Page 2 of Vicious Sabotage

Movement on the screen caught her eye. A man had jumped out of his vehicle and was walking with purpose toward Ivy’s truck.

In three long strides, Livia reached the door. She threw it open just in time to see the man swipe something off the ground.

Oh god. It looked like Ivy’s purse. How had Livia missed it before?

The guy jumped in his vehicle and took off, tires peeling when he reached the road.

Gripping the gun in one hand and the Taser in the other, Livia barely got a chance to gain her wits before another vehicle turned into the parking lot.

What was going on? They sent two guys to fix the bad kidnapping job?

She darted behind the dumpster and pressed her back against the wall of the bar. Chest heaving, she listened hard.

Footsteps grated on the asphalt parking lot. The man wore cowboy boots, if she had to guess by the sound.

Compiling clues in her brain, she stole a peek around the edge of the dumpster. The man walked away from an old beat-up blue car, striding with purpose toward Ivy’s truck.

Before she could consider her actions, Livia leaped out from behind the dumpster. When she closed the short gap between them, she held her Taser at the ready.

The electronic current struck the man in the ribs, and he hit the ground. His scream got cut off by the electricity arcing through his body.

She let off the taser, and he rolled onto his hands and knees. Feet away, a truck was still idling with a driver who’d dropped him off—to get Ivy’s truck? She clenched her fingers around the grip of her handgun.

“Dammit! Fucking woman!” The guy tried to heave himself to his feet, and Livia darted forward, prepared to hit him with the electrical current again.

He leaped up. The icy silver flash of a blade whipped past her vision as he pulled a knife on her.

But she had a gun.

He lunged at her with the blade. She jumped back and fired a shot in the same movement.

Blood spurted from his lower leg, and it buckled underneath him. He collapsed with a bellow.

Then Livia swung toward the driver. Behind the windshield between them, his eyes widened.

Livia lifted the weapon and aimed it right between his eyes. She wasn’t good with the physics or trajectory of a bullet through glass, but she was pretty sure her aim would be true.

The man writhing and bleeding on the ground picked himself up, limped to the side of the truck and threw himself into the bed.

The driver took off. Livia didn’t shift her glare from the taillights, and she definitely wasn’t going to lower her weapon. If they came back, she had enough rounds in the chamber to take them both out.

When the driver laid on the gas to make a getaway, they left black marks on the pavement.

Livia watched them go, prepared to squeeze that trigger just like her daddy taught her to do back at the gun range when she was fifteen.

As the truck disappeared, she tried to make out the license plate but could only get the first two digits before they vanished out of sight.

Her hand wavered. All at once, her muscles seemed to give out, and her arm swung to her side, the gun loosely gripped in her hand.

The next few minutes were a blur, but she managed to go back inside her bar and lock the door. She laid the weapons on her desk and pulled out her phone. When her friend’s boyfriend plugged his number into Livia’s contacts, she never thought she’d actually need it.

“C-Colton?”

“Livia. What happened?”

“They came back and took Ivy’s purse. Someone else came and tried to take her truck too.”

“Tried to?” His tone was low, deadly.

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