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Maybe worse though.
“You chickenshit coward,” Jericho snarled. “You’re too scared of me to even show me your face.”
The taunt worked because the guy cursed and ripped off the balaclava.
Arnez.
Of course, it was. With his background in an illegal militia group, Arnez likely had access to all sorts of weapons to immobilize a van. And it’d worked. He’d gotten Jericho and was now about to kill him.
But what had the asshole done with Rayna and Marco?
Jericho very much wanted to know that, but bringing up their names wouldn’t deliver the taunt needed to unhinge Arnez and maybe give Jericho a fighting chance to survive.
“Chickenshit coward,” Jericho repeated. “You knew you couldn’t win in a fair fight against me so you sucker punched me. You fight like a limp dick wuss, Arnez, not like a real man. Is that why you left the militia? ’Cause your candy ass just couldn’t cut it?”
Arnez hurled the shovel full of dirt, and it landed with a walloping thud against Jericho’s chest. Jericho figured that was it, that the taunt had failed, but then Arnez reached down into the two-foot-deep space of the grave he’d dug. The man latched onto Jericho and dragged him out.
The pain fired through Jericho. So much pain. Spearing through too many parts to name. He hurt like hell all over. But he probably had just one shot, and he had to ignore the pain and take it.
He did.
Once Jericho could see his surroundings, he made a split-second assessment of the situation. It was night, not pitch dark though, thanks to the moon. And they were in a small clearing in the woods. He caught just a glimpse of a truck parked on a narrow trail under a canopy of trees.
“I ain’t no chickenshit coward,” Arnez snarled, and he finished dragging Jericho upward.
The moment that Jericho was fully out of the grave, Arnez drew back his fist—apparently ready to punch a man he thought incapable of punching back.
Arnez was wrong about that.
The man moved fast, but Jericho was faster. Rearing back, he bashed his head as hard as he could against Arnez’s face. A direct hit that had blood spewing from Arnez’s nose. Jericho heard the satisfying sound of cartilage snapping.
Arnez howled in pain and staggered back. Before he could stagger back too far, Jericho brought up his hands, ramming them into Arnez’s throat.
Snarling and making sounds like some crazed animal, Arnez dropped to his knees, landing further away than Jericho had hoped. Still, Jericho managed to hobble forward enough to yank the gun from Arnez’s hip holster.
Hoping like the devil that he didn’t miss, Jericho leaned down, took as careful aim as he could and shot the zip tie, the bullet clipping the edge of his boot but also tearing through the plastic restraint.
With his feet free, Jericho came up ready to fight.
But so did Arnez.
Arnez probably still hadn’t caught his breath from the throat punch, and his nose was gushing blood, but he was fueled with rage and adrenaline. Jericho was feeling pretty much the same, and he wanted to make this dickhead pay for the misery he’d caused Rachel and so many other people.
Lowering his head, Arnez charged at Jericho and tackled him before Jericho could take aim at him. The damn zip ties on his wrists definitely weren’t going to help in this fight. Ditto for the wounded shoulder. Still, it was a fight he had to figure out some way to win.
Arnez was clearly aiming for a win, too.
Pinning down Jericho’s shooting hand, Arnez gave him another punch in the kidney and was about to ram his fist into his balls, but Jericho brought up his own knee, connecting with Arnez’s gut. The air wheezed out of the man, making the sound of a deflating balloon, but Jericho had no doubts that Arnez would quickly regroup.
At least he would have had it not been for the shot.
For a second, Jericho thought the gun he was holding had gone off. But no. The shot had come from the right on the opposite side of the woods from where Jericho had seen the truck, and it hadn’t come toward Arnez and him. It’d been a warning shot.
“Stop,” someone shouted.
Marco.
And even though Jericho’s head was pounding, he thought he heard two sets of running footsteps. Probably Rayna.
