Page 58 of Out of Control

I widened my frame again, shifting my stance as well in preparation for the second step, tensed my torso, tightened my abs, and thrust my body forward, bending at my hips and forcing the top half of my body to move downward.

The tape ripped and my torso was propelled forward. I let the inertia guide me, using the momentum until I landed in a crouch, the tape wrapping my ankles together splitting just a second after the tape across my chest. I landed with one hand on the filthy floor to stop my forward descent, pausing in that position for just a moment to get my bearings.

Lucas was staring triumphantly up at me, so much love and affection in his eyes.

He loves me, I recalled. He was counting on me.

My eyes left his and met Leo Lombardi’s, his filled with fury and hate. I used the hand on the ground to push myself back upright, slowly but without hesitation, making sure I still had my sense of balance and strength. The fading adrenaline caused me to pass out not long ago, but it was quickly returning, pumping blood through my veins as I watched Leo Lombardi kicking Lucas while he was down. It might have been out of Lucas’s control to stop him after the shit his body went through, but it wasn’t out of mine. Nobody messed with my man.

I shifted into a standard fighting stance as Leo charged at me.

“I’m going to kill you and your annoying as shit boyfriend,” he snarled, taking a swing at my head. I dodged it easily.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been picking on someone your own size,” I goaded him. “It would have been smarter to take out the bigger threat first: you know, the opponent half your size.”

“Maybe I’ll take my time strangling you in front of your weak ass boyfriend and then go back and finish him off.”

Lombardi’s words didn’t bother me. Lucas was anything but weak and I knew it. After everything he went through, hestillmanaged to escape his bonds and teach me how to as well. He was strong, and capable, and now it was my turn to be the same. We were a team.

I glanced over to Lucas where he lay on the floor, catching his breath. His nod told me he was with me, trusted me to take care of business.

Leo’s words didn’t mean fuck-all, especially when he kept throwing his weight into hits, but was too damn slow to land any of them. I had this.

Leo Lombardi was going to wish he’d never gotten out of bed this morning.

“I thought you wanted us to talk. Strangling me wouldn’t really get you the information you want.”

“I don’t think you guys have shit on me. If you did, then you would be able to keep me behind bars long enough to indict me.”

I glanced over toward the chairs where my purse rested on the floor. I had a heavy duty waterproof phone case. Was it possible my phone was still in my purse, still working, and still recording everything going on around us?

I shifted back a couple more steps, getting as close to my purse as possible.

“So you’re going to keep trying to kill me, huh? Hasn’t worked so far. You haven’t evenlanded a hit.”

“I almost shot you in the fucking chest a couple days ago. It was just pure luck that you moved out of the way in time, little bitch.”

“And is it luck that you can’t get your meaty paws on me right now?”

“Oh, I’ll get you. You’re just as weak as him,” he nodded over to Lucas, taking another swipe at me. I circled around the chairs, putting them between us. “You passed out after swimming out of the bay. Your body can’t take much more of this. That adrenaline is going to run out sooner or later, and then I’m going to kill you both.”

Awesome. If the phone was still working, the recording app was picking up a lot of good stuff from him. I needed to keep him talking.

“Oh yeah? I think you’re full of shit.” I couldn’t imagine the strength leaving me, the adrenaline fading, but that was exactly the point, wasn’t it? I might very well go into shock again soon.

“I think that your pretty little head will crack just the same as your mother’s if I throw you down hard enough.”

What?

The surprise stalled me long enough that Leo finally got a real hit in, his monster fist smashing into the side of my face and knocking me to the floor. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he was the one who killed my mother. Maybe it should have been a given, since he was their enforcer, but I’d been putting all the blame squarely on Carlo and Angelo Morelli.

It was Leo Lombardi who actually held my mother’s body in his hands and threw her down the stairs hard enough to make her brain bleed. He was the one who did it all along.

And then he was on me, his fingers closing around my throat.

“But your death won’t be easy like hers. Neither will Special Agent Blake’s,” he said, spitting out Lucas’s title like it was a bad word. His fingers began to squeeze, his superior strength pinning me to the concrete. My fingers couldn’t break his grip, arms too short to put pressure on the weak point in his elbows from this angle.

“And then I’m going to kill anyone else who might have information on me and the boss. That stupid homicide detective. Claire Reynolds and Willie-Boy Bracco, wherever they’re hiding. They’re all as good as dead when I’m done with you. You are so fucking dead—”

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