"You first," he ground out in a thick Eastern Bloc accent, arm rising limp, aiming at me.

  "Yeah, I don't think so," I said, and ended the discussion via the expedient method of a well-aimed bullet to the brainpan.

  Gore painted the wall behind him, his head yanking backward as the round exited the back of his skull.

  A sound below me had me rolling to my back and aiming down the stairwell, finger tightening on the trigger. Until I saw that it was Bruce, pepper spray in hand, eyes wide.

  I groaned in relief, and lowered my gun. "Ain't you ever been told not to roll up to a gunfight with pepper spray, Bruce?"

  He stopped, nearly dropping the can. "What--what in the Sam Hill is going on, Dan?"

  I let my head thud against the stair. "Ran into some trouble, my man."

  Bruce's gaze went to the red mess on the wall of the landing above me. "Heard shooting, figured I'd best come investigate."

  I met his fearful gaze. "You don't want any of this mess, Bruce. Go home. Say you got sick, had to run home before you shit in your boxers. Hell, say you got drunk on lunch break. Just...go home. Now. You never saw me, or my girlfriend, okay? We were never here. You've never even met me, matter of fact." I lifted an eyebrow. "It's for your own good, buddy. Now go on, git."

  Bruce hesitated, and then his gaze flicked up to the red dripping down the wall. "Yeah. My wife has been sick. Best go home and take care of her."

  "You do that, Bruce."

  He turned and lumbered back down the stairs and out of view. I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs slam closed, and then I finally relaxed, but only for a moment.

  I had to get out of here.

  The one thing that was really bugging me, though, was that they'd found me here. Harris didn't even know about this place, and four of Cain's mercs had found me? How? I'm not sloppy. I know I hadn't been followed here, because I'd been watching. So...how in the ever loving fuck did they manage to find me? Not luck, that's for damn sure.

  I couldn't figure it out, and that was a serious problem.

  I scrambled to my feet and jogged up the stairs to Temple.

  As soon as I came into view, she rushed over to me. "Duke! There was so much shooting, I was sure you'd--shit, you're bleeding!"

  Awareness was returning, now that the high adrenaline of the shootout was receding. I touched my earlobe, and found the lower half of it missing, blood dripping onto my shoulder. "Guess I won't be getting that earring I was thinking about, huh?"

  Temple gaped at me. "You're cracking jokes?"

  I shrugged. "It's just an earlobe, princess, I barely even feel it." That was a lie--it stung like a motherfucker, but compared to a full-on gunshot wound, it was a minor inconvenience.

  I checked the magazine of the suppressed pistol and found it empty. It didn't use the same kind of rounds as any of the firearms I had, and the suppressor wouldn't fit any of them either, since I was carrying all 9mm pistols and this one was a 5.56. Which sucked, but whatever. I stuffed the empty firearm into the duffel bag--since I wasn't the type to leave a perfectly good gun behind, especially if it had my fingerprints on it and had been used to kill more than one someone. Then I threaded my arms through the cloth handles of the duffel bag so I was carrying it backpack style.

  I pulled Temple face to face with me. "Got a bit of a mess going on down there, princess, so you may want to close your eyes and let me lead you down, okay?"

  "Is this how it's going to be?"

  "What do you mean?"

  She gestured at the stairwell. "People shooting, you bleeding, dead dudes everywhere..."

  I shrugged and nodded at the same time. "Yeah, probably."

  She sagged against me, her head buried against my chest. "Yay."

  I tipped her chin up. "Come on now, Fancy, where's that sass?"

  She jerked her chin away and re-buried her face into my shoulder. "It's gone," she drawled, "I lost it. Bye-bye."

  "Listen, kitten, I've kept you safe thus far, yeah?" I nudged her chin up when she didn't reply. "Yeah?"

  She nodded. "Yeah, but--"

  "Well, I'll continue keeping you safe." I gave her my cockiest grin. "You're with Duke Silver, babe. Ain't no half-ass wanna-be two-bit thugs gonna get anywhere near you, and that's a promise."

  What I wasn't saying was that these guys hadn't been half-ass, wanna-be, two-bit thugs. They'd had training, decent training at that, they'd just underestimated me and I'd gotten the drop on them. That last asshole had sent a few rounds my way, which had nearly had my name on them.

