Page 84 of Malevolent King

I charged after them.

The one thing that my parents had agreed on in terms of brutal and depressing life lessons was that love was a weakness that could get you killed. It muted your instincts; it dulled your senses and overrode logic. That was never more apparent than today.

As I barreled outside after Sofia, pure terror for her blinding me from everything else, the attack came from the side. Waiting for someone to run blindly through a door was tactics 101, yet I’d fallen for it because I couldn’t tear my eyes from the sight of the woman I loved being painfully dragged, her legs scrambling on the ground, her head thrashing in her attacker’s hard grip.

Two men waited for me outside the door, and they didn’t hold back. One grabbed me around the middle as the other punched me. He was slow and heavy, however, and I was able to get my legs up and push back off his stomach, head-butting the man behind me and taking us both to the ground. Once I was down, I slashed the tendons of the man still standing, leaving him screaming in pain as I twisted toward the one who’d held me. I jerked his hand up just in time to send his shot wide. The gunshot echoed around the compound, then another swiftly followed. I looked up. My attacker staggered to the side, a new hole in his head. Whipping my head to the other side, I looked for the shooter.

Angelo lay on the ground, his injured leg straight before him and his back propped against the side of the garage. He was white and looked grim as hell, but his shooting hand was steady.

He slowly lowered his weapon and looked at me.“Silvio has Sofia,” he panted before groaning and gripping his leg.

Getting to my feet, I grabbed the guns of the fallen men and tucked them into my waistband, looking like a one-man armory. “They never fucking left. They were waiting.”

“Keep alert and shoot anyone who comes at you. We’re still getting out of here, and you have someone waiting for you,” I reminded him.

He nodded, his lips bloodless. “So do you. Get her.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I took off, a gun gripped in one hand and a knife tucked into my other. I skirted around the edge of the garage and peered toward the open space in the middle of the compound.

I spied Silvio immediately.

His men were scattered around. More than I’d hoped there’d be, but few enough to take.

They made for the cars at the edge of the green, protecting Silvio as he dragged Sofia after him. He was probably planning on getting the hell off the property and leaving his men to hunt me down and kill me. Silvio didn’t seem the type to take risks.

The men watched out for their boss, and nearly half of them had their backs fully turned.

It was hard to hate the Devil when sometimes I felt like he loaned me his luck.

I stepped out onto the green and took aim. Five shots, five fallen men.

The rest turned and shot in retaliation, but I ducked back against the garage. Chunks of plaster flew off in all directions as they attempted to hit me.

As soon as they came up empty, a lull I’d been expecting, having been keeping a rough count of shots, I re-emerged. I had no problem with ammo. I had three guns to burn through.

I got one immediately, leaving four more. These four weren’t as dumb as the rest. Clearly, these were the real deal.

Dodging behind cars and other objects, they avoided my shots. I didn’t have time to play with them all day because Silvio had made it to a car. I had to move. I ran toward them, knowing I was about to be attacked by his remaining men. They might be out of ammo, but I knew they could fight.

The car that Silvio had dragged Sofia into started. He’d had a driver waiting. The tires spun on the gravel of the forecourt, and it was moving. I raised my weapon and shot steadily at the tires. I managed to blow one before the first man reached me.

His punch in my exposed right side made my head ring. I staggered to the side, dizzy but rallying. His next punch went wide as I danced away, but his second hit my shoulder, and I nearly vomited on the spot. He ripped the gun from my hand and tossed it away.

“It’s just us, Chernov. Let’s see what you’re made of. Are you really a legend or just a fucked-up psycho?” the man goaded me.

I suddenly recognized his voice. It was Idiot One, from my first day in captivity.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed as he squared up to me.

His eyebrows drew together over his short forehead. “What’s the joke?”

“You are. I’m just so happy to see you again.” I smirked at him, even as the remaining men surrounded me.

Four to one. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t faced before, but I wasn’t in the best shape. I went to draw one of my fully loaded guns, and someone tackled me from behind. I fell face-first into the gravel with the motherfucker behind me, the gun flying far across the ground.

He clearly hadn’t realized that I had another one, though. As he attempted to get his arm around my neck, I heaved him off long enough to rip the other stolen gun from my waistband and tucked it under my arm.

The shot was so close to me that the heat of it warmed my side. His dead weight fell on me, pinning me down, and I shrugged to buck him off as another man ran in. This one I shot in the leg, before his wild kick took my last gun from me.

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