Marked Masters by Ritter Ames Read Free Book Online Page A

And the first shot screamed
over my head.
    The young thug was either a lousy shot or
just trying to scare the shit out of us. As far as I was concerned,
the latter was a fait accompli. It wasn't going to get us to stop,
however. Jack's jaw tightened a little more. His lips looked like
one thin line.
    "Hang on," he yelled.
    Like I'd even let go if I could.
    Still, when he took a kamikaze opportunity
to use an almost nonexistent break in oncoming traffic to zip at
the last second into a tiny, nearly passed mouth of an alley, my
heart practically left my body. Amid the cacophonous crescendo of
angry horns and panicked brakes, I experienced centrifugal force
strong enough to give me an idea what a facelift felt like without
the benefit of anesthesia. I don't know how he kept us vertical. We
did go up on two wheels at one point, and landed hard when my side
again belly flopped to the asphalt. Was there a way to get whiplash
without being hit? If so, just call me the poster girl.
    The Mercedes fishtailed dangerously close to
each side of the alley, clipping a Dumpster with the right rear
bumper and nearly sideswiping the concrete facades of the buildings
until Jack fought and regained full control. I had no idea if we
were going the right way down the narrow one-way crevasse, so I
kept my eyelids squeezed shut and prayed. I didn't know the ethics
of praying when breaking the law to save your life, but a second
later Jack shot out the other side and hung another hard left. I
opened my eyes when I felt the sun's heat again hitting my face and
looked to my right to see the light winking across the water of
Biscayne Bay. I started breathing again.
    "How in the hell did you keep from hitting
something?" I grabbed my head with both hands. "How did you ever
get onto this busy road, making a left no less, without causing a
pileup?"
    "One of us must have a guardian angel." He
grinned.
    "Well, I'll admit I closed my eyes and
prayed."
    "Me too."
    My jaw dropped. "You what?"
    "Just kidding." He laughed.
    Okay, it may have lightened the moment, but
we both knew we had to get off the grid soon. Jack made three more
quick turns, but since our pursuers had apparently missed their
first opportunity to blast through the alley with us, they either
had to reconnoiter after overshooting the opening or had given up
the chase. I was betting on the former, since the gun convinced me
they were prepared to go to whatever lengths necessary.
    "So, who were they?" I asked when Jack
finally slipped the Mercedes into a public parking garage. We
needed a brief bit of privacy to get our pulse rates back down to
nonemergency levels, and this hidey-hole fit our needs of the
moment.
    "That's the million-dollar question, I'd
say." He riffled his long fingers around the top of the steering
wheel, almost as if he couldn't believe it was still in one piece.
I understood the feeling. Then he mused, "Couldn't be Moran, since
the pair in the Honda seemed to have no compunction about killing
you."
    "Or, I'm not Moran's favorite anymore." I
frowned. Back to the question of why Moran spared me the last time.
And while the location and vehicles were different, I had to admit
there were some similarities between this incident and the shooting
by the motorcyclist in France, as well as our escape under gunfire
on the streets of London. Both were believed to be
Moran-commissioned jobs. Was this incident similar because Moran
was behind it? Or to make us think he was? "It wasn't the Amazon
this time though. Or Weasel and Werewolf."
    "No," Jack agreed. "Just two blokes who
looked like every other young man in Miami. Nothing
remarkable."
    "Except the gun."
    "There is that. Made an impression, I take
it."
    "Forty-four Magnums usually do."
    "Thank your guardian angel he had that
cannon. He likely wouldn't have missed if he'd been aiming with a
lighter gun." He slipped off his Ray-Bans and pulled out his phone.
"In the meantime, I think we need to add some insurance in case
there were