Page 33 of Broken

No fucking phone.

Then who had sent the video and now called him? He jerked the cell away from his ear—it was the same number as the video clip.

“It’s done.” Instinct had Echo responding. He lifted his shocked gaze from the phone in his hand and back to Ice. The assassin could have pulled his gun and killed him by now when his attention had been snared by the phone call. Why hadn’t he? Why was he still breathing when Ice could have ended his life several ways as soon as he’d taken the call?

But Ice hadn’t taken the shot.

Echo started forward, and Ice jerked upright and rolled over the wooden railing and into the water.

“Ice! Wait…” Echo ran, he was fucking fast, but he got there too late to do anything but gaze over the railing at the dark churning water.

“Fuck, fuck!” Echo snarled and without thinking, he leaped the railing, gun and all. He went in feet first and the cold water closed over his head. It was dark as shit and he stayed under as long as he could hold his breath, searching the black depths.

He saw nothing.

No body, no shadow, it was too fucking dark. Surfacing for air, he slapped at the water.

“Shit! God damn it!” he shouted. “Ice! Ice!”

Only silence answered him.

Reaching the shore, Ice pulled himself up to lay in a rocky crevice. He thought he heard Echo shouting, but he had to be hallucinating.

Assassins never shouted. It was detrimental to their health. Ah, well, was this the way he was going out? It was hard to wrap his head around, but since he was going to die here tonight, he was glad that Echo had been the one to do it.

He wondered if it had been Echo’s idea to terminate him or had he just been another job? And why? He couldn’t recall doing something that bad that would piss Echo off. Or anyone else for that matter. He’d never know for sure who had ordered the hit, because it had surely been a hit.

An old saying suddenly came to mind.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

The ocean smelled of salt, sand, and seaweed, and he figured it would be a good way to go if he could just let the waves carry him away and sink into the darkness.

“You fucker!”

He gazed up when Echo’s face appeared over him. Okay, now he really was hallucinating.

Just in case, Ice held out his hand to stop the knife attack that was surely coming. Just let him bleed out, let him go in peace.

“Don’t. Just…let me float on the waves.”

At the choked-out words, something ragged grew in Echo chest and it pissed him off.

“I should gut you,” he snapped, his breath coming in huge gasps…it had to be from searching the water and not the feeling of panic he couldn’t shake.

He never fucking panicked in a situation like this.

Ever.

Reaching down, he hauled Ice up, which wasn’t easy since the fucker outweighed him by a lot. Ice swayed, panted, and groaned. With Ice’s arm around his neck and his own gripping the assassin’s waist, Echo walked them as far up out of the rocks and water as he could and gently lowered Ice onto the sandy part of the beach.

“Hey, are you guys okay?” a voice called out.

“Do we look okay?” Echo snapped with a glare at the surfer dude, who ran up to them. “Do you have a phone?”

“Yeah,” the guy said slowly and handed it over.

Echo dialed one of the hundreds of numbers he had stashed in his head.

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