  Temple frowned at me, but it was an amused frown, which didn't make any sense, but there it was. "You really think highly of yourself, don't you?"

  "When you've been through the shit I have, not much will faze you. A few thugs trying to kill me? Meh."

  "What would faze you?" she asked.

  I thought for a moment. "Me and my unit, back when I was with Delta Force, we were pinned down, surrounded, outnumbered, and running out of ammo. And then the fuckers went and tried to crash a goddamn helicopter into the location where we were hunkered down. Well, they didn't try to, they did. Only the L-T saw it coming, so we had to make a break for it." I hesitated, realizing she probably wouldn't want to hear the rest of that particular story, "That wasn't fun. Or, the time the helo I was in got shot down over enemy territory, and me and four other guys had to fight our way out. That was also severely lacking in chill."

  Temple stared at me. "That all really happened to you?"

  I shrugged. "Well, yeah. Why?"

  "And you survived it all?"

  I laughed. "Clearly, since I'm standing here looking all sexy and shit." I tapped her nose. "Babe, I grew up on the streets running in gangs. First time I saw a dude get shot I wasn't even old enough to jerk off. Going into the Army just meant I got three squares a day and got paid to do gnarly shit, instead of risking arrest for just trying to scrape by."

  Her expression went soft. "You were homeless?"

  I felt my walls wanting to slam up, my expression tightening, my natural tendency to tell her to fuck off with her questions and sympathy rising up inside me. "Something like that, yeah." That was as nice an answer to that question as she was gonna get.

  I slipped my hand over her eyes. "We gotta go. I hear the fuzz."

  It was long past time for the cops to get here, actually. The first shot had been five minutes ago, although it felt more like twenty--the shootout in the stairwell had only taken two or three minutes at most, despite how it had felt.

  "Fuzz?"

  "Cops," I explained. "And I ain't stickin' around for questions."

  I led her down the first flight of stairs, guided her around the first dead guy, lifted her over the second, and skirted close against the wall to avoid the third.

  "Something smells funny," she remarked, hands outstretched, as if I'd let her run into a wall or something.

  "That's the smell of death, princess. Or, more accurately, the smell of a gut shot."

  "Why does a gut shot smell so bad?"

  I debated on the best way of putting it. "Um...you open up the belly, what's inside? Guts, right? Perforate those with slugs, well...you're in for a bit of a stench."

  She gagged. "Oh. I'm sorry I asked." We made it down another flight, away from the corpses, before I uncovered her eyes. "How many were there?"

  "Three," I said. "Well, four, including the guy upstairs."

  "Is that all of them, you think?"

  "Of this group, probably."

  "How many are there, like, total?"

  I shrugged. "No clue. Countless, would be my guess. He doesn't pay them all directly, like, on a payroll. They live their lives, run their product, and keep their cut of the profits. Situation like this, they'll get a call from one of Cain's lieutenants giving 'em instructions with a promise of a reward if they catch me. So it's not like he has this army of mercenaries sitting around waiting to his bidding, not like that at all. This is a drugs and guns and prostitution ring, these guys are mostly just your average criminals who happen to work on his behalf." I gestured back up the stairs. "The more of those guys I take out, though, the more pissed Cain is gonna get. Eventually he's gonna send some of his real-deal trained mercenaries, ex-Spetznaz and KSK and whatever. That's when this shit is really gonna get fun."

  "We must have drastically different notions of fun, Duke," Temple said. "My idea of fun is spending an afternoon shopping on Rodeo Drive, or having a long brunch with my girlfriends. Running for my life and getting shot at is not fun."

  I paused at the entrance of the building, peering outside. It looked safe, so I grabbed the door handle, but Temple stopped me.

  "Um, are you going out there like that?" she asked.

  I stared at her. "Like what?"

  She gestured at my shoulder holsters. "The guns? Isn't it...a little obvious? I mean, the police take one look at you, think, huh, we just got a call about a shooting, and that guy is wearing guns right out in the open, so--"

  "Okay, okay, I get your point," I cut in. "Hold on a second."

