Page 47 of Entangled

Some scum-sucking, coffin-craving piece of shit is touching her. Isthreateningher.

My vision hazes, like it’s already clouded with the blood mist I’m going to make of this maggot food.

Her back is against his chest in a classic hostage position. Tears stream down the guy’s face, and it’s contorted in anger.

He is one twitch away from taking her away from me forever.

Careful not to make any sound that might tip him off, I train my rifle on his skull... but I can’t take the shot.

His head is half-hidden behind hers.

And not once, not in the hundreds of deployments I’ve been on, not the years of brawls and beatings growing up, or even in the nights I crammed myself and Ryan into the tiny bathroom of our double-wide, shaking, as Mom screamed and shattered and shat on every single thing we owned, notoncedid I ever feel fear like this.

He’s going to kill her in front of me.

My Eden.

Mine.

Moving round for a better angle on him, I hear Dom yell through the crashes and confusion. Someone runs through the trees past me, some gray-haired old woman, but she doesn’t stop to fuck around, and neither do I.

The Sinner squeezes the arm around Eden’s fragile neck, and I growl as she claws at it, gasping.

Wrath and pounding, agonizing panic claw atme.

I’m going to crush every last bone in that arm.

“Why him?” the man cries. “Whyhim? He did nothing to you.Nothing!”

“He didn’t eat it, Mateo!” Eden yells back, her voice strangled.

Dom crashes through the bushes on the other side of the human trash heap, gunshots chasing him. A woman yells, and it’s followed by whistles and whoops.

Dom stops short as he takes in the situation. Another Sinner bursts out of the trees, and Dom shoots him between the eyes with no hesitation. An arrow whizzes past his head and he throws himself to the side. Two more men leap from the trees and move toward Dom.

The man holding Eden wrenches her back, apparently not paying attention to the rest of the firefight. I’m getting close, but he has his finger hard up against his trigger. One wrong slip and she’s done.

I’mdone.

“He’s dead. You killed him!” he sobs.

“Alastair is alive,” Eden spits. “Mateo, listen to me. He’salive.”

“Liar!” he shouts, shoving the muzzle of the gun harder into her temple.

I’m just about to grab at him when I’m hit from the side, hard. I crash out beside Eden and the man, and in seconds, someone’s knee is in my back and a wire is wrapped around my neck. The corrugated collar squeezes, crushing my windpipe, painfully jagging at the skin of my throat.

Grunting, I twist, but they got a good angle on it. I try to grab the person on my back, but I can’t find a grip. Someone else pins down my legs, and the pressure between my shoulder blades intensifies, pressing me into the wire’s stranglehold. Colors combust in front of my eyes.

Fuck.

But between the spackles of light, I can see heavy boots in front of me. Smaller ones in front of those.

He still has my girl.

I can’t breathe. I’m losing vision. I can’tthink.

But I can do one fucking thing.

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