24
Police sirens hum in the distance of Dover beyond the house, ringing out through the silence—until squelching boots come through the kitchen door.
They cross the stone floors, prowling closer, and closer, and closer. My heart skips with every step our enemy takes, every minute second ticking past.
Charlie jumps up like a snake in attack and jabs a knife in the man’s temple, cutting through like butter. Our enemy falls slack with a powerful spasm, and Charlie catches him, groaning under the weight. He drags the body around behind the island and lies him down on the floor to fester in a pool of his own blood. It deluges like a red gulf, forming near my feet. I pull up my knees and stare ahead at the kitchen units, wishing for this nightmare to be over.
I can’t stop thinking about what Charlie said: If something happens to me... If something happens to me... I’m fucking terrified. There, I admitted it to myself. To know I might not be able to keep him safe is gut-wrenching. I scour my mind in a million different directions for a plan to ensure his life, certain the only way is to hand myself over to the Arab.
And I will if it means saving Charlie.
I won’t let him die for me. I can’t.
A creaking sound draws our attention, and my head darts to the right. Charlie ducks to crouch beside me and extends a bloody arm over my middle, then we listen, and listen, and listen.
“Gotcha!” someone says, grabbing me from above.
Anger explodes throughout my body. I clutch at his arms, using his grip on me to kick up my legs and tie them around his neck. Charlie springs up and wrestles the man’s hands out of my hair, snatching for his throat. He yanks him over the countertop, slams him on top of the other body, and slits his throat in one clean slash. Blood squirts out across my face and the kitchen cupboards. I grimace in reaction, blinking the warm fluids over my lashes.
The man panics to grab the wound, to stop the gushing of blood, rasping something I don’t understand. That’s when Charlie slaps a hand over his mouth and pinches his nose, helping him on his way to death. I watch the life drain from his brown eyes, dilating his pupils to the size of coins. I can’t even put it in words how satisfying his death feels.
Exhilarating.
I want to kill every last one of these motherfuckers for threatening my lover.
“You okay, baby?” Charlie whispers to me when the man goes limp, snagging a towel from the kitchen unit to wipe me down.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I lie, swallowing past the drought in my throat. “Charlie, with the car of assailants wasted”—I squint to shield my eyes as he rounds them with the towel—“and now these two dead, that means there should only be around three left, right?”
“Right,” Charlie agrees, flinging the towel aside. Then he goes about snagging the assault rifles from the dead. “Don’t shoot unless you absolutely must,” he says, hooking one strap over my head while hooking the other over his own.
I practically cuddle the gun in my lap, relieved that the odds are turning in our favor. Three men is nothing. Now that I’m armed, I can take them out on my own.
Charlie kicks the bodies away and rests next to me against the counter to listen out for more enemies, one arm moored out over me. I catch a heavy waft of coppery, spiced blood, and my stomach rolls again with a ball of acid gathering in the back of my throat. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me; why I continuously feel green.
My eyes stream up and down Charlie’s clothes, where dark claret paints his jeans and his boots, and my cheeks swell to heave.
It’s the blood. It’s making me queasy.
“We’re doing good,” Charlie says, and I look up at him. He forces a smile, more confident now. “I promise, we’re gonna be all right.”
I rest my head on his arm with a sigh and nod again, gulping down more heaves. I hope he’s right. I can’t bear to think about the alternative.
The house falls quiet for a while, creating a false sense of tranquility. I cannot hear any footsteps or voices. I briefly wonder what the Arabs could possibly be doing. This place is tiny. It wouldn’t take ten minutes to search through. Then the little girl in the corner hiding under the window ledge breaks a sob, shattering the peace. I forgot she was there. I look at her, at her teary green eyes. She’s so young, dressed in a pink pajama set with little blue bears, and her golden hair is separated in plaited ponytails. She must only be around twelve years old.
“Help me,” she weeps, trembling from head to toe. “Please...help me.”
“Shut up!” Charlie hisses, waving like a maniac. “Or I’ll put a fucking knife in you, too. Shut the fuck up.”
She cowers, nodding at him, and my heart twists with guilt. There’s something about innocent women—or in her case, innocent girls—that gets me right where it shouldn’t.
“Blaire,” Charlie taps my arm, “we can’t stay here while she’s crying. Someone might hear.”
I slide out from behind the kitchen island with him, and we steal up to the open door. He dashes across to man the other side, and we plaster ourselves against the walls. In that moment, I see the sleek end of a rifle sneaking through the doorway. Before I can attack, Charlie wraps his fingers around the barrel and forces it up, growling for strength.