  I jogged back up the stairs to where the three corpses were; the first guy I'd shot had been a single round to the forehead, and he'd been wearing a windbreaker, which hopefully wasn't too messy. I found the guy in question, head hanging backward off of a stair tread, dripping nasty on the step below. And bingo, his windbreaker was brain-matter free, thank god. I stripped him of it, slid the duffel off my shoulders, and shrugged into the jacket--the dead guy was a bit smaller than me, so it was a tight fit but it disguised the holsters. I snagged the duffel and hustled back downstairs.

  Temple stared at me as I led her outside. "Is that...from one of the guys you killed?" she asked as I led her out of the building and away from it as fast as possible without looking obvious.

  I nodded. "Yeah. Most expedient way of solving the problem, as I don't keep clothes at this place either, and we don't have the time for me to go back up even if I did." I gestured at the crowed around us, people milling, chatting, checking cell phones to see if there was news on what was going on. The first cruisers were just starting to arrive and were setting up a cordon, but hadn't started blocking access yet. Cops scrambled out of the cars, weapons drawn, chins dipped to report into radio mics

  "What do you do at a long brunch?" I asked, trying to sound casual as we pushed through the crowd of onlookers. .

  "Um, well? We drink a lot of mimosas and eat finger food and talk about boys and gossip, basically. Girl stuff." She was keeping up the charade like a champ, bless the girl.

  I laughed. "Oh. And a long brunch is what? An hour?"

  Her turn to laugh. "An hour? Hardly. If you're not still there at, like, three or four, you're an amateur. We brunch until dinner on a regular."

  I goggled at her. "And you literally just sit around and get wasted and gossip? Like, all day?"

  We were away from the bulk of the crowd by now, and had reached an intersection; I turned at random, my main priority now being to just get us away from the scene, ASAP.

  She shrugged, sticking close to my side as we rounded the corner. "That's the point of brunching. It's a social activity." She glanced up at me. "Don't you and your buddies go out drinking?"

  I nodded. "Well, yeah."

  "Same thing. We just start out late morning and go all day."

  "Damn, that's actually kinda hardcore," I said. "And you're drinking the whole time?"

  She bobbed her head side to side. "Sort of? We start out with mimosas or screw drivers usually, and then once we've had lunch we switch to white wine. So, I mean, it's not like we're drinking to get black-out drunk. You're brunching all day, so you have to pace yourself. You can't be falling down drunk by like two or we won't invite you back. You have to be able to keep up and hold your liquor."

  "Sounds competitive." I was keeping her busy so she wouldn't notice me scanning our surroundings.

  "Oh it is. Getting invited to one of my brunches is a big deal. It can make or break your social standing. And if you get drunk and we have to ask you to leave because you're embarrassing us? Forget it. You're done. You can kiss your reputation goodbye."

  "Has that ever happened?"

  She nodded. "Oh, yeah, all the time. It's like the first couple episodes of The Bachelor, there's always someone who gets obliterated and makes a fool of themselves."

  "The Bachelor?"

  She rolled her eyes. "You've never seen that?"

  I frowned at her. "Do I seem like a guy who watches The Bachelor?"

  "I guess not. What do you watch?"

  "I don't watch TV," I said. "Never got into the habit."

  "What do you mean, you never got into the habit? It's television."

  We'd been walking in a straight line for too long, so we turned the corner. I wasn't going anywhere specifically yet, more just trying to see if anyone was following us. Once I'd determined that we weren't being tailed, I'd catch a cab to the airport and try to figure out some way of hooking up with the guys. Times like this, I wished payphones hadn't gone extinct--it'd make it easier.

  "Like I said, I grew up on the streets. Not much opportunity to sit around staring at a TV screen. Gotta run the hustle, you know?"

  "Not really, no."

  I let out a soft, irritated breath. I hadn't meant to let the conversation go back to this topic. "I crashed on a lot of couches when I could, and slept in alleys when I couldn't. And during the day I was hustling."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Dealing, Princess. Slinging dime-bags. Scrapping with rival gangs. That kinda shit."

  "Oh." Her voice was...small, and tight. Disapproving. Which only pissed me off more, and I was already antsy from talking about this in the first place.

