Page 2 of The Players

“You’re not taking her anywhere,” Franco snarled. “She’s mine. She will always be mine.”

“Fuck you!” Jazzy spat. “She isn’t a piece of property you can just kick around. She’s a human being, you asshole.”

Franco knocked Jazzy down, making her drop to her knees. Her sister’s gaze was immediately on her. Their eyes locked. Jazzy looked past her though, to the window.

Where was she looking at? What was she trying to tell her?

Carmen silently screamed for Jazzy to run. She opened her mouth, but she had no breath left to form words.

Then Franco pointed his gun at her sister and Carmen’s brain almost short-circuited. A fire started in her belly, and she slowly pushed up on her good leg.

A jeans-clad figure suddenly stormed into her vision, knocking Franco away from Jazzy.

Tommie…

Thank God for blue-haired angels.

Carmen could hear the men struggle on the floor, as she forced her legs to move. Her arms finally came back to life and she pushed herself into a sitting position.

A shot went off and she froze. Franco got up, leaving a bleeding Tommie on the floor.

The devil always rises again…

Jazzy yelled and launched herself at Franco, getting in hits wherever she could land a kick and a punch. The gun clattered onto the floor, but Carmen was in no condition to look for it. She crawled to the cabinet nearby and pulled herself up.

Jazzy managed to kick Franco against a wall. Pots, pans, and all kinds of cutlery dropped onto the floor. The metallic sound made her head pound, almost knocking her back to her knees, but she couldn’t give up. Not while Franco kept storming toward Jazzy.

She grabbed the first sharp object she could get her hands on.

A butcher’s knife.

Perfect.

She slowly neared Franco’s back. Just as he was about to punch Jazzy again, she struck.

It wasn’t like in the movies; there was no blood pouring out of his back like a fountain. Instead, she heard a sickthudas the knife lodged into his lower back and hit bone.

With all her might, she tried to pull it out, just so she could strike again, afraid she hadn’t finished him. Unfortunately, the knife was stuck. Sheer adrenaline kept her on her feet. The second Franco dropped onto his face, her body swayed, and she fell behind him. Within seconds, a pool of blood formed around her.

Not all of it is his…

Her hand went to her flat tummy and she gagged as silent tears streamed down her cheeks, forming a river of pain.

I’m so sorry, little one. So sorry I let him snuff the life out of you before you could even blossom.

She couldn’t look away from Franco’s body, afraid that the second she unlocked her gaze, he would rise again. He always came back to torment her.

Jazzy hurried over to Tommie, who seemed to have a gunshot wound to his shoulder. Carmen couldn’t see for herself, because that would require her to look away from Franco. If she took her eyes off him, he might get up and hurt people again. After all, he had survived a mafia war, an attempted assassination, even a car bomb, but always landed back on his feet.

She needed to make sure he would never get up again. Because this time, it wasn’t only her he would go after. Jazzy had defied him and once Franco got back his strength, he would kill her. He wouldn’t care that her sister had married a man far more dangerous than he could handle. He believed women to be beneath him. Considered them to be dolls; to be played with, then broken, whenever he deemed fit.

She had to make sure he was dead. The ringing in her head started acting up again and her vision grew blurry. Jazzy was yelling something at her, but she couldn’t make out any words.

Her last thought before the world faded into black was that Franco had vowed she’d never be free from him.

I will find a way.

CHAPTER 1

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