P-taff! P-taff!
The ceiling crumbles, spitting down on us. I grip the doorframe for balance and boot the man in the stomach, knocking him back in to the dining room. Charlie pounces on him, tackling him to the ground. He squeezes the man’s throat and yanks him up to smash his head back down on the floor, over and over, whack! whack! whack! Then he rises to steady feet, draws back, and stomps on the man’s face. His skull cracks under Charlie’s powerful kick, blood and brains spewing out all over the place.
My stomach reels in every direction. I swear, if I see one more drop of blood, I’m going to projectile puke.
“They’re in the kitchen!” the Arab yells, and my attention tunnels.
“Blaire!” Charlie shouts, and I sprint up to stand at his side, aiming my rifle at the doorway as he aims his. “Shoot everyone,” he says, eyes locked on the main doorway. “Don’t stop until all your bullets are gone. Even if something happens to me, keep fucking shooting.”
I nod, more than ready for this. Nothing is going to happen to him. Nothing is going to happen to him.
Heavy feet trample through the house coming toward us, more than three people, and I realize the Arab was waiting for backup. That’s why it was quiet for so long.
Shit.
My heart pulses with adrenaline, grip on the gun tightening. The first man appears, and I click the trigger at the same time Charlie clicks his, sending the body flying back out of the doorway.
Another man.
BANG!
Another man.
BANG!
The more that come, the quicker I click until I’m holding down the trigger and the rifle screams with endless shells, back-hammering in my hands.
Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting!
It creates a smog of blood and smoke, bodies convulsing against our attack while wild orange flashes spark through the room.
Someone fires back, and I duck on reflex, raising my gun higher to blow through their heads.
Only when Charlie lowers his gun do I let off my trigger, coughing and choking on the smog. It clears enough to reveal a mountain of men in the battered doorway, some wheezing while others are lain dead to the world.
“Motherfucking suicidal putas.” Charlie spits on the ground, warbling a mantra of Spanish expletives.
The aftermath of silence amplifies my pumping adrenaline, the raucous beat of my heart, and my ears are ringing off the hook. I poke a finger in one and give it a good shake, gripping the rifle under my arm.
Charlie is smirking at me, shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths.
“What’s so funny?”
He flicks up his eyebrows, face covered in specks of claret. “We make a good team.”
I snort, insulted. “Says the man who mocked me for running into an outnumbered attack.”
“Hey, you ran into an attack of ten men, what did you expect me to say?”
“Maybe I should stop playing light with you in the ring, Charlie”—I wander over to one man who’s coughing and click my trigger to put another bullet in him—“maybe I should give you a real good beating, so you know what happens when people try to ambush me.”
Lightening the mood between us, Charlie playfully shoves my shoulder. I stumble off balance, shoving him back, laughing in an odd state of bliss. He is right. We do make a good team. I guess we always have.
“Shouldn’t your crew be here by now?” I ask, rubbing my stomach as I still feel a little queasy.
He drops his rifle to hang on his body and flicks out his wrist to check his watch. “Any minute now.”
“Okay. We should search this lot in the meantime,” I say, nodding at the pile of dead bodies. “Figure out who they are exactly, and why Robert is working with them. No one would usually team up with Arabs. They’re deceitful rats.”
“I have a theory.” Charlie looks at me like he’s expecting me to follow his train of thought, but before I can speak, a shallow voice cuts through.
“I am not working with Robert.”
We hitch into the wall, shoulder to shoulder, and Charlie grips my forearm to keep me near.
“I am only here because news of your war with my client has spread, a war over one of my girls, and I need to return her before people brand my business as inadequate.”
Charlie wrinkles his eyebrows, reeling with speculation, and my eyes enlarge. “The boy comes as a freebie.”
“It’s him!” I shrill, cracking open my rifle to check the magazine bullet count, but it’s empty. “He-he sold me at the auction!” And he’s the mudak who constantly injected me with heroin. That’s where I know his damn voice.
“Asad...” Charlie snatches the Desert Eagle handgun from the back of his jeans and aims it at the wall. “Don’t move, Asad. I can hear where you are.”
My heart is racing, screaming in my ears. I never even thought about what I’d do to that man if I ever got my hands on him. Now that he’s within my grasp, I want to rip his fucking face off.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” I scream through the wall. I try to dash past Charlie, but he grabs my waist, warning me to stay here. “How did you know it was Asad who stole me?” I grunt, wrenching myself out of his hold. “This is news to me, Charlie.”
“The auction room you described,” he whispers, eyes flittering between me and the wall where he’s aiming his gun, “it matched the one we blew up in Jordan a week ago. Intelligence confirmed it was Asad’s setup.”
