AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tuck and roll, my delicate package against my chest and facing the door I just entered.
Behind me, I hear something that has the hair on my arms standing.
“Give her to me and I won’t put a bullet in your head until after I’m outside.” Rolling anger burns a new path through me and I relish the moment I get to test its limits. See how far it will take me this time. Because up to this moment I’ve been able to kill. But can I kill a friend with no remorse? I’m about to find out.
I can’t move. I do, and the steam surrounding me will shift, giving away my location.
Nor can I speak.
Heaven cries and that’s all it takes for me to get two slugs in the back—this time the vest absorbs most of the impact instead of my flesh. It’s a nice change for once.
I grunt from their impact and I hold my child close to my heart. Nothing in the world means more to me than her survival. Not mine. Not anyone’s.
I inhale and take in the sweetness I can only call Heaven’s scent. And now I understand the name her mother gave her.
In front of me, the door opens. I don’t want to but I palm my Desert Eagles and take sight down the barrel.
“Give her to me.”
Thank you, God. I send up a quick prayer and pass the meaning of my existence over to Ares. “I have her.”
“Go with Uncle Ares, baby. Daddy will be right back.”
With my arms free, I shake the fear of losing my baby to madness off, stand, and let loose hell’s terror.
Chips of cement go flying. I can’t see so I know sure as shit Doc can’t either.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?”
Pop. Pop.
“Taking what is mine.” Hated curls through the steam to steel my resolve.
Bright muzzle flash tells me he’s by the door but I’ve already moved away from the spot he thinks I’m in so the two he sends into the back wall do nothing.
Nothing makes sense anymore. But I don’t have time to play twenty questions. With my arms raised, I aim with both guns and work my way to the center of the room aiming high and low as I go. Bullets shatter glass, splinter wood, and loosen chunks of cement.
I don’t stop until I hear the grunt and wheeze of a man shot in the lungs.
I reload and pop a round in the chamber, ready to end this and get to Asena. Heaven is safe with my brothers.
But Doc here? Threatening me? My child? “Where is Asena?”
“Dead,” he snarls.
I find Doc slumped against the back wall, his gun at his side. Bubbles in the blood spilling from his mouth confirm a lung shot.
“Son of a bitch!” I lash out, slamming my fists into the hot tiles beneath us. I kick his gun away and come to keel over him. I grab his shirt in my fists and haul him off the wall. With my nose nearly touching his I bellow, “Why? You son of a bitch? Why did you make me shoot you?”
His bloody smile is the last thing he gives before Death steals him way.
From one breath to the next the man I thought was my friend, the man who saved my life twice dies choking on his own blood. Has the world turned mad?
I surge to my feet, my hands gripping my weapons. The second I step out of the steam I find Asena’s gaze across the bathhouse.
And mine immediately zeroes in on the scum holding a gun to her head and using her as a human shield.
His nostrils flare and there’s a wildness in his eyes I recognize as a man who has lost touch with reality.
