by Pam Godwin
Lying on her stomach in a puddle of breathless terror, she readjusted her grip on the knife and poised it just out of view.
He paused at the foot of the bed, and her pulse went berserk. He lowered into a squat, and her adrenaline kicked in, muffling all sound. Then she lunged, slashing the knife, fast and deep, across his ankles.
With a guttural cry, she hacked again, less effective this time as his legs whirled, soaking her hand in hot blood.
The gun fired with a suppressed pop. She didn’t slow her attack. Swiping the blade across his shins, she scrambled out from under the bed. The metal frame ripped along her back, but she didn’t feel the pain. Right now, all she felt was the driving urgency to eliminate the threat.
She kept the knife in constant motion, lacerating his legs again and again. Raging fear and frustration constricted her chest. How was he still standing?
A dry click sounded from the pistol. Out of bullets.
His body crashed onto hers, heavy and uncoordinated. She’d maimed him, but he wasn’t giving up.
“Who are you?” She twisted beneath him and buried the blade in his thigh. “How the fuck do you know me?”
He roared in agony and grabbed for the knife. She yanked it away and stabbed him in the stomach.
His hand collided with her face, smashing her jaw with a force that sent her flying backward. She didn’t have time to control her landing. The impact with the floor snatched the breath from her lungs, and her head bounced off the corner of the wall, shooting stars across her vision.
She blinked rapidly, panting and disoriented. When her eyes came into focus, he was on his knees, crawling toward her with a hand wrapped around the knife in his gut.
“Why won’t you fucking die?” she screamed and threw herself at him, pounding her fists in his face. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
He fell onto his back, choking and smiling through a gurgle of blood. “The bridge.”
Her heart stopped and restarted. “How do you know about that? What does it have to do with you?”
With a strangled laugh, he grabbed her throat and wrenched her ear against his mouth. “Thur…nnnn…eee.”
She tried to jerk away, but he had a death grip on her neck. He’d lost too much blood to be this strong.
Her hands moved without thought, grabbing the knife, sliding it from his belly, and thrusting it back in. Again. Again. The fist on her throat dropped away as she continued to stab him.
Over and over, she aimed for vital organs—stomach, heart, neck, lungs. She was hitting ribs, struggling to spear the blade past bones. But he wasn’t moving. Didn’t appear to be breathing.
With a jolt, she broke out of her fugue and scooted away, taking the knife and his gun with her.
Numbness spread over her as she sat in the dark, gulping, unmoving in a crippled state of shock and horror.
She needed to do something. Close the door. Wash her hands. Turn off the shower. Check his pulse.
No. Fuck, no. She didn’t want to touch him.
Blood soaked his clothes, the floor, her fingers, the knife. So much of it. Everywhere. He couldn’t be alive. No way.
Still, she didn’t twitch a muscle, too terrified a sound might resurrect him.
He’d come here to kill her. If she hadn’t checked the window, he would’ve succeeded.
Who in the hell would go through the trouble of killing her? Why? He’d mentioned the bridge, but it didn’t make sense. Was someone offended that she contemplated suicide ten years ago?
Mason didn’t know about that. No one knew about it.
Except Tommy.
No. It wasn’t possible. Tommy wouldn’t have sent this man. If he wanted her dead, he would’ve done it himself.
Minutes passed, and the flow of her adrenaline slowed, bringing awareness to her body, to the pain in her face and back and the uncontrollable shaking in her limbs.
She wiped the knife on her pants, cleaning off the blood. More covered her hands. She needed to get moving.
The sound of an approaching car pierced through her daze. Headlights illuminated the open doorway. Doors slammed. Footsteps advanced.
Her stomach tightened, and she whimpered.
More hitmen? A backup team for the man she’d just killed? Goddammit, she couldn’t fight off another attack.
Scooting backward in the dark, she slid between the mattress and wall, set the knife under the bed, and aimed the gun with both hands. It was out of bullets, but they wouldn’t know that.