My jaw drops, and I gape at him. I cannot believe this. Why didn’t he tell me?
“I, can confirm it was my setup,” Asad says, hearing us through the wall. “I will pardon what you did if you let me go. Forget today ever happened and just let me go.”
“El hijo de puta,” Charlie hisses, and he begins to rage, threatening to skin Asad’s wife before hanging her on his wall. “You have a daughter, too...Alya. Old enough to bleed and definitely old enough to be butchered. Your entire family will die because you fucked with mine.”
“I didn’t touch her!” Asad cries, collapsing with confessions. “It wasn’t my idea to kidnap her! The Albanian contacted me and hired me to hijack James-Markov’s plot—he was originally planning to kidnap the girl from you. It’s Robert’s and James-Markov’s mistake! They’re both traitorous; that’s why I double-crossed Robert and sold her off rather than handing her over for the agreed price of the job! I didn’t trust the deal Robert and I made!”
I’m gray with shock, rendered speechless by the fact that he double-crossed Robert on a deal.
Charlie’s face is colorless, too, but he manages to question our enemy, wanting to know how Robert knew of James’ plan to kidnap me.
“I don’t know,” Asad admits. “I didn’t care to know. I just wanted to make some serious money off the girl, but we didn’t touch her! I swear! We just subdued her because she’s dangerous, that’s all!”
A formidable tremor rips through Charlie’s body, anger on another level. I tap his arm, mouthing at him to keep his cool. I want to know where Robert is, and since Asad is crumbling at the seams, he might tell us.
“How did you know where we were today?” Charlie asks, heeding to my advice to stay calm. “Tell me, and I might spare your children. Might, if you get to the point.”
“I’ve been watching your house for weeks,” he says, informing us that Robert gave up Charlie’s location. “I saw you both leave today on a motorcycle, so I followed you with my detail.”
“You’re a dumb motherfucker,” Charlie growls, grip on the gun trembling. “I know where you live...I know where your children go to school...”
Asad rambles, weakening further in his position, petrified that the Los Zetas are coming for him. He begs for a truce in exchange for information on Tatiana’s latest schemes, beseeching Charlie to leave his family alone—specifically his daughters. “As a ruthless business man yourself, you must understand the allure of money? Blaire is one of the most valuable girls we’ve ever come across”—his voice gives Charlie a clear location to where he is in the living room, and he shifts the barrel end of his gun on the wall—“I’m sorry for taking her, okay? I knew kidnapping her and selling her was a bad move. I admit that now. Okay? I’m sorry.”
“Relieved to know you’re sorry. It takes away the hell Blaire endured, doesn’t it, Asad?”
“What else can I say, Decena? You tell me, and I’ll say it—Ro-Robert went missing today!”
My face flashes with surprise. I squint to listen vigilantly, wondering if it’s true, wondering where James is if it’s true.
“People think you have him,” Asad says. “Word is spreading...people are angry! If you spare me, I’ll be on your side—I-I’ll make up for what I did to Blaire!”
“Not good enough,” Charlie spits, his voice coming out cold and detached. “You cannot say or do anything to help your plight, Asad. You harmed my family, so now, you die.” He clicks back the hammer on his gun and blows the plaster through the wall, shooting Asad’s brains out. A heavy wallop hits the living room floor as the sound of hiatus comes over the house in a loud whup! whup! whup! It’s helicopter blades, cutting through the air.
A horrible feeling of dread comes over me, as I assume it’s more of Asad’s men. But before I can process a thought, Charlie cuffs a hand around mine and drags me to run through the house, staggering to climb the mountain of bodies in the doorway.
The second we’re outside, the sea air hits me and my insides turn. I try to stay alert for danger, taking in the uncanny sight of the beachfront. The sun is blinding, so bright it stings my eyes. I squint, seeing police cars flashing blue, the electric color bouncing off every surface. Four choppers are sitting on the grassy bank across the road, dominating the sea view. There are bloody bodies painted on the sidewalks, a big SUV smoking in the middle of the road, and combat-suited men everywhere, yelling things I don’t register. They’re Los Zetas, clad in Charlie’s signature combat attire with the red Zs printed on their chests. I watch their mouths moving, deafened by the helicopter and numbed by the queasy need to puke.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks, patting me down. His raspy words come out in slow motion, and though I watch his lips to see what he’s saying, I can’t figure it out. “Blaire, baby, are you hurt anywhere? What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, feeling unnaturally off-color, and I double over to vomit on the sidewalk.