine. “This is on me.”

  “Oh, baby, no.” I shake my head, struck down with horror. “Don’t go there.”

  Casey prises her white-knuckled fingers from Gabriella’s lifeless form, and I take her, praying I’m able to lift her without passing out because I’m damned if anyone else carries her out of here but me.

  I squat low and place one arm around her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, and I stand, bringing her with me. The effort costs me and I stagger, dizzy.