Page 45 of Falling for the Enemy

My bullet misses him by an inch.

“Fuck!” I jump to my feet and pull Arianna up with me, making sure to keep my body between hers and the building next door. If the first shooter is going to bury a bullet in someone, it’ll be me. Not her.

Never her.

A third shot cracks above my head.

We have to move before we’re pinned.

“Manzana, run!”

She races for the gooseneck ladder that leads to the fire escape, her steps quick despite the stilettos she wears. I follow right behind her, firing rounds of suppression in both assailants’ directions, forcing the pendejos to keep their heads down.

Once on the fire escape, I eject my pistol’s empty clip and swap it with a fresh one that I retrieve from my jacket. Shots from the first shooter continue to zing past, barely missing us. I don’t know how Stefano is training his men, or how often, but he needs to step up his game. If any of my soldiers missed this many times, I’d eliminate them.

“¡Correr más rápido!”

She runs faster, just as I demand.

Her heels click against the cobblestone road when we reach the bottom of the escape’s wrought-iron steps, our bodies remaining empty of lead. I follow as she rockets down a nearby alleyway and up another, hugging the darkness it provides as cover.

“In here!”

She ducks into an abandoned building and turns a corner, where she comes to a stop, pressing her back against a cracked wall. Briefly lifting the skirt of her dress, she gives me another glimpse of her smooth flesh.

A guttural sound emits from deep in my throat, earning me an incredulous look as she rips a black pistol from her inner thigh, its small holster lying flush against her tanned skin.

The heels, the legs, the gun.

I’ve never been more turned on.

“Put your khui away and get ready to shoot the mafiosos undoubtedly chasing us.” She racks the gun's slide, chambering a bullet. “Or would you rather eye fuck me some more and get us both killed?”

Despite the dire situation we’re in, I smirk.

The things I’d like to do to her filthy mouth.

“How about I just fuck you when we’re done—”

The second gunman, the same one that hid behind the roof’s air handler, steps into the building. I recognize his dark gray pea coat and leather glove-covered hands right away. Like a fool, the hijo de puta doesn’t even have his weapon raised.

The kill is one of the easiest I’ve ever made.

One pull of the trigger; one dead Italian.

I have no time to take a single breath before Arianna shouts at me, her gun raised. “Move!”

My ears ring, the crack of her Glock echoing around the dark room as she pulls the trigger twice, embedding both bullets into a single man—the first in his head, the second in his chest.

I turn in time to see him drop.

That’s when it hits me. Having entered the building through an open doorway at my back, if she hadn’t killed him, he could’ve possibly done the same to me. I never would’ve seen it coming.

My enemy saved me.

The realization is like a hammer to the face.

Blinding and hard-hitting.

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