Chapter 10 - The False Victory
The force of the bullet spun Ponytail around, and he dropped the knife.
Brutus instantly snapped his jaws, lunging forward and knocking the wounded cartel boss flat onto his back.
Mave sprinted across the aisle and kicked the hunting knife far into the shadows.
Declan Gallagher limped out from the darkness, leaning heavily against a rusted forklift.
His gun was still smoking.
He painfully made his way over to Ponytail and bent down to retrieve the black leather notebook.
Police sirens were growing incredibly loud outside the warehouse walls.
"You handled yourself well tonight, Mave," Gallagher coughed, clutching his bleeding side.
"Your debt is officially paid in full."
Half an hour later, Gallagher's backup arrived and transported them to an underground medical safe house.
Gallagher was taken into a sterile back room to have his wounds stitched.
Mave sat in the quiet, heavily guarded kitchen, holding a mug of hot tea with shaking hands.
She had survived the impossible night.
Toby was safe, her mother's medical bills would be paid, and she was under the permanent protection of the city's biggest boss.
She walked into the small bathroom to wash the dried blood off her face and hands.
The black leather notebook was sitting on the sink counter, left there carelessly by one of Gallagher's guards.
Curiosity finally overwhelmed her exhaustion.
She opened the cover to look at the list of corrupt officials that had caused so much death.
She flipped to the very first page of the cartel's highest-paid informants.
The breath left her lungs in a violent, icy rush.
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The biggest name on the payroll, the informant who had orchestrated the hit on Gallagher tonight, was not a rival mobster or a dirty cop.
It was her own mother.
