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I reached for the handle of the car, but a bullet bouncing off the door made me freeze.
“Not so fast.”
I turned to find the man who had spoken first with a pistol pointed directly at Kenz, his cheek red and swollen, his gait not nearly as good as it had been when he’d swaggered around with that bat of his. It seemed the others had done a number on him.
Not enough, though, given he still breathed.
“This is over,” the man snapped. “I’m taking her.”
“No, you aren’t.”
He walked up and pressed the muzzle of his gun to my forehead. Even still, I didn’t pull away, I took the threat and kept Kenz behind me.
“Do you want to die?”
“Not yet,” I answered.
“Then let me have her. I’m done playing this game, done fucking around. You hand her over or you get a bullet. That’s it.”
Kenz released my hand, the action a surrender, like she already knew my answer. Even if I hadn’t been ready for this before, however, her doing that made the choice easy.
I grasped her hand tighter, squeezing hard, hoping she understood what I meant.
“I pick the bullet.”
Chapter Sixteen
Tor
Blood on my hands was far from unusual. Somehow, at times like this, I didn’t even feel like myself. Or, perhaps, it was more accurate to say I felt more like myself than ever?
Whatever the option, it wasn’t how I felt at other times. When I fought, when I killed, I became something else, something driven by instinct, something that only saw action and reaction. It meant when one person moved, I immediately moved in response, countering.
And the trail of bodies I left proved my skill with such arts.
I panted hard, but to someone looking at me, it might not seem it. When the man before me dropped, I peered around to take note of the situation.
In short? We’d won. Six weren’t really a big deal—I could have dealt with them all on my own if I didn’t have to deal with protecting anyone else. Char and Hayden remained on their feet, each nearly finished with their own adversaries.
Then my gaze caught on the first thing to cause me any real spark of fear. Vance stood near the car, Kenz with him, their hands grasping each other, and the leader with his gun pressed to Vance’s forehead.
And the look on the man’s face? Iknewthat look. It was someone ready to pull the trigger, someone prepared to spill blood. My body moved faster than my thoughts, my steps light, as I reached into my jacket to wrap my fingers around the handle of a thin, sharp blade.
That man was the last standing—outside of the ones Hayden and Char finished off. Still, one tiny jerk of his finger on the trigger would be it.
Even I couldn’t stop a bullet fired from that range.
Vance didn’t flinch, didn’t do anything but stand straight, his blue eyes hard. Seeing him like that felt like seeing a different man from the one I’d come to know. He was often unreliable, selfish, the epitome of a rich, spoiled brat. He’d taken the damage to his hand as the end of his life, and he’d lost most joy and pleasure in his life.
Even when he spent the nights with random women, I never saw any true contentment or enjoyment from it for him.
However, it wasn’t the spoiled brat there—it was a man willing to stand tall no matter what came at him.
And the reason was clear—it was the woman with him, the one whose eyes were peeled wide as though she couldn’t believe what rested before her.
I shook away those things, focusing instead on details. The man’s arm held straight, but his posture slightly to the side—courtesy of his tangling with Hayden, no doubt. His hold on the gun implied he was comfortable with the weapon, that he used it enough, which meant firing it would be second nature to him.
Situations like this were always a gamble, no matter how little I liked that. I could approach this as perfectly as possible, but one twitch of his finger and I couldn’t counter that.
