I pulled into the shadow of a building to check my phone. I wanted to hear a southern drawl more than I wanted to take my next breath. I debated the risk to call someone, because an innocent chat might draw unwanted attention.
Something in the air shifted. It wasn’t a sound that caught my attention, but a feeling. I turned just in time to avoid the meaty hands reaching out to grab me.
On the sidewalk, people walked past, completely consumed with their own lives, hunched down in their coats and staring straight ahead. I felt like if I could only take a few steps and join the throng, they would engulf me. But safety in numbers didn’t feel like the true safety of my small southern town.
I tried.
I made it three steps.
A second pair of hands joined the first, and I was tugged back into the alley. One old man with a knee brace flicked a glance in my direction. He simply shook his head and kept walking.
They weren’t going to help me. I was being kidnapped, and they would just let it happen.
Well, fuck them.
I fought for everything I was worth. I kicked and screamed. I threw a punch. The delicious sound of cartilage crunching joined a sticky spray of blood. But there was a third man now. They managed to pull me behind the cement partition of a loading dock.
I saw red.
Dropping down, I let my weight work for me. The moment they struggled to hold me, I twisted free and picked up the first thing my hands met. A broken piece of wood from a pallet.
I swung.
The verbal hiss was a sweet reward.
“Just snap her neck so we can collect the bounty,” one of them bellowed as he ripped the board from my hand.
Liquid fear drenched my veins. This wasn’t a random mugging or a gang rape. These men were here—for me.
Three men. The same ones who’d broken into the butler’s cottage.
Knowing that gave me a fresh burst of adrenaline. I punched the soft flesh of someone’s abdomen, bruising the kidney. As my hand was yanked back, I felt something metal.
Something familiar.
I bucked hard, reaching blindly with my other hand.
Pudgy fingers wrapped around my throat. One twist, and it would all be over.
I wrapped my fingers around the weapon and pulled the trigger, not bothering to draw it from the guy’s holster.
His scream was followed instantly by the release of the hold on my throat. I yanked the pistol out, and my vision narrowed to a short field. The gun fired three times. I didn’t miss. Didn’t hold back. The silence that followed was deafening.
Hobbling to the wall, I leaned against it, gulping down air.
One of the guys twitched.
That was all it took for me to lose my lunch. Vomit spewed up my throat. In between bouts of retching, I watched the dead—and dying—men. They didn’t move. No one got up to come after me.
At least my daddy taught me how to use a firearm before he passed.
I sagged to the ground, suddenly unable to hold myself upright. It was terribly hot. The stale summer wind used the alley as a tunnel, whipping through with the speed and ferocity of a freight train.
What…now?
Calling the police was the first thought that popped into my head. I was the victim here. But it would only take a little digging for them to unravel the whole mess with my ex, the missing drugs, and the hit on my life.
I coughed. “No, I can’t do that.”
