Page 26 of Savage

“Why wouldn’t you want to te?—”

“Look at me”—I tip her face toward mine and brush the hair from her face— “because I want to ensure you hear every word I say. I promised to kill them all for you, but I need you to know that no one will ever hurt you like that again.”

“Raf,” she pushes herself up onto her elbow, “you’re scaring me.”

“They know you’re here.”

She begins to scurry backward to climb from the bed, and I roughly grip her wrist. Dragging her back to me, I forcefully hold her against me in a poor attempt to keep her demons at bay.

“You’re mine now, little lamb.” I wrap my body around her as though I’m shielding her from the outside world. “You know the things I’m willing to do to avenge you, but there are no limits to the atrocities that would befall any man who dared think about harming you.”

twenty-four

LUCIA

While Rafael assured me more times than I can count last night that no one would be getting into his apartment, I barely slept. The slightest sounds stirred me from my sleep, expecting to find them—all of them—having come to drag me back to their hell.

Being that I was up, he had us both packed and climbing into his car before sunrise.

“We both knew this day would come.” He reaches over the center console, places his hand on my thigh, and lightly rubs his thumb over my skin. “Sooner or later, we knew they would come for you.”

“So, we’re going to leave the place you keep telling me is safe? And you’re going to drag me out to a desolate cabin in the middle of the woods?”

“Yes,” the only response I get from him.

“Do you want them to come and take me?”

“Of course not, little lamb.” He slides his hand higher up my thigh and squeezes. “I want them to come for you… so I can fucking kill them.”

“You’re taking me to the woods to use me as bait?” I question, unable to hide the shock in my tone.

“Think of it more like being prey,” a devilish smirk spreads across his face, “and being hunted.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It will.” He looks at me with a dark glint in his eyes as he pulls down a dirt road. A moment later, we reach a clearing in the trees with a small cabin nestled in the center.

Marvelous.

It almost looks like it has running water.

“We probably have a day before anyone comes.” He opens my door and heads to the trunk to grab what little we brought with us. “I’m putting this stuff inside, and then you’re going to get off a few magazines worth of rounds to get you more comfortable with having a gun in your hand.”

Rolling my neck, I try to loosen the stiffness in my shoulders. Rafael had me shoot so much this morning and again in the early afternoon that my shoulders are absolutely killing me from the constant recoil.

And my supposed bad form.

“Come on.” Rafael pulls me from the couch, and based on the gun in his hand, I know where we’re heading.

“It’s going to be dark out soon.” I gesture to the window.

“Yes, that’s exactly why we’re going.” He swats my ass and nudges me toward the door. “Now, get that sweet ass outside.”

I sigh, knowing that arguing with him is futile. We walk through the woods to a small clearing. Nailed to the trees surrounding it are various metal targets that have been riddled with bullets—mostly not mine.

“It’s a full magazine.” He ejects it, shows me, and slams it back into the butt of the gun with a smirk. “You get eight shots. Hit four targets, and we can go back to the cabin. Miss, and we stay out here as long as I deem necessary.”

I can do this.

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