Page 23 of Courting Danger

Something broke.

I heard the snap of bone when my opponent landed. Yet, it wasn’t enough. The man was already trying to stumble to his feet.

Before he could stand and restart the fight, I slammed my boot into the man’s temple. The blow knocked the assailant out cold.

With the threat eliminated, I looked toward Alex and froze in shock.

Two of Alex’s opponents lay on the floor, sliced to ribbons. I would have thought they were mauled by a jungle cat, based on the numerous cuts on their face and arms. An impressive amount of blood pooled beneath their bodies, implying at least one serious injury on each of them.

The third opponent was pinned to the wall with Alex’s hand on the man’s throat. As I watched, Alex raised his knife and stabbed it deep into his attacker’s gut.

“Who sent you? How did you know I would be here?”

Alex didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. His face was only inches from his opponent’s ear.

Bloody fingers clawed at Alex’s hand. The pinned enemy could barely suck in enough air to spit out two words. “F… uck. Yo… u.”

In response, Alex relaxed his grip on the man’s throat, but pressed his knife deeper into his stomach. “Don’t be like that. Gut wounds are fatal, but they take forever. There’s still time to get you to a doctor. If you tell me what I want, I might be merciful.”

The person thought for a moment, then smiled with a mouthful of bloody teeth. They cackled and spat a glob of red-tinted saliva in Alex’s face.

A snarl of rage distorted Alex’s features. Pulling his knife out of the person’s gut, he stabbed the blade directly into the man’s face. Over and over the knife came down, until the person pinned to the wall barely looked human.

Once the enemy was definitely dead, Alex let the body drop to the floor. He stood in the middle of the tunnel, looking up at the water above as he sucked a deep breath in through his nose. With his unbloodied hand, he smoothed disheveled hair out of his face. Then, with a calm expression, he pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket and started calmly cleaning his knife.

His hands never stopped moving as he glanced at my felled opponents. “Good job.” Holding up his knife to the light, Alex deemed the blade clean enough and stored it and the cloth back inside his jacket. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

I hadn’t moved an inch. I barely remembered to breathe. It was only muscle memory that allowed me to re-sheath my own knife without stabbing myself.

Logically, I’d always known Alex must have combat training. The man had been too accepting of the first assassination attempt. Such easy dismissal of violence only came from repeated exposure.

The bloody aftermath scattered over the floor, however, was something else. This was brutality on a level I had rarely seen.

Most shocking, however, was Alex’s calm attitude afterward. Even hardened soldiers would balk after turning a man’s face into bloody soup. Yet, Alex stepped over the bodies on the floor as if they weren’t there and headed for the end of the tunnel.

He stopped only when he noticed I wasn’t following. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Um…” I glanced down at the wound on my arm, barely feeling the pain. “Nothing serious.”

Alex returned to my side, inspecting my injury with careful fingers. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you fixed up. My family’s got several expert doctors on payroll.”

Lacing our hands together, Alex led me through the tunnel and all the way out of the building.

I followed silently, numb from the brain down.

Outside, bright sunlight stung my eyes after spending so long in the dark. I raised the hand not caught in Alex’s grip to shade my eyes as I looked around. The street outside the aquarium looked undisturbed. There wasn’t a hint of the brutal battle that had just taken place inside the building’s walls.

As usual, a running car waited for us only a few feet away.

Alex slipped into the backseat, dragging me with him. He told the driver to take us back to his apartment, then collapsed back into his seat and groaned.

“That was a nightmare.” He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at his scalp in frustration. “Coming after me is one thing. But getting the Vidales and Bianchi families involved… Fuck. They’re probably going to blame me, since I’m the one who initiated the meeting. God damn it.”

I listened to Alex rant and touched the gun strapped to my hip with numb fingers.

The weapon had been procured too quickly, and I was starting to suspect how.

A thousand questions assaulted my brain at once, but I kept them all behind my teeth. This was not the kind of situation where answers could be demanded, but I also couldn’t stay silent.

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