Page 39 of Fight for Love

He held the knife closer to the child and I saw red, and black, and blue.

He would not live.

I rose slowly from the bed and walked around it. His eyes were on me the entire time, wary. They knew whose wife I was. As I got closer to the window, I saw their vehicle at the end of our little lane, my eyes briefly flicking to it. A small, nondescript saloon. Odd. Not the same guys as last week, then? No 4x4 for the terrain around these parts. No more than four bodies his size could fit in a car like that.

A knife rather than a gun. The guys the week before had had guns bulking out their jackets.

What the fuck was going on?

“May I put on my slippers to go?” I asked, gesturing at the footwear which sat beside my son’s crib—my calm tone of voice telling him I’d agreed, I was coming, I just wanted my slippers and to have one last look at my son.

He jerked his head to say it was okay, but warned with his eyes I should not make sudden moves. I inched past the man who smelt like rain and earth, making my way to my leather slippers. Slipping my feet in, I used the seconds to decide how.

Once I’d turned around, I knew when.

Once I’d sidled up to him, I knew his weakness.

A pretty lady.

I blinked my lashes and for a brief moment—just long enough—he was drawn under. Realising he’d been lured into a false sense of security, he was about to raise the knife, when I lurched forward, covered his mouth with a hand, my other hand on his shoulder, my knee swiftly buried in his balls—his cry of pain masked by my hand over his gob.

The right pressure on his neck made him pass out, then I laid him gently on the bed, silent as a mouse. I would’ve slashed him to bits for threatening my son, but there was little time. I nicked his throat at the artery and blood started spurting out. He’d die painlessly. Too good for a bastard like him.

Giving myself a moment to try to calm my pounding heart, I took some deep breaths, flicked the droplet of his blood off the knife, then tiptoed for the floorboard where Caelan kept a handgun beneath.

It popped open easy and I heard Eric’s voice muffled by a gag down the hall. There’d be three more. Probably one downstairs. Two trying to hold Eric.

Soundlessly, I moved along the corridor. Steady breathing, though blood rushed through my ears. Hopefully Logan would never know anything about this.

I reached the room, peering around the door.

“Where is that stupid fucker with that bitch?” one of them said—same accent as the other.

As my face came into view, Eric’s eyes widened, then they saw something had caught his attention behind them. I quickly whipped back, out of sight.

“What was that, dickhead?” one of them said.

“Leave it,” said the other, “probably a trick of his.”

Yet the first one was too stupid to abate his curiosity and came towards the doorway. I pressed myself as flat as possible to the wooden wall and wrapped my fingers tighter around the knife.

The moment he was outside the door, I swung my arm and dug the knife in his guts.

A nine-inch blade sharpened like a butcher’s knife. His guts dripped to the floor as I dragged the knife across, towards me, then yanked it out. Barely a sound.

Until his body hit the floor.

I climbed over him, going for his friend next. Two pops in the brain. Easy.

Eric and I caught eyes. He gestured there was one more and to beware of him coming up the stairs.

I hid again, behind the door this time. Dangerous, I knew. My son lay unguarded and I’d just killed three of the fourth man’s friends.

He climbed over the bodies looking for me, cursing in his mother tongue. He was about to raise a knife to Eric, as if he’d had a hand in it, still trussed up as he was—because, of course, a woman would never be capable—when I appeared out of the shadows, using the mattress on Eric’s bed to fling myself up and around the man’s neck and shoulders.

We fell back on the bed. I had my legs holding his arms still, then one arm locked around his neck, held in place by my other arm.

“Tell me who you’re working for,” I demanded.

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