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The other man burst forward, then veered a sharp left, heading straight for a brown backpack near Mika. Carlos ran at him, diving for Josh’s legs and missing by inches. He landed on the ground with enough force to knock the air from his lungs.
Seizing the momentary advantage, the dealer snagged the backpack with his injured arm, visibly wincing, and pulled a gun from a thigh holster with his good hand.
“Carlos!” Mika screamed.
She kicked out at Josh’s legs right as he pulled the trigger. The shot went wild. A burning pain zipped across Carlos’s ass. He vaulted up from the ground and charged, sending Josh flying. He followed him to the ground, landing on top of him with the full impact of all his weight. He clamped one hand around Josh’s arm and slammed it again and again against a rock until the gun dropped from his grasp.
Carlos scooped it up in the same motion as he stood, planted one foot hard against Josh’s throat, and aimed at the dealer’s head. All it would take was the bending of one finger tugging the trigger back and he’d be gone forever.
“Don’t do it,” Mika said.
The urge to shoot and avenge Mika tore through him. “He deserves it.”
“Death is too easy for him,” she said. “He needs to pay for what he did.”
The gun felt so comfortable in his hand, so right. Pulling the trigger would be so easy, and no one would miss a piece of shit like Josh. He deserved to die—not just for what he’d done to Mika but for how the drug-dealing scum had made the people of Harbor City suffer. He stroked the trigger.
Mika laid her cheek softly on his shoulder. The kind touch reminded him of what he’d lose if he took the shot. He’d lose the woman he loved—his heaven—and probably his soul, too. Carlos wasn’t hesitating out of guilt for what happened with Ivy. He could finally accept that he didn’t have a choice in that instance. It was a millisecond of time in which he had to pick between saving two good lives or ending one bad one. This time he did have a choice. He chose Mika.
“Consider yourself lucky, asshole.” He lowered the gun to his side and removed his boot from the other man’s windpipe.
Josh sucked in a desperate breath. “Just kill me. I’m dead anyway. Diamond Tommy’s guys will get me before I ever make it to a bail hearing.”
“It sucks being someone’s loose end, doesn’t it?” Carlos snarled.
Leaves rustled around them as Alex and Will strode into the clearing. Both men stood guard over Josh, weapons pulled and aimed at his heart.
“The cops and ambulances are on their way,” Alex said. “Those other guys did a hell of a job making a distraction. Shit. I thought we were under attack from aliens.” He looked down at Josh, who again clutched his injured arm close to his chest. “You could make a deal with the DA. Give them Tommy in exchange for protective custody in prison.”
“I like to dress up and play role-playing games, but that doesn’t mean I’m a naive idiot,” he said. “Once I get in the back of a patrol car, my personal countdown clock is ticking. Everyone knows it.”
Carlos crossed his arms. “Then y
ou’d better talk fast.”
“I don’t have anything. I never talked directly to Tommy—just people who said they worked for him.” Josh’s voice went up an octave at the end of his declaration, bone-deep panic finally settling in.
“Then you’d better hope they were lying,” Carlos said. “Because you’re looking at a lifetime behind bars, and Tommy hates loose ends more than you do.”
Carlos turned on his heel and marched across the clearing to Mika, pulling his utility knife out of a pocket hidden in his costume’s breastplate. Purple finger-shaped bruises marred her throat. Her costume was ripped, and a skinny line of blood had dried on her stomach.
Angry heat burned its way up from his toes, and the need to go back and shoot that son of a bitch pounded against his skull. But Mika was more important than revenge. So he squatted down, ignoring the blinding white flare of pain in his ass from where the bullet had done its damage, and he focused on the woman he loved.
Emotions ate away at him as he opened the knife and went to work on Mika’s bindings. He didn’t have the words to say what he needed to. How did he apologize for letting the woman he loved nearly die? How did he take back the words he’d said when he’d been desperate to push her away? What did he say when there wasn’t enough sorry in the world to make up for what he’d done?
The rope gave before the words came.
She flexed her fingers as she looked up at him, an emotion he didn’t understand watering her eyes. “I told you to stay away, but you came anyway.”
“I don’t always follow directions.” He flipped the knife closed and stuffed it back in the hidden pocket, needing to do something with his hands that didn’t involve touching her. He was afraid if he did, he’d never let go. “Somebody told me I should try being impulsive sometimes.”
“I’m glad.” The tears spilled over. “You saved me.”
It was too much. He couldn’t stop himself. If he never let go again, so be it. Carlos stood, pulling Mika up with him and gathering her in his arms. It could have just been coming down off the adrenaline rush or that connection between them wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he fought it, but she wrapped her arms tight around his waist and buried her face in his chest.
He couldn’t offer the words, but he could give her this. He could be her constant.
“I hate to interrupt, folks.” A paramedic popped up in his peripheral vision. “But you’re bleeding profusely, sir, and we need to get you checked out right away.”
