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  She sighed and put her foot on the gas to inch the van forward. More shots were fired but they pinged harmlessly off the front of the vehicle. A few months before, she might have been relieved but now, she merely found it a waste of her talents. Why had she trained so hard if they simply intended to bench her?

  More shots from the bank were answered by Butters and Beanpole. The plan seemed to be working. Chatter on the radio indicated that Team B was inside and moving through the bowels of the bank.

  An explosion roared over the radio and for a moment, only feedback followed it.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, a voice spoke over the comms. “We have men down. A goddamn bomb went off. We…we need support. I have people bleeding all over the fucking place!”

  Drew spoke over the radio. “Change of plans. We’re going in. Kristen can you—”

  His words cut off abruptly, replaced by only static. She immediately thought back to the pawnshop. Hadn’t something jammed the radios then too?

  Butters began to shoot in earnest and peppered the front of the bank with covering fire while Jonesy, Keith, Drew, and Hernandez moved from one of the wrecked police cars to the edges of the brick arch.

  They had no sooner reached it when one of the police cars detonated. It was one hell of an explosion too, powerful enough to flip the car upside down.

  Drew gestured for everyone to fall back but a volley of gunfire from inside pinned the team behind the brick walls. There was no way they could get out. Without that police car, there simply wasn’t any other cover.

  “We request immediate support,” the officer from Team B said over the radio. “Mitch is coughing blood and Garcia… Garcia’s out. He needs a goddamn doctor. Maybe a fucking priest. Fuck!” Gunshots chattered in the background, followed by more static. Whatever was jamming the radio had been turned on again.

  They had to act and they had to act now.

  But they couldn’t, she realized with growing frustration. The entire team was pinned down and there was nothing Butters could do from his vantage point.

  Another bullet from the bank pinged harmlessly off the van.

  Kristen tried not to smile as a plan formed in her head. By the time she shoved the vehicle into low gear and thrust the gas pedal to the floor, she grinned like a maniac.

  The armored vehicle accelerated in response and she hurtled toward the building while bullets rebounded off the armor. She was right about the space between the pillars—it wasn’t enough—and when the van tried to pass between them, it simply destroyed them completely. Obviously, they were ornamental and not load-bearing.

  Beyond them was what was left of the glass windows at the front of the structure.

  There was no resistance and the van careened through and released a shower of glass into the lobby, but she didn’t ease her foot off the accelerator. Gunfire continued from behind the long wooden divider that normally separated tellers from patrons of the bank and now gave the criminals cover.

  Her expression grim and focused, she crashed the van through the wooden wall as well and barely lost speed until she impacted the wall behind that. This was obviously load-bearing as her forward momentum stopped abruptly.

  The airbag deployed and she blacked out for a few seconds.

  She opened her eyes and blinked at her surroundings before she realized dumbly that if someone had wanted to put a bullet in her head, she had provided them with a golden opportunity.

  Fortunately, Team A had pushed in behind her and now had their weapons raised and trained on the robbers. It probably helped that the criminals had been even more stunned than her own teammates when she’d destroyed their cover.

  “Drop the weapons, assholes, or we tell the van to back up.” That was Jonesy, her brain told her.

  A clatter of weapons followed but no gunshots, so she assumed they had complied.

  “The building’s secure,” Drew said into his radio. “I need EMTs in here ASAP. I have three officers in need of medical attention.”

  “What if there are more bombs?” someone asked over the radio.

  “These guys don’t have time.”

  “This bomb is on a button trigger anyway,” Hernandez interjected. “We have the hostiles. Now get in here and save our officers.”

  Footsteps echoed in the odd bubble that seemed to surround her and people ran past with stretchers. Before she could see if they returned, Drew leaned into the window.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “One. The mean one.”

  “That’s right, Hall. Now get the hell out of that van.”

  He helped her with the seatbelt, checked her briefly for wounds, and—finding none—proceeded to dress her down with more energy than she’d ever seen from him. “That was the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever seen, and I work with both Jones and Hernandez. You destroyed a piece of architecture that’s decades old, not to mention the antiques you turned into kindling. And then there’s the van. If the transmission is ruined, Captain Hansen will dock your pay for that. I’ve seen it before and I’ll be damned if I’d argue for anything less for someone so irresponsible.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Kristen said and followed him through the trashed lobby. The van really had done a number on it. Where before, the room had been mostly intact except for the bullet holes, there was now a van-sized path of destruction from the front door to the back wall.

  “Look out there.” He pointed through the hole she’d made in the front of the building.

  She obeyed and looked at where the three B-team members were being loaded into ambulances. Two of them already had IVs inserted. She felt a pang of guilt. Had that been her fault?

  “They’re alive because you took action. Stupid, reckless action, yes, but you saved at least three lives today, maybe more.”

  Startled, she glanced quickly at him to find him smiling, his eyes moist. A tear—an actual tear—ran down his cheek. He cleared his throat. “Mitch’s wife has a baby girl due in a month. Their first. It’s all he ever fucking talks about. Now, she’ll still have a daddy, thanks to you.”

