Page 113 of Cruel Love

I notice the man standing tall in the doorway. Smug and a little too fucking pleased with himself.

A bullet strikes the brick beside my hand. I dodge a second bullet, but Fox adjusts his angle, focusing on the new target on the roof down the street. One shot from his rifle and a pink mist fills the air above the bastard’s location.

“They made us,” Fox says.

I peek down from the roof again as Gio races back inside and the three men rush a little faster across the lot with Lucy.

I break into a run toward the stairs. “Can you see where they’re taking her?”

He pulls the trigger again before ducking to dodge a hail of bullets as they fire past his head.

“White van on the street,” he says as he expertly pulls back the bolt to reload another round. “Go! I’ll cover you.”

I grit my teeth, racing faster and shoving the door open. The noises outside sparked a curiosity through the old building and a few residents poke their heads out as I bolt down through the floors. I ignore them, focusing instead on the sound of boots pounding up the stairs to meet me. I don’t care how many of them there are. I’ll rip open the throats of every single one of them to get Lucy back.

Lucy. Goddammit, why did I let you go through with this?

I grab the pistol from my belt as the first batch of them come into view. They pause to raise their rifles, taking a split-second too long. I fire off two rounds and blow past them before their bodies hit the floor. Screams echo above me, concerned cries to call the police.

I stop in my tracks as a spray of bullets hit the wall beside me. I lean backward, gathering my bearings to locate the man camping between the floors. He foolishly empties his clip and I easily take him out as he attempts to reload.

Amateurs.

I charge down the last few floors to the bottom. The door to the alley flies open as I reach it. I lunge back to dodge the shimmering knife plowing through toward my face. It ricochets off my pistol and I lose my grip on it. I let it drop to the floor as he readies another deadly swipe. I block the blow, grabbing his arm and jolting him off-balance with a swift knee to his stomach. The blade slices along my arm and I retaliate with a hard head-butt that sends us both backward away from each other.

I study the man’s eyes through the black mask, noticing more than a few familiar things about him. His stance, his fighting style. Even the clothes on his back. Nothing like the easy pickings on the stairwell behind me. Not that it matters where he got his training, of course.

I reach into my jacket pocket and slide out the garrote hidden inside.

He squints at it for a half-second before he turns his wrist and plows ahead for a killing blow.

I twist to the side, moving quickly as I wrap the wire around his wrist. I squeeze tightly, using all of my strength to dig into him as deeply as possible and he cries out in surprised agony. Blood falls to the floor, along with the blade in his hand. Rage drives me to kill as I unwrap the garrote from his hand and knock him down to his knees. Another second passes and I’ve got it locked around his throat. A few more and he’s gasping. Choking. Scratching at my hands.

Then, he’s nothing at all.

I abandon his body and head outside only to find another man in black running toward me. I shift into a fighting stance, ready to take him down as swiftly as I did the others.

A car slams into him at full speed. His body hurls into a parked car nearby and he crumbles to the concrete, bones crunching beneath his skin.

The driver’s side opens, and Markov hops out. He gives me a nod and tosses me an M16 as Luka climbs out of the passenger’s seat.

“We saw him go back inside,” Luka says, referring to Gio but I couldn’t give two shits about him right now.

I flex my jaw in anger as the white van disappears around the corner down the street.

I give the gun back to Markov. “I need your car,” I say, striding toward the driver’s side.

“What about Gio?” Luka asks.

“Fuck him. I’m going after Lucy.”

I ignore their looks of anger and disappointment — possibly betrayal — as I lower myself into the car. I said I’d go in for Gio once Lucy was safe.

The plan has officially changed.

I’m getting my lover back.

I hit the gas, speeding off in the direction of the white van. I don’t make it twenty feet before someone shoots the windshield out trying to take me down. I spy the men on the street by the corner with guns and swerve in their direction, happily knocking them on their asses while other pedestrians race in the opposite direction.

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