Hidden by the bed, she ducked down low, tucking into a ball, and tried to control the torrent of her breaths.
The tread of heavy boots crossed the threshold. Multiple intruders.
Oh, God, I’m dead. I’m dead. So fucking dead.
The overhead lights illuminated, blinding her eyes. Curled up on the floor, she aimed the gun upward, and another gun pointed back.
“Rylee.” Tommy stood over her, his face set in stone, eyes bloodshot, and posture vibrating with unleashed fury. “Lower the gun.”
Relief, distrust, fear, anger—so many emotions battled inside her. She didn’t move.
“He’s dead,” a deep, masculine voice said. Chillingly deep. “No wallet or ID.”
“Rylee, lower the gun,” Tommy said in his domineering tone.
“Fuck you.”
The owner of the unfamiliar voice stepped into view and snatched her next breath. “You’re one woman against a gang of bloodthirsty savages.”
Savage was one way to describe him. Short brown hair. Razor-sharp eyes. Powerfully built. The faded scar that divided his cheek didn’t detract from his chiseled beauty. His smirk did. A lethal smirk, that curled arrogantly around a toothpick.
Van.
The monster who had captured and raped Tommy nine years ago.
“Don’t underestimate her.” Tommy gave her the full force of his eyes while addressing Van. “I’d rather take on you and your attic than this hellcat.”
What the fuck? He must be joking.
“I can arrange that.” Van clapped him on the back and ambled toward the bathroom.
The shower turned off, and he prowled back through the room, joining the din of footsteps and hushed voices that gathered outside the door.
Tommy unchambered the live round in his gun and wedged the weapon into the back of his jeans.
She tightened her grip on the pistol in her hands. “How did you find me?”
“We had a tail on the hitman.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the corpse, his expression unreadable. “You butchered him.”
“He deserved it.”
He went still, no part of him moving except his gaze, which darted over her, probing, flaring darkly. Deadly eyes. Hypnotic. God, the man was beautiful when he was contemplating murder. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’ve been hurt worse. Most recently, on your watch.”
“Yeah, I hurt you. Unjustly. Unforgivably. So shoot me.” He lowered to a crouch, leaning into the crack where she huddled, sucking all the oxygen. “Pull the fucking trigger.”
The gun rattled. Her breaths shook.
She couldn’t do it. Even knowing the gun was empty, she couldn’t take the risk. “I hate you.”
“I know, and I’m going to fix that.”
She blinked, unsure she heard him correctly. “Fix what?”
“I was wrong about some things.” He drifted closer, pressing his chest against the barrel of the gun. “You and I, we’re going to start over, but right now, I need to get you out of here.”
“No. Fuck that. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You’re in danger.”
She met his treacherous stare. “You think?”
In a blink, he snatched the gun from her hand, aimed it at the ceiling, and fired a dry click, without a twitch of surprise.
He’d known the whole time it wasn’t loaded.
“Let’s go.” He held out a hand in the narrow space between them.
More footsteps
entered the room. More ruthless friends to aid in her mistreatment.
Reaching under the bed, she grabbed the knife and angled it at his throat. “Back up.”
His eyes glinted, and he pressed forward, cutting his neck on the blade. “You can do better, Rylee.” He dropped his voice to a heated whisper. “Hate me with your body. It’s far more satisfying.”
She was struck by how much sharper his words were than the weapon in her hand. He bled from a small cut in his throat while she hemorrhaged in endless, agonizing bitterness.
For reasons she didn’t understand, someone wanted her dead. Maybe that someone wasn’t Tommy, but… “You starved me.”
“A decision I regret. Tonight, I have a new priority, and that is protecting you.”
“You can’t protect me from yourself.”
“No.” His gaze, warm and richly gold, never wavered from hers. “You’ll have to weigh that risk.”
His throat didn’t bob against the knife. His hand didn’t swing to overpower her. He just waited her out while his friends searched the dead body.
