AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d rather rip out his throat than tell him what I want for Christmas. And there’s no way I’m going to sit on his lap even if he pushes that gun to my head.
“We both fire at ourselves at the same time. The first one down is the loser, clearly. Right here.” Drago points to an area in his torso. He’s clearly enjoying this.
“A gut shot,” Ricardo clarifies. His eyes are dark, brooding, cynical. “A slow bleed.”
“If you die, then it’s over anyway. But a gut shot…” Drago simply shrugs.
It’s painful. A much more drawn-out death with the wounded man bleeding out on the floor while the other has his way with me.
This is the worst kind of power play I’ve ever seen, and the result will be sex and death, and maybe not in that order. Why do those two things always go together? I fucking hate it, every second of it. I especially hate the curve of Drago’s lips as he reaches for me to brush the hair away from my face. His touch is proprietary as he traces the shape of my face, my jaw, my cheekbones.
“Look away if you have to, my dear,” he urges.
What if this is the last time I see Ricardo alive? What if he loses the bet, and we’re done before we’ve ever had a chance to start?
The thought has formed and slams into my consciousness hard enough to take me to the floor. I lock my knees harder to stay standing, forcing my arms to go limp rather than putting up a fight, which will only hurt us more.
Ricardo clicks the safety off of the gun and holds it out in front of him, waiting and poised until Drago does the same. “On your count.” He looks utterly fearless. He’s the object of my every desire, and I dread the next second.
Drago lets out a low rumble of laughter before he transfers his gun to his dominant hand and mimics Ricardo’s posture. “Count of three,” he says.
I fight myself at this point to stay rooted to the spot rather than launching in between them.
Ricardo’s mouth goes hard. One. If I had any sense of self-preservation at all, I’d end it now; I’d take myself out before anyone else got hurt.
Two.
He stays strong, and a whimper somehow escapes through my pursed lips. My mouth forms the words to get them to stop, to curse, to do anything other than watch.
“Three.”
Both guns fire at the same time, nothing but the click of an empty chamber.
Neither of the guns go off.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Rather than sound relieved, Ricardo is livid. “Again.” My heart leaps up into my throat, and at the count of three, the two men pull the triggers. Once again, two empty chambers click. He cocks the gun a third time, lifting it straight at Drago. “Have you rigged this game, you piece of shit?”
My relief is instantaneous and strong enough to send my gut swirling.
Instead of backing down, Drago’s grin widens into something clownish and awful. “You watched me load both guns the same way. Try it again and see if you get a different result. Go on, son.”
Ricardo maintains eye contact with Drago as he reaches out his arm to its fullest extent and fires off a shot at one of the men, the thin one with the rat eyes. This time, the gun goes off, the bullet hitting somewhere in the man’s mid-chest. Red blossoms from the area, growing like a flower in the sun.
The man stares at Drago in utter disbelief. He topples to his knees before falling on his side and lying still. His body twitches before he dies.
“See?” Drago asks. He makes it sound like no great loss. “The next shot might have done you in, Mr. Assante.”
Ricardo hasn’t lowered the pistol. “Care to try it again and see which one of us falls beside him?”
I tense, waiting to see what is said next. What happens next? Maybe we’ll get luckier yet and Drago’s gun will go off, killing him slowly. He deserves to pay for everything he’s put us through.
One last chance to get out of here.
He seems to change his mind at the last minute. “Fine,” he replies. “We will call it a win for you, Ricardo, since you’ve downed my third in command. I’ll miss that son of a bitch. He had a sick sense of humor.”
The air thickens with tension the longer Ricardo stays pointing his pistol at Drago. After a heartbeat, he lowers his arm and clicks open the chamber to make sure there are no more bullets left.
He clicks the safety back on and stashes the gun at the back of his pants. Slowly, he cuts his attention over to me. Nothing. There is nothing but the promise of what is to come on his face, and whether he is relieved to be alive or drawing what he has to do next, I have no idea. There is no way out of this, I think as he takes a step toward me. No way for me to even pretend I don’t want his hands on me because I do.
