Tattoo (Take It Off #7)(21)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Brody could have kept quiet back there at the bank. He could have let me lie there and bleed (like Brandy). If he had, then none of this would be happening right now. His cover would still be intact and I wouldn’t be here.

I might be dead.

But maybe not. Maybe I would be at the hospital.

Either way, I couldn’t just sit here and let them kill Brody for slipping under cover to help protect me. Yeah, I knew this was about more than me. It was about bringing these guys down. It was about returning the money that was stolen from my father’s bank. I wasn’t going to be a hindrance to Brody. I wasn’t going to be some dead weight appendage that he had to drag around on his fight out the door. Injured or not, I was going to help him.

“You gonna deny it now?” Snake said, the other guys in the room taking a step closer to him.

I pushed up to my feet, swaying a little, like I just climbed off a boat and had a bad case of sea legs. I steadied myself and took a few steps toward Brody.

He tensed, the muscles in his back bunching. At his side and slightly behind him, he held up his palm, telling me to stop.

“It doesn’t matter what I say,” Brody replied. “Y’all have already decided what you believe.”

“Before I kill you, I’m going to carve that tattoo out of your back and hang it in a frame for everyone to see what happens to those who disgrace this crew,” Snake said, his voice oddly flat as he withdrew a knife out of the back of his pants.

A small sound of protest ripped from the back of my throat, and I couldn’t stop myself from going to Brody’s side. He held out his arm, tucking me behind him and using it as some sort of shield.

The tension in the room was so thick it was like smoke. It made it hard to breath and my eyes began to burn. Snake laughed, the sound doing nothing to dispel the heavy fog over us. His dark, callous eyes turned to me.

“Don’t worry. We won’t be killing you. We’re going to need you for ransom.”

“Ransom?” I asked, the fingers of my left hand coiling themselves into the belt loop of Brody’s jeans.

“You’re worth more to us alive than dead. How much do you think that rich Daddy of yours would be willing to pay to get you back?”

Revulsion hit me hard, like I was being hit head on by a car traveling at the highest speed. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. For a moment, my brain literally blanked out as I tried to process the hell my father would be put through.

And what was worse? He’d pay it. My father would pay whatever amount these immoral, disgusting pigs asked for. And he would get me back…

In a body bag.

I wasn’t sure what to do. This kind of situation was beyond me; this was not something I ever in my life thought would happen. I was willing to fight like hell to get out of here, but I needed Brody to make the first move.

He was like a piece of carved granite in front of me. His entire body was solid and unmoving, so still that I might have been worried had I not been able to feel the heat coming off of his skin.

The room was incredibly silent while we all studied each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. I noticed the fingers on Brody’s outstretched arm twitching ever so lightly. Snake put both the knife and his cell phone into one hand and then raised his gun with the other, pointing it directly at Brody’s chest.

Brody’s fingers twitched again. This time more insistent.

My fingers flexed around his belt buckle, agitated because I knew he was trying to tell me something. I just wasn’t sure what it was.

And then my fingers brushed something hard.

I glanced down.

The gun.

Brody still had a gun and it was tucked in the waistband of his jeans. Just above my hand.

Moving fast, I yanked the gun free and pressed it into his waiting hand. He moved like a racehorse being let out of its starting gate, swinging the gun up and around in one second flat.

Snake gave a yell as Brody fired a single shot, but it hadn’t been aimed at Snake.

The sound of glass shattering pierced the air and the room went black.

He shot out the lamp, the only source of light in this basement.

Snake fired a shot of his own, but Brody was already moving, diving to the side and yanking me with him. He tossed me against the nearby wall and my cheek bounced off the hard brick, but I didn’t cry out. In order for us to get out of here, we had to be silent.

The only advantage we had was that it was dark and they couldn’t see to shoot us.

Brody pressed his body along mine, sandwiching me between him and the wall. I felt his every contour; I even felt the rapid pounding of his heart.

He leaned down into my ear, speaking so low I barely heard his instructions. “Stay with me.”

We inched along the wall while the sounds of scuffling and scurrying filled the room. Someone came close and Brody must have hit them because I felt him pull away, I heard a thud, and someone groaned.

I panicked, wanting to call out for him, terrified he might have been the one hit, but then his body found mine once more, shielding me and pulling me rapidly down the wall and toward the stairs.

I heard a little click and then a light pierced the deep blackness of the room. Someone turned on a flashlight app.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

“Move,” Brody ordered as the bright beam found us. He shoved me toward the stairs and I stumbled.

“Fuck,” he swore, scooping me back onto my feet and pushing me toward the bottom step. “Run, Taylor. Get the hell out of here and don’t look back!”

I scrambled up the steps, only making it about halfway when I realized he wasn’t right behind me.

“Brody!” I cried, turning back, looking for him.

He was planted at the bottom of the steps like some kind of badass bodyguard, brandishing a gun and holding them off.

As I stared, he raised the gun and fired off several shots in rapid succession.

“Run!” he yelled, not even looking up, but knowing I was there.

I started up the stairs again, but another shot had me turning back. I saw Brody jerk and stumble, reaching out to catch himself against the wall. Even as he fell, he fired his gun.

“Brody!” His name ripped from my throat as tears escaped from my eyes.

He grunted and got back to his feet, holding his side with one hand and firing with the other. I rushed back down the stairs. I couldn’t leave him here. I couldn’t let him stand there in harm’s way so I could run.

He looked up. “No, Taylor. Get the hell out of here!”

“No!” I screamed, far enough down now I reached out and grabbed his arm to pull him up the stairs with me.