She leaned in and tipped up the blade, lifting his chin. “No shackles.”
“Not unless you beg.”
“Never. What about the last rule in the rules of three?”
Three months without hope.
“We were ten minutes behind the hitman. I knew I would arrive too late.” His face took on an expression she’d never seen there before. Torment. “The whole way here, I knew I would hold your dead body, look into your lifeless eyes, and never experience hope again.” He touched the pads of his fingers to her throbbing jaw, featherlight. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but for the first time in ten years, I have hope in my grasp, and I’m going to fight like hell to keep it.”
Just words. Nice words. Profound words, if she were honest. But they wouldn’t keep her safe. “I will never forgive you.”
“I look forward to all the ways you’re going to never forgive me. Lower the knife, Rylee.”
He could take it himself. He was stronger, faster, expertly trained in disarming opponents. But for some insane reason, he wanted her to make this step.
It didn’t mean anything. She was in danger, and he was the only person who could help her.
She tossed the knife.
With a nod, he rose and held out his hand.
“You should clean that cut.” She rejected his waiting hand and pushed to her feet. “Someone else’s blood was all over that blade.”
He stepped back, giving her space to move out of her hiding spot. The room was empty, the corpse covered with a blanket. Everyone waited outside.
“You have two minutes to clean up.” He nodded at the bathroom.
She didn’t have to look down at her body. Her skin shivered beneath a sheen of cold, wet blood.
“Who’s here with you?” She strode into the bathroom, grateful to find the clothes she’d left in here earlier.
“Half the team.” He followed her in and gripped the hem of her bloody shirt. “Arms up.”
Sensing the tension in his posture, she let him undress her. “You’re expecting more hitmen?”
“Yes.” He traced a finger along the torn, burning skin that ran the length of her spine. “How did this happen?”
“The bed frame. I saw the gunman talking to the motel clerk. It gave me time to hide.” She washed her upper body in the sink, thinking through the ramifications. “The clerk might’ve called the cops.”
“The clerk was dead when we arrived.”
She froze in horror.
“Keep washing, Rylee.” He crouched behind her and carefully lowered her filthy pants. “You have one minute.”
Another dead body. Three in one week. Because of her. Who would be next?
Shoving down a thousand questions, she focused on scrubbing away the blood.
As Tommy helped her step out of her pants, she was viscerally aware of how close his mouth hovered to her bare backside. His breath caressed her flesh, prickling goosebumps, and his hands ghosted down the backs of her thighs, too tender to belong to the man who’d viciously fucked her in the desert.
“What are you doing?” She jerked her hips, trying to dislodge his touch.
With a firm grip on her butt, he gave her a warning squeeze. Then he released her and grabbed a clean towel.
Seconds later, she was wiped down and dressed in clean lounge pants and a t-shirt.
As he soaped up his neck and scrubbed the cut she’d inflicted, his gaze locked on hers in the mirror. There was something different about him. Something softer in the way he looked at her. It put her on edge.
When he clasped her hand to lead her out, she yanked free from his grip.
“Rylee.” He reached for her again, eyes hard.
“I’m not going to run.”
She walked out ahead of him and slammed into potent, eye-burning fumes of gasoline. The room had been doused in it.
“Where’s my ID? Clothes?” She spun in a circle.
“They grabbed it.” He caught her shoulders and pointed her toward the door.
With a hard swallow, she stepped around the covered corpse and into the dark parking lot.
Someone had killed the outside lights, but the moon was bloated and bright, illuminating a motorcycle, two SUVs, and two…four…seven human-shaped silhouettes.
The desert heat clung to the night air, but the atmosphere exuded a chill that seeped into her bones. All eyes turned to her, and she stumbled back as if she’d been shoved, crashing into Tommy’s broad chest.
“You’re safe.” He curled a hand around her hip and put his mouth at her ear. “You know them.”
Cole was easy to spot with his beard, leather jacket, and formidable lean against the motorcycle.