  Kristen nodded, thought of her own father, and fought back tears of her own. Before she could speak, though, Drew told an EMT she might have a concussion and she was rushed to the back of an ambulance for monitoring.

  They hooked her up to machines she didn’t understand and asked her questions she didn’t want to answer but at that moment, she didn’t care about any of it. She had saved lives today. After her months of training, she finally got it. This was why her dad had worked such long days and given so much of himself to his job—because saving people felt good.

  For the first time since she’d joined SWAT, she didn’t question her placement or wonder about the dragon who had set her on this path. And also, for the first time, she felt like she belonged.

  The EMT asked her a few more questions, but apparently satisfied, let her get out of the ambulance.

  Jonesy waited for her with what she could only describe as a shit-eating grin on his face. “Fucking great work back there. I always hated the front of that butt-ugly bank.” He led her over to the rest of the team. “I think you need a new nickname, Red.”

  “How about Speed Racer?” Keith smirked.

  “I like it, I like it,” Butters said and rubbed his chin before he burst into song. “Go Speed Racer, go Speed Racer, go Speed Racer, go!”

  “Don’t quit your day job.” Hernandez put a finger to her ear like his singing might have caused permanent damage.

  “I am a little parched. Perhaps we should discuss it over a bite.” The sniper grinned.

  “I got one, I got one,” Hernandez had to stop herself from laughing. “She came in like wrecking baaaaaall! Motherfucking Kristen Haaaaaall! All they wanted was to rob a bank, but they should have let her crazy ass in! Let her crazy ass in!”

  Everyone laughed way too hard at that, and Kristen was forced to consider that this might be the moment that would define her career—and more impo
rtantly, who she was to her new friends.

  She decided she was okay with that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The last time John Murray had taken the Breaks to this warehouse, he had felt like he was in control. Detroit was his city, after all, and whoever the rich asshole behind the mirrored glass windows was, he would have to learn his place like rich assholes inevitably did.

  But things had changed. He no longer felt in control. The last few months had started off well enough. There was nothing quite like strong artillery to make raiding pawn shops and liquor stores easy. He’d lost Lemar, which he had to admit hurt him more than he’d expected, but things had gone well—or rather, he thought morosely, well enough. But when they’d robbed that bank… It was a miracle he had even made it through that shit show to tell the tale.

  Most of his gang hadn’t.

  That was another reason why he no longer felt in control, despite this being the same warehouse he’d first chosen for his meeting with his armed benefactor. The Breaks were no longer the only gang present for this meeting.

  He stood in front of a 1971 corvette with brown leather seats, copper paint, and chrome highlights. Behind that was a 1965 Ford Truck in blue-and-white with a brand-new engine. He’d brought the truck and hoped to fill the bed with new supplies, but looking at the other gangs present made him wonder if there would even be enough to go around.

  It was bullshit, really. The Breaks had lost men—too many men—trying to prove themselves to this mysterious financier, and this was how they were rewarded?

  “Where the fuck is your man, Murray?” That was Lee, leader of the Dead Reds. He picked up Chinese immigrants who were down on their luck and mostly did work with gambling, he seemed to recall. He drove a stupid tiny Honda that was more plastic than metal.

  “He’ll be here,” he grumbled.

  “He fucking better be,” a wannabe-thug named Marcus said. “You promised us the hook-up for the same stock you’ve been getting.”

  “I didn’t promise you shit. I said I had a meeting with the guy and he wanted you there. We didn’t hook little pinky fingers like schoolgirls.”

  Murray hated the man. He was covered in shitty tattoos that you could hardly make out on his dark skin and ran with the Knights, a group of crack-dealers and pill-pushers. Worse, the asshat drove a goddamn boat of a Chrysler from the eighties with dropped suspension and subwoofers he had neglected to turn off. It was less of a car and more of a traveling fucking entertainment system—a goddamn embarrassment for an American-made vehicle.

  It had pissed him off to no end when the man who’d sold him the weapons had ordered him—ordered John fucking Murray—to contact the drug dealer. He didn’t want to stoop to their level but he also needed more firepower, so he’d made the damn call.

  A few other gang leaders were present too, but he didn’t know their names. They were amateurs, all of them.

  “He gonna show, or what?”

  He scowled at Lee and returned to his corvette. He had something in the trunk for all these goddamn posers. Maybe this was a test—a last-man-standing kind of thing. He looked at his boys and was about to give them the signal when a noise from the far end of the warehouse caught everyone’s attention.

  A door slid open and the black van drove in and stopped.

  The man who’d opened the door to the warehouse climbed into the van and it drove forward. It turned so the passenger side faced the assembly of criminals, then stopped in the middle of the semicircle of gang leaders and their most trusted cronies.

  Murray had to admit the man behind the glass had balls. Driving the van into the middle of the group was akin to a seal belly-flopping into a ring of sharks.

  Exactly like before, two men dressed in black suits, ties, and sunglasses stepped out and stood on either side of the passenger door.

  Again, he found himself wanting to cap these assholes. They didn’t wear armor. There was obviously no way they could fit it under their goddamn tailored suits.