  "Listen up, Fancy. Not everyone was born with a silver spoon, okay?" I stopped and faced her. "I didn't have a famous mom and dad to put everything in my hands. I never knew my dad, and my mom was literally a crack-whore. Meaning I was born addicted to crack and shouldn't have survived, but I did. You know who didn't survive? My mom. I found her OD'd when I was six. Came home from school one day and there she was, passed out on the couch like usual. Only, she wasn't just passed out, she was fuckin' dead. That's how my life started. So yeah, I was a drug dealer by the time I was ten, pimping by fourteen, and pushing kilos by the time I was seventeen. A criminal. I was dirty, and violent, and mean. I was a piece of shit, is what I was. Is that what you wanted to hear, Fancy?"

  I was in her face, fuming, teeth gritted. And she was cowering away, frightened.

  "No," she whispered. "I didn't--I mean...I didn't mean--"

  I pivoted away, scrubbing the side of my jaw. "I know you didn't."

  I grabbed her arm and hauled her back into a fast walk. And she let me, for all of a hundred steps, and then she yanked her arm free, and then it was her turn to stop facing me.

  "You what? Fuck you." She stabbed her finger into my chest. "I didn't ask to be born to rich parents. I didn't ask for the life I have. It's all I know--all I've ever known. And what, I'm supposed to apologize for my easy life because yours has been shitty? Fuck you."

  "No, you don't choose the life you're born into, and no, you don't have to apologize for yours. But you don't get to give me that look, the one that's all pitying and disapproving because I spent the first half of my life surviving the only way I knew how."

  "It wasn't pity!" Temple shot back. "Or disapproval."

  "The fuck it wasn't. I know what that shit looks and sounds like, okay? Someone finds out how I grew up, they give me that same look."

  "Compassion and pity aren't the same thing, Duke," Temple said.

  "Yeah, well...I don't need either." I pushed past her, stomping back into an angry walk. "Not from you, not from anyone."

  Stupid shit was, I didn't even really know why I was so pissed. I hated talking about my life pre-Army, hated telling anyone about it because I always got the same sappy bullshit pity. But this, the blind, unreasoning anger I was feeling, it was more than that--I just wasn't sure what it was. I didn't like it, though. I didn't like emotions I didn't understand, which is why I avoided situations that might involve emotions, because I didn't understand most emotions.

  Emotions were hard. Fucking, fighting, drinking, breaking down doors and clearing rooms and rescuing people, I understood that. It was easy.

  This...wasn't. Temple wasn't easy, and I didn't mean easy as in loose, easy to get into bed, but rather...she was just...difficult. She was hard to understand, and worse, she made me feel like shit and I wasn't sure how or why she did it, but she did and it pissed me off.

  But even all that wasn't why I was so pissed off.

  I kept walking, stopping to glance back at Temple now and again, making sure she was still behind me. She was staying a few paces, power walking to keep up with my long legs, and looking equal parts pissed off, confused, and hurt.

  Which didn't help.

  I was trying to push all this emotional horseshit away so I could focus on the real problem at hand: getting away from Cain's dickheads, and getting in touch with Harris and Thresh and the boys. I'd been out of communication for a while, which was unusual for me, especially when it came to Thresh. He and I were always in contact, so I knew if he didn't hear from me soon, he'd start to worry.

  Then, being mentally preoccupied, I nearly got us both killed.

  A big black Tahoe zipped past us, which wasn't a big deal; they were a common kind of truck. When the SUV hit the brakes and swung a smoking-tire U-turn, that was a big deal. Problem came when I was too caught up in my own mental bullshit to register that maybe they were making a U-turn because of me. I missed that little signal.

  The Tahoe burned rubber, bolted back the way they'd come, and then cut in toward the sidewalk.

  Toward Temple.

  And that was when my head cleared enough for me to jump into action.

  "Temple! Duck!" I shouted.

  I hauled at the Beretta, palm slapping over my trigger hand to brace myself. I cracked off two shots, one round fragmenting the rear driver's side window and the other plugging into the door beneath it. The truck kept going, hitting the brakes and sliding to a halt a dozen feet away from Temple, who had, as I'd instructed, hit the sidewalk and was hunkering with her hands over her head. I probably should have told her to run, but I'd been more worried about accidentally shooting her if she moved the wrong direction.