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“Ah, yeah. My bad. Take a smoke, man. The next one’s a little lady all on her lonesome.”
“Think she’ll do it?”
“Who knows? If not, it’s a quickbang-bang-bangfor all three.” He mimes, firing a gun.
“Amen to that. Easy work.”
They bump knuckles, and then the gunman leaves the room. The other man takes a pistol from his hip, glancing at us.He shakes his head almost sadly, passing the gun from one hand to the other. I watch him carefully, still pretending to lean against the wall, behaving like I’m broken. My body is covered in bruises from the rubber bullets. My face is cut up from what they made Simone do.
But I’m ready. The trick now is waiting for a moment and using it to complete efficiency. Being as cold and brutal as I have to be so I can return to my woman. That’s the only thing that matters now. Focus. Breathe.
“Here you are, miss,” a voice says outside the cell. “Just what you were looking for.The answer, eh? Ha!”
The door whines open. Simone gasps from beside me. “L-L…”
She’s about to say Lena’s name, but then Lena steps forward, raising her voice. She’s using the affectations of a trust fund kid. It somehow sells her plain clothes and her unwashed hair. She seems like some crazy aristocratic lady. “Shut thefuckup, bitch,” she screams. “You don’t speak to me.”
Somebody closes the door from the outside. What is this man thinking? He’s alone in here with me. He thinks I’m that busted up.
Lena takes a few steps toward us. I can see through the perf’rmance she’s putting on. I can see the pain deep in her eyes as she looks at me and her mom. Somehow, she made it here. She’s so damn impressive. I love her. I almost say it. Instead, I cringe away like she’s the big bad wolfess.
“You know the rules,” the man says. “If you don’t do them, I do you. Simple.”
Lena turns to him. I almost lose it when she gives him a wide-eyed, seductive look. She bites her lip just like she does when I’m claiming her. It nearly pushes me right to the edge. No other man deserves that look. Never, but I know what she’s doing.
“Are you always this bossy?” Her chest is rising and falling in a hypnotic way. She’s not wearing a bra.
Fuck, the man’s looking at her nipples. His mask shifts. Is the freak licking his lips? “When I have to be,” he grunts. “All right, then. Let’s get on with it.” He raises the gun to Lena’s head.
Simone gasps. “Lena!”
The man looks at Simone and looks back to Lena. “Wait, you twoknoweach other?”
“Don’t you touch her,” Simone screams wildly.
The man laughs coldly, swings the gun around, and aims it at Simone. He’s about to say something else, something mocking. His eyes get a sadistic glint, but Lena does something extremely reckless and brave. She jumps at the man and grabs his wrist, wrenching on him, then brings her mouth down and bites down on his forearm so hard he screams.
“Bitch!” He spins on her as the gun drops to the floor.
I spring from the wall. This is going to hurt. I don’t give a damn. With my hands behind my back, I throw my bulk against the man. I hit him with my body, my chest crashing into his face, sending him smashing against the wall. His head flies backward, and his skull cracks. I’ve been doing this long enough to know he’s dead before he hits the floor.
“Jamie,” Lena screams. The door to the cell swings open.
“What the—”
Time slows as I watch my woman raise the gun. The man in the doorway raises his. Lena pulls the trigger. The recoil knocks the weapon out of her hand, but she’s done her work. She’s hit the man right in his face. He collapses against the wall. She stares in horror at what she’s done, gasping.
“No time for that,” I roar, kneeling beside her. “The keys, Lena. The cuffs. They’re coming.Now.”
She looks up, spaced out momentarily, then crawls across the cell. I move with her, holding my hands in place. I can hear men at the end of the hallway. They’re approaching cautiously. Their footsteps are impossibly loud to me. The adrenaline, the fact they’ll execute my woman if they get in here…
Lena fumbles with the keys and turns the lock. It clicks open just as the first man enters the cell with an assault rifle raised. I swing my hand around, the one with the cuff still attached, and pick up the gun. He shoots and misses. Fuck. That was lucky. I smoke him in the head, then grab his rifle, not thinking. I’m just in the moment.
The other man is on the other side of the door. I hear him. No, the other side of thewall. Stepping back, I raise the rifle and fire into the wall, starting low. I hear him grunt. It must knuckle his knees. I tear the wall apart, grab the pistol, and peek around the door. He’s moaning, staring up at me. He would’ve killed the future mother of my children and my mother-in-law. He would’ve stolen the future from us. I put a bullet in his head. Turning to the women, I find Lena holding onto Simone, clinging tightly.
“I’m securing this location. You’ve got a new story now. You met Antonio at the fair. They fought, just like before. Then, the men who killed Antonio brought you here. You don’t know what it is. You know nothing about it. If you mentionthe answer, they might find out.”
Lena kisses her mom on the cheek, then stands. She’s trembling all over. She gently touches my shoulder, bruised by a rubber bullet. “Where are you going?”