Next in line was a man with sloping shoulders, a stern expression, and red hair. That could only be Luke. Van stood beside him, gnawing on a toothpick.
Her heart thudded as she took in the others.
A Latina woman sat on the curb, cuddled in the arms of a man with dark blond hair and crystal blue eyes. Lucia and Tate? If they hadn’t been joined at the hip, she might not have guessed who they were. But Tommy’s emails often talked about how the two were never apart. He’d joked that they probably took their daily shits together.
Which brought her gaze to the imposing figure who stood away from the rest. Stubble shadowed a squared jaw and outlined sculpted lips. Dark hair, dark eyes, Hispanic features—all carved into the image of a shockingly attractive man. But his presence bespoke of something other. Something egregious, inhuman, and evil down to the morrow of his soul.
A shiver snaked through her, for she knew, without looking at the self-inflicted scars on his arms, that she was standing in the withering stare of one of the most ruthless crime lords in Venezuela.
In the name of all that’s holy, why is he here?
“I thought you…” Damn, her trembling voice. She cleared her throat. “You live on the other side of the world.”
“While I’m honored to make the cut into Tomas’ diary of angsty feelings, where I live is none of your goddamn concern, little girl.” He grinned, and it wasn’t a grin at all.
Her mouth went dry, and her pulse careened into hysteria.
“That’s enough, Tiago.” Tommy shifted her behind him and gripped her hand.
This time, she allowed it, squeezing tight to his fingers as he removed a set of keys from his pocket.
“If you let him intimidate you, he’ll never stop,” a woman spoke from the shadows of the SUVs. “He gets off on it.”
The striking image of the last silhouette emerged from the darkness, striding forward.
Dressed head to toe in black, she wore badass buckled boots, guns on her hips, and straight black hair to her waist. Slender limbs, all long and graceful, gave her the appearance of delicate femininity. But her bearing commanded attention. Her aura controlled the very air. Authority beamed from her glacial eyes.
Liv.
&nbs
p; The queen of depravity and dominance.
She’d molded Tommy into the sexual deviant he was today, and Rylee felt an irrational stab of jealousy over that. But she was also wonderstruck, tongue-tied, and instantly enamored.
The scar that hooked across Liv’s cheek replicated Van’s in its appearance and story. And like Van’s, it only added to her allure. The woman looked like Kate Beckinsale of the underworld—all sexy power, intimidation, and seduction.
“We’ll talk in the car,” Liv said in greeting and plucked the keys from Tommy’s hand. “I’m driving.”
This was happening.
Surrounded by criminals, Rylee felt the shadows closing in, tingling her nape and smothering her chances of survival. What had she gotten herself into?
Too late to run. She was outnumbered eight to one.
Eight darkly corrupted felons had traveled all the way here because of her. Because she’d invaded their privacy and gotten herself mixed up in something terrible.
She would have to go with them, wherever that might be, and hope to God they weren’t plotting her death.
Tommy held onto her numb hand and led her to the SUV.
Behind her, someone struck a match, and the motel erupted in flames.
In the darkness of the SUV, images of Rylee’s injuries worked through Tomas’ conscience. Something had struck her jaw with enough force to leave it swollen and red, and a nasty gash marred the length of her spine. Numerous marks cut and bruised her gorgeous flesh. But the other guy looked much worse.
She’d fought for her life and defeated a professional hitman. Admiration didn’t begin to express how he felt about her. A heady, complex cocktail of emotions hammered at him, mixing with adrenaline and twisting in his stomach.
He’d lost her four days ago. Almost lost her for good today.
Just like that, he forgave her for invading his privacy. Her life was in danger, and he felt responsible for that. He shouldn’t have let her leave with the detective. He should’ve fucking protected her.
She wasn’t the enemy.
Fate was giving him a second chance. A chance to right his wrongs with her and maybe, just maybe, find happiness again. He wouldn’t fuck it up. He’d meant what he told her. Tonight, he would begin anew.