Zero Sum Game by SL Huang Page A

and relief.
    My ears rang in the sudden stillness.
    I rose cautiously from my crouch behind the downed bike and stepped out gun first, my boots crunching on sandy gravel and the shards of my shredded motorcycle. I had expected to see Rio striding toward me, tan duster swirling around him; instead, the silhouette of my assist was shorter and darker—and was transferring his gun from the defeated biker gang to me. My own SIG snapped over in the same instant, and I found myself facing the cop who had held me up earlier that same day, who was apparently really fucking good at tailing me, and who was quickly becoming the bane of my existence.
    We stood for a moment pointing guns at each other.
    “Someone wanted you super-dee-duper dead,” the cop said finally, almost idly. His eyes flickered down to the muscle-bound corpses, then back up to me. “You piss off some one-percenters?”
    One-percenters? I searched my memory. That was cop-speak for the outlaw motorcycle gangs, wasn’t it? The answer to his question was no, I wasn’t at odds with anyone in the outlaw biker crowd—in fact, I’d had a few as clients before, and they’d all been perfect gentlemen. I did have enemies who might have hired these guys, but…well. If this attack wasn’t related to Courtney Polk somehow, I would eat my gun.
    I kept the SIG pointed at the cop and didn’t say anything.
    “This ain’t random lawlessness,” the cop mused. “This was a hit. A real overboard hit. Either these fellas had a big ol’ beef with you, sweetheart, or someone out there—”
    I was about to mete out fair punishment for calling me “sweetheart”—in the form of a high-velocity .40-caliber bullet—when someone behind the cop coughed wetly.
    I moved before the sound had registered. With two possible threats and only one weapon, a quick slip to the side put the cop and the cough in the same trajectory so they formed one neat line in front of my gun.
    The cop himself hesitated for half an instant. Then, apparently making a split-second judgment call that I wouldn’t shoot him in the back compared to the definite threat if one of the biker gang was still alive, he too spun toward the noise, weapon first.
    “First rule,” I growled, annoyed. “Make sure they’re dead when you kill them.”
    “He ain’t getting up,” said the cop, though instead of sounding defensive, he only sounded grave.
    I sidled cautiously up beside him. He was right. For starters, an eight-hundred-pound Harley pinned the guy solidly to the ground. Still, considering he was a spectacular specimen of outlaw motorcycle gang, as enormous as a mountain troll and with tattooed biceps as big around as my waist—literally, which was kind of scary—he might have been able to rescue himself except for the professional double-tap in the center of his chest leaking a black stream of wetness through the leather.
    Typical police technique, I thought derisively, but still, the marksmanship impressed me. If the guy hadn’t been the size of a Yeti, he’d be dead already. As it was, he was well on his way, nerveless fingers scratching weakly at the metal trapping him. I knew the math, but it was still somehow fascinating that two comparatively tiny holes could take down such a giant.
    I did a quick visual survey of the carnage to make sure no one else had survived—I knew all mine were dead; I never mess around with that center-of-mass crap—then stepped over to stand above my erstwhile attacker and put the barrel of my SIG in his face. “Who hired you?”
    He glared at me, glassy-eyed and hateful. “Cunt,” he whispered, blood bubbling in the corner of his mouth.
    I quashed the urge to quip that he’d noticed my gender; I could already hear something of a death rattle in that one word. “Who hired you?” I repeated.
    “No one,” he spat. “We wanted to.”
    Well, that was new. People who wanted to kill me for fun.
    “Who told you she’d be here?” the cop asked next to