Page 43 of No Words
“We should stop,” he murmurs against my lips, even as his hands contradict his words, sliding beneath my shirt. The hardness of his cock pressing into my thigh betrays him.
“I know,” I whisper, but my body betrays me, pressing closer. My heart pounds with a mixture of fear and desire that clouds rational thought. “But I need to feel something real before...”
The unspoken possibility of what is about to happen. Before we die, before we kill, before everything changes again.
He presses his forehead to mine, his breath ragged. “Later,” he promises, voice rough with restraint. “When this is over, I’m going to take my time with you.”
The first gunshot shatters our bubble. Cole reacts instantly, covering me with his body as glass explodes somewhere in the living room as more shots follow, a chaotic percussion underscoring our ragged breathing. The sound is sharp enough to rattle my teeth. Every breath tastes of dust and metal. Heavy boots pound the porch, each step slamming onto the concrete. Cole shifts just enough to return fire, the crack of his shots steady against the chaos.
“Stay here,” Cole orders, drawing his weapon. He presses a smaller gun into my hand. “Safety’s off. Anyone who comes through that door who isn’t me, shoot them.”
Then he’s gone, moving like a predator stalking its prey toward the sound of gunfire.
I slide off the counter on shaky legs, adjusting my clothes with trembling fingers. The gun’s weight feels both foreign and familiar, metal cold against my palm, grip textured against my fingers. Cole made sure I knew how to use it during our “training” sessions. But I’ve never been in a position where I might have to actually use one.
A blast sounds from the heart of the cabin, and it draws me forward despite Cole’s orders. I set the gun on the counter, just for a second, and tentatively make my way to the sound. Through the doorway, I see Jayce pinned down behind an overturned table, Jensen returning fire from behind the couch. Cole is nowhere in sight.
Glass shatters behind me. I spin to find a man climbing through the kitchen window, weapon raised. Time slows as training kicks in, Cole’s voice in my head walking through the movements.
Keep your center of gravity low. Use their momentum against them.
The man’s eyes widen briefly when he sees me, recognition flashing across his face. “The witness,” he says, a smile spreading that makes my skin crawl. “Borsellini is looking forward to meeting you.” That split-second of satisfaction gives me the edge I need. He’s big, at least twice my size, a mountain of muscle in tactical gear. I can’t reach my gun in time. Three days ago, I would have frozen. Today, I calculate angles, distances, vulnerabilities.
“Where’s your protector?” he taunts, weapon lowering slightly. “Bennett can’t save you now.”
I don’t answer; words waste precious seconds. Instead, I shift my weight to the balls of my feet, exactly how Cole showed me during our sessions that inevitably ended with us tangled together on the mats.
The man lunges forward, expecting me to cower. I sidestep left, dropping my weight as I hook my right leg behind his ankle. The motion flows like water, Cole’s endless repetitions taking over my body without conscious thought. He falls hard, a surprised grunt escaping him as he hits the floor. His gun skitters across the hardwood, spinning beneath the kitchen table.
I dive for it, his fingertips scraping my ankle as I twist away. Then, success, I grip his weapon in my hand. But before I can turn, searing pain shoots up my leg as his hand finds my other ankle, twisting viciously. A scream builds in my throat, but I push it down. Cole’s voice again:
Pain is information. Use it. Don’t let it use you.
I twist my body despite the agony, kick out with my free foot, aiming for his face. My boot drives into his face with the wet crack of cartilage breaking. Blood sprays across the white kitchen tiles in a crimson arc, warm droplets hitting my cheek. The grip on my ankle loosens as he howls, hands flying to his shattered face.
I scramble backward on hands and knees, my fingernails clawing for purchase on the smooth hardwood. The gun settles into my grip with familiar weight, metal still warm from his hands, my training taking over. I rise to a crouch, weapon aimed center mass like Cole taught me.
When I turn fully, the man is already charging again, blood streaming down his face, eyes wild with rage. I plant my feet, steady my hands, exhale slowly, and pull the trigger without hesitation.
The blast is deafening in the small kitchen; the recoil travels up my arms. He crumples mid-stride, momentum carrying him forward another step before he collapses. Surprise freezes on his features as he falls, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Warm droplets spatter my face and neck. Blood. His blood.
The metallic scent fills my nostrils, and my ears ring from the shot. The gun remains steady in my hands though, no tremor betrays my inner turmoil.
I should feel horror, regret, and the weight of taking a life. Instead, cold certainty fills me. This was necessary. My hands shake now that the adrenaline is fading. The metallic taste of blood and gunpowder coats my tongue. I keep seeing his surprised expression on repeat. The moment he realized he was going to die. I did that. I ended a life. The prosecutor in me whispers about laws broken, lines crossed, but that woman feels like a stranger now. Someone wearing clothes that no longer fit. In her place stands someone new, someone born in this cabin with Cole’s hands and words reshaping her.
A shadow shifts in my peripheral vision. I whip the gun around to find Cole filling the doorway, blood streaking his cheek, eyes wild as they scan me for injuries.
“You’re okay,” he breathes, relief palpable.
“I’m okay,” I confirm.
A shout from the living room breaks the moment. Cole pulls me to his side as we move back toward the main fight. We work in strange synchronicity, his body telegraphing movements mine instinctively follows, covering angles, moving as a unit.
The front door splinters inward with a deafening crack. Alessio Borsellini stands framed in the doorway, backlit by the morning sun. The man I’ve spent eighteen months building a case against. Whose file I know better than I do my biography. That monster executed three people in cold blood while I watched from the shadows.
His weapon raises, pointing directly at Cole’s back. Time crystallizes into perfect clarity.
He moves fast for a man his size, stepping into the threshold as the first round explodes from his gun. Cole dives sideways, the impact chewing into the doorframe where his head was aheartbeat ago. Splinters spray my cheek, sharp and stinging. My lungs lock. The metallic click of Alessio chambering his next shot cuts through the chaos.