  “Are you here to give us some actual decent weapons this time?” He sneered.

  The passenger window opened a crack and a cloud of cigar smoke poured from the gap.

  “I seem to recall that I already gave you a cache of weapons, Murray of the Breaks.”

  “Yeah, and we used them exactly like you fucking said. We chose bigger and bigger targets, and what did that get us?” He looked around the ring of criminals and back to the van, daring anyone to say a word. “A fucking headache, that’s what. We raid one bank—one bank—and the goddamn SWAT team showed up with armored vehicles and machine guns and snipers. We need better tools to even the odds.”

  “Bullshit,” Marcus interjected. “You had your opportunity. It’s time to see if the rest of us have what it takes. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To break the Breaks?”

  “You will not speak to me that way again, Marcus of the Knights,” the man said from the vehicle.

  “Marcus of the Knights? What the fuck do you think this is—the round table in King Arthur’s Court?” He snorted at the members of his gang and they laughed. No one else made a sound, though, and the silence soon swallowed the Knight’s attempts to make light of the situation.

  The window of the van rolled up.

  The thug laughed again, although it sounded forced. “Fucking pussy.”

  One of the men in black suits opened the passenger door.

  Out stepped the largest man Murray had ever seen.

  He was tall like a pro basketball player, and his shoulders looked like they could support the roof of a barn. His skin was tanned and his black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that somehow seemed at odds with his black goatee. He wore a black suit with a red silk shirt beneath, a tie of the identical shade of red, and black gloves with strips of red on each finger. The Breaks leader might have described the man as a giant puff if he didn’t look like he could snap anyone in the warehouse in half. In his massive hands, his cigar looked like a cigarette.

  “Approach, Marcus of the Knights and Murray of the Breaks.”

  Murray glanced at Marcus, who seemed about as reluctant as he felt.

  “Now,” the man said and drew languidly on his cigar.

  He approached and the other gang leader did as well a second later.

  “Now kneel.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Marcus stood belligerently in front of the goliath of a man.

  “Your superior,” he responded and kicked the man in the chest with a shiny black shoe hard enough to sprawl him on his ass.

  Murray didn’t need to be told twice. He knelt.

  “Now. Approach and kneel, Marcus of the Knights. Others here have made mistakes as well, yet I am one who believes in forgiveness.”

  “I bet you fucking do,” the Knights leader muttered but he approached the man who’d felled him with a single kick and knelt before him. The stranger extended a hand with a massive ruby set in a gold ring. Marcus frowned but he got the message and kissed the ring.

  “Your…uh, honor,” Murray stammered, unable to endure the silence. “I know we have failed you but please, give us another chance. If we have better weapons than the police, we can take whatever we want in this city.”

  “Stop speaking,” the man said and he complied. “You may call me…what is the affectation of this time?” He turned to one of the men still standing in front of the van.

  “Mister.”

  “You may call me Mr Black.”

  Murray nodded. “Yes, Mr Black.”

  “I am not pleased with you because I do not like failure and you have failed me. It might be wisest and simplest to have my men simply kill you and be done with it.”

  The two men opened the van, and each selected an assault rifle. Every gang member in the warehouse recoiled visibly. These weapons were military-grade, a few steps up from what the Breaks had been given before.

  “We done nothing wrong,” Lee said. “Let us serve you.” Murray’s jaw almost dropped to t
he floor when the man approached and knelt in front of Mr Black. Lee didn’t work with anyone. The two other gang leaders followed him a few moments later. They also both approached and knelt.

  “I accept your fealty but understand that those who serve me must be willing to truly serve me.”

  The sound of wind swirled around Murray’s ears and a cloud moved to block the sun that came in through the windows of the derelict warehouse. Thunder boomed and shadow writhed around Mr Black. Two enormous black wings unfolded from his back, a tail of shadow whipped in the darkness, and his face—his face was too terrible to behold. It was all spikes and teeth and horns and horrible red eyes that looked like they held only hunger.

  Murray tried not to think about the fact that he was merely a man made of meat and that the being before him seemed like so much more.

  In the next moment, the clouds shifted, sunlight flooded the warehouse once more, and the illusion was gone. Mr Black stood before them again, seven feet of muscle and control but a human at least, or a human form anyway. Murray had wondered if the man was a dragon. Now, he knew.

  “Make no mistake, if you were gobbled up by this city, no one would miss any of you. But I find that would be a waste of resources. Even with your failure, I believe you to be the best tools for the job. After all, you have sown discord and fear. Those who sit on the hidden thrones that control this city do not like the disruptions you have caused. Even in failure, you have made them begin to fly about rather than remain in their roosts. Besides, one uses the tool one possesses, not the ones one wishes one has. Isn’t that right, Murray of the Breaks?”

  “Yes, Mr Black.” When the dragon didn’t speak, he hurried to continue. “And with better tools, I assure you I can lead everyone in this warehouse to take this city from the pigs and the corrupt city council.” That must be why the other gangs were there, right? So he could introduce them to the big game.